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World Junior Hockey 2012: Sweden’s Patrik Nemeth loves to annoy his opponents

Chris O'Leary, edmontonjournal.com, January 4, 2012

CALGARY – If he hasn’t already, Patrik Nemeth is going to get on your nerves.

The Swedish defenceman loves to get a mental edge on his opponents. Most of the time he uses his six-foot-five, 216-pound frame to do that, laying out bodies on the ice and stifling snipers.

The Dallas Stars prospect (41st overall in 2010) has usually irritated his opponents well before the puck has dropped, though, with a pre-game ritual that’s guaranteed to rub people the wrong way. Before the national anthem has started to wind down, Nemeth breaks from the pack and circles his net a couple of times. He did it at Rexall Place in Edmonton when the Swedes played Canada in an exhibition game on Dec. 23 and drew the ire of his opponents. Nemeth got the last laugh though, as Sweden came away with a 5-3 win. Skating into Thursday night’s gold-medal game, winning is something the Swedes have done a lot of since Boxing Day.

“We played an exhibition game last year in Toronto and I did the same thing,” the Stockholm native said, chuckling. “It’s been a habit.

“I do the same thing back home in Sweden, but I know the national anthem isn’t really as big a thing there as it is here.”

Nemeth’s habits are known to Swedish head coach Roger Ronnberg, who has pleaded with his defenceman to just stand still for a few more seconds during the anthems — particularly when it’s on Canadian ice.

“He doesn’t do things like that with a purpose,” the coach said. “He’s just a kid focused on playing a game. We’ve told him several times that (when) the national anthem plays, put your helmet in your hand and stand still, but … he’s into the game and he’s so focused. It’s hard to control him sometimes.

“We try to take it away. It’s not respectful, but it’s hard to control the kids sometimes.”

Nemeth said that he thinks the routine does give him an edge, which is what he’s after.

“I think hockey is a mental sport and you get that (mental) game working and you’re ahead of your opponents,” he said.

For any pre-game stress that Nemeth causes his coach, he balances it out — and then some — when it’s time to get down to business.

“He’s a really steady defenceman,” Ronnberg said. “He’s had a role to shut down the other team’s best lines and he’s been leading also on the penalty kill.

“He’s also a guy who is a defenceman that is strong on the puck. I love his puck possession and he’s found a way to be effective here that I really love about him.”

On Wednesday, Nemeth took to a different game. He entertained the request of Swedish journalists, who wanted pictures of him smashing Russian matryoshka nesting dolls. The sound of porcelain smashing on the floor at Canada Olympic Park drew a crowd of media onlookers. When told about what Nemeth was up to, Ronnberg was almost in disbelief.

“He did what? It’s nothing I told him to do, for sure. Some one of you guys (media) fooled him to do it,” he said, fighting back a bit of a smile.

“It’s not good. I think we should be humble here and just focus on ourselves and have big respect for the Russians because they have a really good hockey team here.”

Nemeth downplayed the photo-op.

“It was a newspaper wanted me to do that, so I had to,” he said, laughing. “I don’t think (the Russians) saw it. I don’t think that’s a big deal.”

Nemeth’s teammate, Oscar Klefbom called his fellow defenceman a free spirit.

“I don’t think about it too much,” he said of what Nemeth does during the anthem. “It’s just his thing to try to irritate the other teams. We’ll see if it works against the Russian team.”