Three years ago, Kenny Jönsson came to Sweden to play during the lockout. Last night, his Rogle took the step back to the Swedish Elite League. Here’s what Jönsson had to say about things in 2005, when his NHL comrades had returned to North America and he stayed with the small club, one step below the Elite League.

The New York Islanders started off their NHL season by traveling upstate and taking on the Buffalo Sabres, but when the puck dropped in Buffalo, Kenny Jonsson was already back home from his game of the night. He was probably fast asleep, too, especially if Rogle beat their opponent, IK Oskarshamn that night.

Last spring, he made a decision to give up his NHL career, and signed a two-year contract with Rogle in his hometown, Angelholm, in southern Sweden. He is also groomed for a management position within the club. Right now, he brings in his experience from the NHL while learning the Swedish way of managing a club, he says.

It didn’t matter that his Rogle is a division-two team, and that here was a 31-year-old Olympic candidate, former NHL captain who was 10th in the league plus/minus in 2003-04 – in other words, an elite defenseman in his prime. It was time to go home.

“Over here, I get to spend so much more time with my family,” Kenny Jonsson says. “We play two games a week and we’re practically never away from home for more than two days. Of course, the hockey is different. The rink is bigger and the players aren’t that skilled or tactically mature in the division two.”

Jonsson picked up seven points in the first five games which was enough to lead Rogle in scoring and only one point behind the league scoring leader.

The move to Sweden was a surprising one, but not totally unexpected. Swedes love Sweden.

Didn’t Nicklas Lidstrom plan on moving back to Sweden a few years ago? Didn’t Peter Forsberg take a year off, because he felt like it? And most importantly, Kenny’s brother, Jorgen, also cut his NHL career short and moved back to Sweden for family reasons after just one NHL season.

“I’m sure I will miss the NHL,” Kenny Jonsson says. “But then again, I would miss it anyway, even if I had moved back here five years later. Now was a good time. Over the years, my family has made a lot of sacrifices for my career, and now we’re taking it back. We get to spend a lot more time together, and the children get to go through the Swedish school system.”

It seems like a waste to have a player of Jonsson’s calibre playing in a second-tier team. However, Jonsson is hopeful about taking Rogle into the Elite League next season – and about the Olympics.

“If [coach] Bengt-Åke Gustafsson calls, I’m there,” he says.

“I can understand that it can be difficult for some to understand my decision. It’s just that over there, if you’re not in the NHL or the AHL, there’s no hockey like this. In Europe, we can go home, take it down a notch, play less games and still compete on a high level,” he says.