On Wednesday, September 30, 2009, on the day that the NHL teams had to file their rosters, and make the final cuts, Mats Sundin announced his retirement at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden. Grand Hotel is the hotel where the Nobel Prize laureates spend their time in Stockholm when they come to town to collect the award in December. That’s where the stars stay when in Stockholm. Across a small bay, there is the Royal Palace where the King of Sweden has his office.
Some 15 kilometers north of Grand Hotel, there is Edsbacka krog, one of two restaurants with two Michelin stars in Sweden. The inn is in the heart of Sollentuna, next to the Edsbergs castle, which in turn overlooks Edsviken, the Baltic Sea bay, a beautiful public park where Swedes go for picnics, and walks and runs, and, on the other side of the water, a hockey arena.
That’s where Mats Sundin’s career got its start at a time when the Toronto Maple Leafs fans had already waited almost ten years for another Cup.
In the 33 years – and 15 kilometers – between Edsberg’s hockey club and Grand Hotel, Sundin won almost everything a hockey player can win – the Leafs fans will surely underline the “almost” in that sentence – and became a national hero, and a national treasure in Sweden.
That’s what you get for winning three World Championship gold medals, an Olympic Gold, and other World Championship medals, and, well, scoring the big goals along the way. For being the team captain for a Stockholm team that won TV-Pucken, a Swedish classic where the best 15-year-olds in each district play for a cup, being the first European to be drafted first overall, becoming the Leafs captain – a Swede being recognized outside Sweden is always a big moment for the people – and becoming the Captain of Team Sweden.
He’s such a legend that my brother-in-law, when talking about hockey, never fails to mention that when he played hockey in the Sollentuna club, he got Sundin’s old pants. Red hockey pants that had “Sundin” written on the inside.
We all want to rub elbows – or other body parts – with legends, and over here in Sollentuna, Sweden, they don’t come any bigger than Mats Sundin.
Back at my home country, Finland, “Sundin” is a cussword. Mats is known as “Finland killer” for all the times he’s seemed to down Team Finland single-handedly.
His career with Team Sweden is a fairytale story. In 1991, a 20-year-old Sundin clinched Sweden’s gold in the World Championship in Turku, Finland, when he picked up the puck in Sweden’s zone, carried it across neutral zone, over the Soviet Union blueline, cut to the inside, then back to outside, beating Vyacheslav Fetisov, and then sending a wristshot through Andrei Trefilov’s five-hole.
Every Christmas Eve, my brother-in-law and I drive to the Sollentuna rink, and every year, my brother-in-law points out the house where the Sundins used to live. The rink was still an outdoor rink until two years ago so standing on centre ice, you could see the Baltic Sea, and if you had a good enough slap shot could probably sink a few pucks into it.
Or, if you were Mats Sundin, you could have sent a few backhanders there.
I am sure somebody has figured out how many goals Sundin scored on backhand, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the number was 327 – half of his NHL goals. That’s what Doug Gilmour said about one his career’s most memorable moment: “I got the puck to Sundin on a breakaway, Mats went forehand, backhand, upstairs, and I jumped onto his lap .. It was like me picking up my kids.”
That’s another thing about Sundin. He would come with that heavy step form the blueline, go forehand, backhand, upstairs, and then he’d lift his arms in celebration, turn in the corner, and you’d see that huge smile on his face. That is the core of Sundin. Hockey was fun.
Sure, there are other looks, too. The crazed look after Sweden had come from 5-1 deficit to beat Finland 6-5 at the 2003 World Championships. The focused look at the Turin Olympics, throughout the tournament, when he was a man on a mission to erase the nightmare of the 2002 Olympics where Sweden lost to Belarus.
But mostly, it was about the smile. Hockey was fun. Scoring goal was fun. Being Mats Sundin was fun.
Who didn’t want to be just like Mats Sundin?
Christmas is only a couple of months away, and soon my brother-in-law and I will be driving down to the rink again. The problem is, they built an indoor rink there now, so … Mats, if you come to Sollentunavallen to play hockey with us, we’ll be at the old bandy arena at around 10 am.