Canadian hockey player Chad Hinz was arrested at a Stockholm airport Friday on charges of drunk driving.
Hinz, one of the star players for Swedish club Skelleftea this past season, failed a breath test in northern Sweden on March 26.
Police at Arlanda airport arrested Hinz before he could board a flight, police spokesman Kjell Pettersson said.
The warrant was issued to keep Hinz, who was not legally barred from leaving the country, in Sweden during the investigation.
If convicted, he could face up to two years in jail.
Skelleftea is located about 750km north of Stockholm. The club declined to comment on the arrest, but was scheduled to hold a press conference later Friday about Hinz's future with the club.
Skelleftea played in Sweden's second-highest league this season and is third of six teams vying for two spots in next season's Elite League.
Hinz, a seventh-round draft pick for the Edmonton Oilers in 1997, has played nine seasons in the American Hockey League and Western Hockey League, mainly with the Moose Jaw Warriors and Hamilton Bulldogs. He spent last season with the AHL's Toronto Roadrunners.
NHL blues continue
After months of heated discussions with the players' association, NHL general managers ended two days of meetings bickering among themselves.
The six-hour, closed-door session between the GMs on Friday dealt with how to handle a draft that follows a season that never was, and who deserves a shot at Canadian top pick Sidney Crosby.
"The temperature got high very quickly," New York Islanders GM Mike Milbury said, describing the brief but "heated debate" that he believes will be settled by commissioner Gary Bettman and the league's board of governors, which meets on April 20.
One of the proposals under consideration involves having all 30 teams enter a lottery for the first pick, an idea none too popular among teams that finished the 2003-2004 season at the bottom of the standings.
"It certainly has the tendency to be a difficult issue," NHL executive vice president Bill Daly said following the meeting at an airport hotel near Detroit.
Usually, the draft order is set based on the previous season's standings, but that is not possible this year.
Washington won last year's draft lottery, after finishing with the league's second-worst record, and grabbed Russian sensation Alexander Ovechkin with the No. 1 pick.



