Meet Sweden’s #1 Skills Coach

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Last week, in the Maple Leafs game against the Oilers, William Nylander carried the puck into the offensive zone. At the hash marks, he made a quick turn to shake Ryan Nugent-Hopkins off his back, and passed the puck to Jake Muzzin who fired a shot from the point. Nylander followed the play and tied the game with a slap shot from the slot.

It’s a move Nylander does often. He makes a quick turn to win time for himself.

“Turns and winning time” was also the topic of Joachim Ahlgren Bloom’s recent presentation at Global Skills Showcase, organized by the NHL Coaches Association’s partner Coaches’ Site. They went looking for the best skill development coaches in the game and of the original 250 nominees, twenty were invited to make a presentation.

Ahlgren Bloom, 47, was the only skills development coach from Sweden to get the invitation.

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Life on Planet Lankinen

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Before the season, few people gave the Chicago Blackhawks any chance of making the playoffs. No, no, this was a team in a rebuild mode, especially when Jonathan Toewshad to step away due to illness.

And yet, the Hawks are currently fourth in the Central division, a couple of games over .500, and they’ve done it thanks to heroic performances by Patrick Kane and their Finnish rookie goaltender Kevin Lankinen.

Lankinen, 25, may be a rookie, but his hockey journey is almost the perfect example of how to build a successful career, step by step.

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Movie magic

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In the latest issue of Empire*, English director-writer-producer Edgar Wright invites his famous friends to tell about their magic movie moments, things they remember about having watched movies with others in a theatre. 

Because, as we all know, that’s where the real magic happens. 

In the magazine, there’s Steven Spielberg talking about the desert crossing in Lawrence of Arabia, and Chris Evans looking back at the time he saw Neo stop the bullets in Matrix, and Paul Rudd chuckling at his memory of seeing Indiana Jones shoot the swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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Pelicans ground themselves and go carbon neutral

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LAHTI, Finland –– Some fans probably rubbed their eyes when they came to a Lahti Pelicans game in January and saw that some of their favourite players had special numbers on their sweaters.

Top scorer Ryan Lasch’s usual “19” had become 2019 and goaltender Jasper Patrikainen’s “70” had a “%” after it.

Both symbolized the Pelicans and their hometown Lahti’s environmental goals. Lahti s the European Green Capital 2021 and in line with that, the Pelicans aim to become the world’s first carbon-neutral hockey team by the end of 2021.

Lasch’s 2019 is a reference to when Lahti stopped using coal, while 70 percent on Patrikainen’s sweater refers to the decrease in gashouse emissions since 1990. Other numbers were, for example, “8%” and “650 GWh.”

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Top 20 80s coronavirus songs

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Here’s my Top 20 list of 80s songs for the Covid-19 era. Because, it’s all in there in the 80s songs. They’re like Nostradamus.

Mötley CrĂŒe – Home Sweet Home (1985)

Madness – Our House (1982)

Tiffany – I Think We’re Alone Now (1987)

Billy Idol – Dancing With Myself (1981)

Gary Moore – Walking by Myself (1989)

38 Special – Long Distance Affair (1984)

Dire Straits – So Far Away (1985)

The Police – Don’t Stand So Close To Me (1980)

Stevie Wonder – I Just Called To Say I Love You (1984)

UB40 – Red Red Wine (1983)

Genesis – Invisible Touch (1986)

The Georgia Satellites – Keep Your Hands to Yourself (1986)

Heart – Alone (1987)

Dan Hartman – I Can Dream About You (1984)

Cheap Trick – Ghost Town (1988)

Phil Collins – Take Me Home (1985)

Laura Branigan – Self Control (1984)

Guns N’ Roses – Patience (1988)

Aretha Franklin – Who’s Zoomin’ Who? (1985)

USA for Africa – We Are the World (1985)

Son, 18

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Son,

You know, Helsinki in November is not heaven on Earth. It’s dark most of the day and even when the sun is supposed to get up, you’d never know because you’ll never see it. It’s probably cold, too. And windy. It rains 
 unless it’s snowing, but these days, it’ll probably rain. Unless it rained yesterday and then it got cold overnight and the sidewalks turned into skating rinks.

Well, you’ve seen it.

And the worst part of it all is that before it gets better, things get worse. The days get even shorter and the weather even colder so that by the 22nd, with another month to go until the winter solstice, you’re just about ready to go into hibernation.

And yet, one of those late November days in Helsinki changed my life, made everything better, and brought sunshine into our life. Mine and Mom’s.

You were born. In the middle of the night, on this day, eighteen years ago.

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Through the looking-glass

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Every time I tell Son and Daughter that they spend too much time staring at a screen, I get a guilty conscience because I can also see a photo of myself, aged about 3, standing 50cm from a bulky, black-and-white television set, staring it, completely mesmerized.

To be honest, even the first words I learned to read were words in a TV advertisement. 

But that’s probably not a surprise, considering that when I was old enough to sit by myself, when my hard-working mother needed some me-time so she could concentrate on her studies, she tied me up in a chair with a scarf (so that I wouldn’t fall down) and put me in front of a TV. Especially when the Thunderbirds were on. 

In short, I was raised on TV. 

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Wonderful like Jennifer

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It’s not easy to keep ta bird’s eye view when you’re 15. If anything, it’s hard. Time doesn’t really matter, because, what’s another year – to quote the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest song I remember falling asleep to the night Johnny Logan won the whole thing – because so much can happen in a year. Ten years seems like an eternity and yet, you’re in such a hurry at the same time. 

So, when I was fifteen, I found it hard to really see the consequences of my decisions, although, I have to say that had I sat down and thought about it, I probably would’ve understood it. I probably even did sit down and think about things, and thought I understood it, but didn’t. 

Or, even if I did, I just didn’t get it. I didn’t feel it. 

In my defense, life’s not a straight line and even if you do make good decisions at fifteen, you still have to make new decisions at twenty, and twenty-three, and fourty-two, and some of them may be polar opposites of the ones you made at fifteen. 

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