I can actually
feel it in my body. The excitement. At those times always being just a little
bit cold. The pushing crowds at the standing stands. The taste of the hot dog.
The smell from the ice and the sound of the aggressive skates working it. The
sticks fighting for the puck, cracking from the collisions. The whistles. The
electric organ. The crowds wooing and booing.
This was in the
Seventies, but just the other day the intensity at the Umeå Arena was quite the
same. Björklöven, the Umeå hockey team won their series and the loyal
supporters were finally paid off after years of losses and doubts that this
team would ever make it to the top again.
Now, to be clear,
this is the situation: Björklöven (The Birch Leaves – the name is related to
the fact that Umeå is known as The City of Birches, just as Seattle is The
Emerald City) is not playing the major league Elitserien. Not even the league
beneath (would that be the minor?) Allsvenskan, but the one even one more step
down, Division 1. And what happened this week was that Björklöven won Division
1 and will next year be playing Allsvenskan. This is great of course, but
still: it’s a long way back to Elitserien (the major league) where old people
like me feel they should be. Because we remember. We know what it feels
like. When it’s for real. Being at the top.
Very few people in
Seattle remember when Seattle was The American Hockey City. For the simple
reason that it’s nearly a century ago. But in 1917 Seattle actually became
the first American city to win the holy grail of hockey — the Stanley Cup! In
nine mostly memorable years, the Seattle Metropolitans established a rich
hockey tradition in Seattle, which unfortunately eventually died away. Today,
when a new basketball arena is on the agenda major league hockey is also
considering establishing in Seattle, so maybe we are looking at a 100-year
anniversary in 2017!
The
Eighties was the golden years for Björklöven with three Swedish Championship
Finals and one gold medal, 1987. My golden years with Björklöven though, were
in the Seventies. I was in high school, and I had so much fun ruining my grades
on hockey and movies. Well, not entirely fun, I was wandering those years with
the constant nagging feeling of being a bad student (which I was), but I just
couldn’t keep away from the hockey arena and movie theatres. I know, there are
worse things to ruin your grades on than hockey...
And
it didn’t help dating a hockey player… Gunnar was my high school sweet heart,
and a defender in the Björklöven junior team. He was a tall blond Viking and I
didn’t mind at all the tight crowds being on the stands together watching the
senior team scoring Brynäs, Modo or one of the other teams in the Swedish major
league. And the fact that it was quite cold in the arena about 40 years ago
wasn’t all that bad when you wanted to be close to someone.
The
golden moment in my hockey career was the Björklöven family camp a mid
Seventies summer. Hockey players spend a lot of time away from their families,
and that’s the reason for this family camp that took place in Hemavan in the
Swedish mountains not far from the Norwegian border. And even girlfriends were
allowed!
I remember feeling a bit foreign in this
environment although more excited I must admit. I had seen these players on ice
so many times, their names were as well-known in Umeå as Mariners players are
in Seattle: Lars Dallas Dahlgren, Ulf Lundström, Åke Byström, John Andersson
(Sletvoll), Ulf Barrefjord.... And then the juniors who were just starting
being allowed on ice with the senior team, on the verge of the real thing:
Torbjörn Andersson, Roger Johansson, Stig Nilsson and boyfriend Gunnar. If I
remember it right, this trip was the first appearance for Tore Öqvist in
Björklöven. I can be wrong though; it’s been a while…
My
longest lasting memory from this trip though was a very physical one; an ugly sore, a
shafe on my left heal caused by a brisk walk down the mountain led by Ulf
Lundström. I was the only girl and as always aiming for being one of the guys,
I didn’t say a word about the red warm stuff spreading in my shoe. And this
wasn’t just being one of the guys: this was being one of the Swedish elite
hockey players! Gosh Maria!
Oh
yes, there is one more memory, and this is an up hill one. Of course an
ambitious hockey player takes every opportunity for a real work out. So, on one
of the fieldtrips during that family camp the guys carried not only their back
pack, their girlfriends back pack, but their girlfriend… running up the hill…
Well,
I walked the hill myself, of course. But perhaps this is the remedy for Björklöven
2013 to sail through Allsvenskan next season all the way to the major league
Elitserien: grab as many back packs you can find, then put your family on top
of that and run up a really high mountain! It might just be what’s been lacking
for the last 20 years for making it to the top!
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