(Photo: Robert Kowal/flickr)

Either Mark Streit had a really convincing spiel for John Tavares to sign with his team, or Johnny just wanted to follow in the captain’s footsteps.

Whatever the case, the young center has joined the ranks of SC Bern in Switzerland, about a week after Streit made the jump back overseas. The signing was announced on Bern’s website and on eliteprospects.com yesterday.

There had been talk of Tavares considering going to Europe should a lockout occur, but I’m not sure we were expecting the Swiss NLA, of all places. At any rate, this makes Bern exciting to watch now (for Isles fans, anyway).

SC Bern beat HC Lugano soundly last night by a score of 5-0 on goals by Streit and Roman Josi, among others. They have improved to 3-3 overall and are playing HC Fribourg-Gotteron on Oct. 2 next, by which time I would imagine Tavares will be suited up. In the meantime, I will be trying my absolute hardest to find out where I can at least find highlights!

Until next time.