Krzysztof Oliwa of the Penguins comes from an area in Poland that sends two players per square mile to the NHL. The catch is, it's the only one.
It seems that Oliwa and Mariusz Czerkawski of the New York Islanders, the league's only native Poles, were boyhood chums. Practially neighbors, as Oliwa recalls, even though his hometown is listed as Tychy, while Czerkawski hails from Radomsko.
"We grew up a few streets from each other,"Oliwa said. "Actually, it was one street, but like a mile down the road."
The odds against anyone from Poland making it to the NHL are steep; for a guy to do it when he didn't take up the game until he was nearly 10 years old verges on the unbelievable.
The simple truth is that Oliwa began playing hockey at that age almost on a whim, because a buddy convinced him it could be fun.
"My friend told me he signed up and asked me if I'd like to go there," Oliwa said. "I played soccer, like all kids in Europe. I figured you could do soccer in the summertime and play hockey in the wintertime, so that's how I started."
By the time he was 18, Oliwa was on a national junior team that competed at a tournament in Switzerland. There, he met a man who altered the course of his life.
During the tournament, Oliwa approached Mike McNamara, who coached a Swiss team, and asked about getting a tryout with that club. McNamara advised him instead to go to Canada to play junior hockey, telling Oliwa that "you have the potential for the National Hockey League."
Oliwa returned to Poland and shortly thereafter secured an offer to play for Welland in the Ontario Junior B Hockey League. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and one Oliwa wasn't about to squander.
"I bought a [plane] ticket," he said. "And took a chance."
His gamble paid off when New Jersey claimed him in the fourth round of the 1993 entry draft, a few months after he piled up 12 goals, 21 assists and 127 penalty minutes in 30 games with Welland.
Oliwa, though, played just one regular-season game with the Devils during his first four years as a pro, as he caromed between a series of minor-league outposts.
It was during those winters that he evolved from a tough winger into one of hockey's most feared enforcers.
"I guess that when I came into the American Hockey League it was more like a survival thing," he said. "I was the only Polish hockey player in the American Hockey League and the East Coast Hockey League. I wanted to prove it to myself, prove it to everybody else, that I could get it done.
"I always liked to play hard, finish my checks, but the [fighting] part of my game came as I [went along]. ... It was a tough road, but, if you work hard at it every day, do something extra, it pays off."
Oliwa's efforts were rewarded with recognition as one of the NHL's premier heavyweights; he has a punch that could derail a locomotive, and is on virtually everyone's short list of hockey's finest fighters.
That made him particularly attractive to the Penguins when General Manager Craig Patrick began his search for a guy who could intervene when opposing players try to menace the likes of Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr.
"We were looking for someone who was going to be a deterrent for people who take liberties with our team," Patrick said. "We were looking for a couple of months, actually.
"None of the names that came up really fit what we were trying to achieve. I wanted somebody who was a real presence. His name came up just two or three days before we made the deal. I think he's perfect for what we were looking for."
That's true, at least in part, because Oliwa, who is 6 feet 5, 235 pounds, can do more with his hands than simply make them into a fist. He isn't going to outscore, say, Jagr or Alexei Kovalev, but his game isn't one-dimensional, either.
So while there's no mistaking the message delivered by his career stats -- 13 goals, 22 assists and 758 penalty minutes in 217 games -- Oliwa can contribute more than an occasional knockout.
"He's improving," Patrick said. "He's capable of putting up points, getting some goals and assists. I was impressed with the way he can get the puck out of the zone. He's good along the defensive boards."
Good enough that Patrick was willing to trade for him nearly two weeks ago, even though Oliwa hasn't played since Oct. 28 because of a broken right arm. Good enough that, barring a setback, Oliwa will move right into the lineup after next weekend's all-star break.
Oliwa, who practiced with the Penguins for the first time yesterday, has a long, nasty scar on his right bicep, a memento of the gruesome fracture he received when Mathieu Dandenault of Detroit hooked him down three months ago, sending Oliwa crashing into the boards.
Doctors had to slice Oliwa's arm open and insert a titanium plate to keep the pieces in place, but Oliwa said the gory nature of his injury won't have any effect on how he plays.
"You have a titanium plate in there, and it makes it even stronger," he said, smiling. "That's the way I look at it. It will be even better, because it's stronger."
The same figures to be true of his new team once Oliwa begins to play for it. Certainly, no one associated with the Penguins questions his toughness, perhaps because Oliwa entered this season with 62 career penalty minutes against them, more than any other club.
"That's funny," he said. "Don't ask me why. We played six games a year [when Oliwa was in New Jersey]. You pick up five here, 10 there, it kind of adds up, you know?"
Oliwa has had run-ins with Penguins like Bob Boughner and Matthew Barnaby and said there are no grudges now that they're teammates.
But leaving Columbus, where he had a major, long-standing personality conflict with Blue Jackets captain Lyle Odelein, for a chance to share a sweater with talents like Lemieux and Jagr is what really appeals to him.
"It's a good thing it happened, and I'm very happy to be here," Oliwa said. "Very excited to be here playing with the two best, probably, hockey players ever to play the game. It's great."
Which, coincidentally enough, is precisely how those two seem to feel about having Oliwa for a teammate.
Penguins' Oliwa packs a punch 
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