from Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News,

The Stars have six players on the roster (and several more in the minors) for whom English is a second language. They are at varying stages of development — as players and as linguists. Valeri Nichushkin is trying to grasp English and struggles to speak it. Kari Lehtonen now uses English as his primary language, and has changed how his brain works.

“When I first came into the league, I would have to translate in my head and change everything back to Finnish,” said the 30-year-old goalie from Helsinki, Finland. “Now, I think in English most of the time when I’m around people speaking English.”

Such processing is complicated for players, who have to soak up instruction in practice, communicate on the bench during games and then ultimately deal with teammates while play is racing around them on the ice. It’s something that can make or break a team.

“It’s on the coaches to make sure they understand, and so we try a lot of different things,” Ruff said. “You use video or translators or teammates to get the message across.”

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