My first Vancouver Canucks game was also theirs, featuring 17 players from places like Goderich, Winnipegosis, Cudworth, Earlton and Noranda.
None from Sweden.
One (Paul Popiel) was from Denmark by then a U.S. citizen and the only non-Canadian in the line-up. Six weeks later, the Canucks dressed a Lebanese forward from Beirut…Ed Hatoum, known as Sock (sock-it-to-‘em was a corny, well-worn expression in 1970). The nickname was almost as bad as the team.
And still no Swedes.
In fact, it wasn’t until the Canucks’ ninth National Hockey League season that they had a Swedish player, and they had two: Thomas Gradin and Roland Eriksson, in the 1978-79 season opener. If the Canucks haven’t been the most prolific importer of Swedish hockey players since then, it sure feels like they have.
This is relevant today because it’s certain that hockey fans across the country will be watching as the Canucks play hockey instead of golf in late April. Or maybe in May…or June. So if you don’t already know it, this team thrives on Swedish players, like the ones Don Cherry used to say “could go into the corner with a dozen eggs…and not break one of them.”
Most nights, the Canucks have four in the starting line-up — that’s 20 per cent. On their all-time roster, there are 37, almost all part of a mutual love affair between the Swedes and the Vancouver fans. Besides Stockholm, the Canucks have recruited stars from places called Solleftea and Pieta, Ornskoldsvik and Gavel. They’ve had players with the same surnames (Lindgren), they’ve had twins (Sedin) who played 18 years without anybody knowing who was Henrik and who was Daniel, and sometime soon they expect to have two with the same name (Elias Pettersson) who have never even met.
The Canucks have their own all-time Swedish All-Star team — goalie Jacob Markstrom, defencemen Mattias Ohlund and Alex Edler, forwards Markus Naslund with Daniel and Henrik (or Henrik and Daniel). And the best may be the first Elias Pettersson, now the wealthiest in his sixth NHL season, and as gifted as the Sedins.
But wait, there’s more coming. The top three prospects, all sought by other teams at the trade deadline, are all Swedes: Tom Vilander, Johnathan Letterimaki and Pettersson 2.0. Seven Swedish starters is likely within the Canucks’ next season or two.
All three were drafted by Patrik Alvin, the NHL’s first Swedish general manager.
Vancouver fans — realistically, all fans — can verify how wrong Cherry was about what many called “chicken Swedes.” The Sedin twins, often derisively insulted as “the sisters,” were six-foot-two and tough…very tough. Gradin, like Anders Hedberg in Winnipeg and Borje Salming in Toronto, was tough. What none of them ever did was retaliate. They suffered insults and indignities in silence, because that was the Swedish game.
The game they brought to the NHL started 60 years ago (Ulf Sterner, New York, for 4 games). They upgraded Canada’s game with an infusion of skill, and now they’re comfortable playing the Canadian way. Tough? Watch the Canucks’ Nils Hoglander, who’s 5-9, outmuscle bigger and allegedly stronger players off the puck along the boards.
You can watch him in April…or May…or June.
