Golden Times for Swedish Hockey

Originally published in the 2007 NHL Yearbook

By Lucas Aykroyd

A Swedish proverb says: “Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.” Those words ring true for longtime Swedish hockey fans, because they had to console one another frequently before celebrating the “double joy” of 2006, when their national team became the first in history to capture Olympic and IIHF World Championship gold in the same year.

The February victory in Turin, Italy ended an eight-year championship drought. For NHL observers, it was almost unthinkable that Scandinavia’s largest nation hadn’t won a single international title since the 1998 Worlds. Sweden, after all, boasted about as many NHL superstars as ABBA had hit singles, but many veterans in their 30’s had been singing the blues far too long.

“We finally won something big with this team, and we showed that we can win together,” said Peter Forsberg after the Olympic gold medal game. “It might have been our last chance. It’s hard to describe.”

A two-time Stanley Cup champion and winner of the Hart and Art Ross Trophies, Forsberg was widely viewed as the world’s best all-around forward when healthy. Detroit defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom remained a perennial Norris Trophy candidate with his superb skating and puck-moving skills. From Markus Naslund to Mats Sundin to Daniel Alfredsson, the list of elite NHLers went on and on. Even Tommy Salo was, at one time, regarded as one of the better NHL goalies.

But a 2002 incident involving Salo took the shine off the Three Crowns for a while. Confronting Belarus in the Olympic quarter-finals in Salt Lake City, the Swedes were expected to win easily. Instead, they found themselves tied 3-3 with the former Soviet republic late in the third period. Then Belorussian defenseman Vladimir Kopat launched a shot from center ice that bounced off Salo’s head and trickled into the net with 2:24 left. The goal gave Belarus a huge upset win, second only to the USA’s 1980 “Miracle on Ice” ouster of the USSR among Olympic hockey shockers.

Swedish fans and media couldn’t believe it. One newspaper even printed pictures of the Olympic team members with their NHL salaries and called them traitors. It was the darkest moment in the country’s hockey history.

Another Swedish proverb says, “An accident rarely comes alone,” and there were further setbacks that stung too: settling for bronze at the World Championship on home ice a few months later, losing to Canada in the finals of the 2003 and 2004 World Championships, and falling 6-1 to the Czechs in the 2004 World Cup quarter-finals. But nothing was as bad as Salt Lake.

So success at the 2006 Olympics was vital for Sweden. In Turin, Tre Kronor handled lesser opponents with ease early on, but struggled versus contenders like Russia (a 5-0 defeat) and the USA (a narrow 2-1 win).

Coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson sparked controversy by suggesting Sweden might want to lose its last Preliminary Round game to Slovakia to get a favorable quarter-final matchup with Switzerland. That actually transpired, but the debate dissipated as Sweden powered past the Swiss and Czechs in its first two elimination games before facing archrival Finland for the gold medal.

There, Lidstrom scored the 3-2 winner early in the third period on a perfect slapshot set up by Sundin and Forsberg. It was appropriate the goal came from the most legendary members of the “Golden Generation” (elite Swedish players born in the early 1970’s).

“I’d rank this right up there with winning Stanley Cups,” said Lidstrom. “It could be the biggest goal I ever scored.”

Did the Turin triumph finally enable Swedes to put the horror of 2002 behind them? “They will never forget Salt Lake City,” said Szymon Szemberg, a former Gothenburg journalist who now serves as the IIHF Media Relations Manager. “It’s part of the Swedish sports lore, just like the Olympic soccer loss to Japan in 1936. But the gold in Turin has made it easier to live with. It was definitely revenge and redemption.”

Unlike Sweden’s first Olympic gold in 1994, this was a clear-cut best-on-best victory with all NHL players available to participate. It also provided validation for the coaching style of Gustafsson, who preached a traditional Swedish defense-first system, in contrast to his predecessor, Hardy Nilsson, whose exciting “Torpedo” style never delivered results in the big games.

One constant element was the emphasis on teamwork and puck possession, and that would help Sweden gain its second title of 2006 at the IIHF World Championship in Riga, Latvia.

Sweden’s depth was tested at that May tournament. Only one big NHL star who had won gold in Turin accepted an invitation to suit up: Detroit center Henrik Zetterberg. Still, fellow Wings like Mikael Samuelsson, Johan Franzen, and Niklas Kronwall also made valuable contributions, and Michael Nylander of the New York Rangers added his playmaking skills. Otherwise, the roster mainly featured players from the Swedish Elite League, except for captain Kenny Jonsson, who spent 2005-06 in the second division with his hometown club of Rogle BK.

Solid wins over Ukraine and Italy marked a promising start, but a 4-4 tie with Switzerland raised some eyebrows as Tre Kronor blew a two-goal lead. In the Qualifying Round, it was hard to tell where Sweden was headed after blanking Belarus, losing to Slovakia, and tying the Russians. Yet much like in Turin, the Swedes saved their best hockey for the decisive games with a 6-0 quarter-final blowout of the Americans, a chippy 5-4 semi-final win over a Canadian squad including Sidney Crosby and Brendan Shanahan, and a dominating 4-0 gold medal performance versus the Czechs.

“Some of the reporters back home even said we weren’t going to make it into the quarter-finals,” said Kenny Jonsson. “I think that just made us stronger as a group. And the longer the tournament went on, the stronger we became.”

“This is the first time any country has won two gold medals in one year,” said Gustafsson. “This is the best team in the world and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

The Swedish public was ecstatic. “If I were Gustafsson, I would resign right now and never coach a team again,” wrote Aftonbladet columnist Lasse Anrell. “It will never get bigger than this.” Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson gushed: “Oh, how I enjoyed my time in front of the TV! The Czechs looked like they had given up and like they had no winners. But there were plenty of winners on Team Sweden.”

In total, eight players appeared on both the Turin and Riga rosters and got to savor the taste of double gold: Zetterberg, Kronwall, Samuelsson, Kenny Jonsson, Jorgen Jonsson (Farjestads BK Karlstad), Ronnie Sundin (Frolunda Gothenburg), and Mika Hannula and Stefan Liv (HV71 Jonkoping).

Kronwall was named Best Defenseman and tournament MVP, and humorously, his hot streak continued after the World Championship: the 25-year-old Stockholm native won some scratch-and-win tickets while playing in a golf tournament, and wound up one million kronor ($140,000 US) richer.

Tre Kronor’s two big triumphs placed it firmly atop the IIHF World Rankings with 4095 points, 110 ahead of the Czechs and 205 ahead of Canada. In order for the Swedes to relinquish their top spot, they would probably have to lose in the quarter-finals of the 2007 World Championship in Russia and the Czechs would have to win gold or silver.

Has 2006 assuaged recent fears that Sweden’s junior program was failing to develop enough young talent at the expensive of programmatic defensive systems? “Criticism has died down and no one in Sweden points to talent development as a problem anymore,” said Swedish hockey writer Peter Westermark. “Now, there’s more chest-thumping about how strong our Elite League is. Its reputation has risen remarkably in the last year.”

This is the polar opposite of the days when Sweden failed to win a game against the Soviets at the World Championships between May 8, 1977 and April 22, 1990. And NHL fans will soon get familiar with more Swedish talents, as top World Championship goalie Johan Holmqvist recently signed with Tampa Bay and center Jonas Nordquist inked a deal with Chicago, to name two examples. Eighteen-year-old forward Nicklas Backstrom could be the next Henrik Zetterberg.

Yes, these are golden times for Swedish hockey. As that old ABBA proverb puts it: “The Winner Takes It All.”