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[hockeygod]

Sweden's hockey hotbed

JANNE BENGTSSON
Ornskoldsvik, Sweden— Special to Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, May. 31, 2011

A Swedish TV show once tried to resolve how the small town of Ornskoldsvik produced so many NHL players, and wound up suggesting that it had to be something in the water.

The hometown of the Sedin twins, Ornskoldsvik, or O-vik as it is usually shortened to, has a population of only about 30,000, is situated at Hoga Kusten (the High Coast) some 600 kilometres north of Stockholm, and is on the UNESCO world heritage list. Water is important to the city, but it is not the reason for its success in hockey.

Over 20 NHL players have come from the city over the years, including Thomas Gradin and Anders Hedberg, Peter Forsberg and Markus Naslund, and today's Henrik and Daniel Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks.

O-vik has been a hockey hotbed since the generation of 1973. A bunch of first-class talent headed by Forsberg and Naslund – who are now assistant general manager and GM of Modo, respectively – pushed each other at every organized and unorganized practice. It was all about wanting to be the best then, and now.

The city's sports culture revolves around Modo, O-vik's elite league team. In popularity, the Vancouver Canucks are the only hockey team that comes close.

It's all about tradition: Thomas Gradin left Modo and O-vik to play for the Canucks. So did Lars Lindgren, and local hero Lars Molin. Naslund followed. As did the Sedin twins.

“It's little known but still a fact that [Vancouver defenceman] Alexander Edler also went through the Hockey Gymnasium [high school] here,” says Par Hagglund, sports editor at the local newspaper.

Anders Melinder, principal at the Hockey Gymnasium in Ornskoldsvik, sees no rational explanation to the 1973 class beyond luck. All the good players were at the same place at the same time.

“It will be long before we see a generation of players like that again, if ever,” said Melinder, who also coached the young Sedin twins.

O-vik is a hockey town. The talk of the town is hockey.

“Hockey is the only sport played in O-vik. It's a traditional thing. When you grow up you basically chose between hockey or no sport at all,” Hagglund says.

So O-vik is for Vancouver. And about hockey. Soccer, by far the most popular sport in Sweden, is a no-no in O-vik. The best team, Anundsjo IF, plays in the fourth division, and the most famous team from the region, Friska Viljor, is even worse: the fifth division.

Even the Sedin twins' mother, a soccer fan, resigned herself to the sport years ago.

“I prefer soccer – it's a more pleasant sport,” Tora Sedin says. “Daniel and Henrik also qualified for the soccer [high school] in Norrkoping [some 800 km south of O-vik] but it was an easy choice for them … hockey in O-vik.”

Hockey is also about politics and big business in the city. O-vik is and always has been socialist-leaning, with the Social Democrats and the Left Party traditionally securing their majority in the city council. In Sweden, where the left has always been more supportive of the local sports, the majority in O-vik has been a firm ground for local sports leaders – the city is always there to help the team if things go wrong. After all, the Modo Hockey Club is considered the foremost face of the city of O-vik.

And on the other side, the local big employer, the Mo & Domsjo paper mill, not only gave the name to the hockey team, but also from the very start jobs to the players and an opportunity to practise during working hours – like when Modo won its first Swedish championship in 1979.

“The city has always been proud of Modo,” Hagglund says. “It has always used the team as a marketing tool, so it really was an issue at the highest political level when the team struggled last season.”

That struggle ended in April with Modo playing the Qualifications series, with the last two teams from the Elitserien, and the four best from the Allsvenskan (the All-Swedish). Due to an inspired effort from, among others, former New York Ranger Niklas Sundstrom and ex-Pittsburgh Penguin Mattias Timander, Modo managed to end up in second place to secure another year in the Elitserien.

Naslund, who together with Forsberg played for free in Modo to help the team to avoid the Qualification series in 2009, acted as the general manager of the team in the last and critical weeks of the last season.

“If Modo would have lost its spot in the Elitserien … there's only one word for it: catastrophe,” Naslund says. “Hockey is so important for the city, the city itself evolves around hockey.”

Just a couple of weeks after the season, it was officially announced that Naslund would take over as the general manager. Naslund started by persuading Forsberg to become an assistant GM. And the duo then went on to hire Ulf Samuelsson as head coach of the team.

Modo is in for a new start.

And it has nothing to do with the water.

Janne Bengtsson is the hockey reporter for Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet in Stockholm. Special to The Globe and Mail

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