[Kipperking]

Originally Posted by devo22

the official spelling is Bärtschi, and that's what Sven had in Portland and for the national team. Here in Europe, we have special letters ä, ö and ü ... ä sounds quite similar to "ea" in English (like in "bear"). The NHL does not have the option of having ä, ö and ü on the jerseys, so players with one of these letters in their names basically have two options:

a) go for "ae" instead of ä, "oe" instead of ö and "ue" instead of ü, these variations are equally acceptable.

b) just drop the points. Austrian NHLers Pöck and Nödl have done so and now have Pock and Nodl on the back.

Sven chose the first option, which to me makes a lot more sense because the pronunciation is still the same. Although I will say that f.e. for Olli Määttä it's probably better to just drop the points, otherwise it would be Maeaettae

I hope that clarifies that a bit

Tobias Enstrom for the Jets has just an o, not oe.