Here's a fun little story relating to the worldwide popularity of the Red Wings. For the past few months, Detroit's on-line hockey community has been raising funds to bring a Brazil-based Red Wings blogger - Guilherme "Herm" Calciolari - to Detroit to see the Red Wings play. More than 100 fans sent in donations, enough to cover the cost of Calciolari's trip to Detroit to see a game against the Minnesota Wild towards the end of March. With Calciolari's expenses covered, the "Herm to Hockeytown" initiative has evolved into a charity event to raise money for Children's Hospital of Michigan's Child Life Program Fund. Donations will be accepted at http://www.herm2hockeytown.com up through Mar. 26.

Here is a wonderful story -- a Detroit Red Wings fan from Brazil is going to see a Wings game live, and meet many of the Wings fans he has only chatted with via the web.  Read all about it (translated).

A Festivus Miracle?

Here's a great story, via the Abel to Yzerman blog (part of the Kukla's Korner hockey blogosphere).

Meet Guilherme from Brazil. He blogs about the Red Wings, is a frequent member of live blog game chats on A2Y and, interestingly enough, has never been to a Red Wings game or met another Red Wings fan (or even been to America).

"Following the team then was only possible through the internet. For some years I only checked sites like nhl.com, espn.com or Yahoo!, but recently started to read blogs, both team specific and NHL in general. Watching the games is hard, we have to rely on illegal streaming and bumpy broadband, so a lot of times I'm left to online radios."

The Chief and good people over at A2Y are trying to raise some money to bring the Wings' most isolated, long-distance fan to his first ever hockey game and have gotten a great response. They've already raised around $2,000

A great story and example about how widely the game has spread across the globe. Check out the cool logo that appears in this A2Y post, piggybacking off the Wings' marketing slogan "Hockeytown: No Limits."