PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Kenta Nilsson’s career took off as a junior in Djurgården.
But not everyone probably knew who he was.
Perhaps because at the time he went by a completely different name due to a specific detail.
Kenta Nilsson is one of Swedish hockey’s greatest artists of all time. Among other things, he is known for being the player who scored the most points during a season in the NHL team Calgary Flames. Nilsson scored a whopping 131 points in the 1980-1981 season, which is still a club record today.
“Would become a painter”
But if you go back a bit, it was a young player who came to Djurgården’s IF as a junior. And Kenta Nilsson initially had no plans to play hockey at the professional level.
– I was going to be a painter. I had no thought of becoming a professional, he tells Expressen.
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But when he was selected for the television puck together with other players who were older than himself, Kenta Nilsson realized that hockey might still be able to take him somewhere.
– I joined the team with older guys in the TV puck. So it was then. And I stepped into the dressing room and there sat the goalkeeper Gunnar Leidborg with a full beard and yellow glasses, haha. I was a little later in the development, he tells the newspaper.
READ MORE: When Kenta Nilsson whispered two well-chosen words to Wayne Gretzky – and had to regret it immediately: “It’s no idea…”
Kenta’s “Nickname”
Djurgården’s IF was yes, where Kenta Nilsson ended up as a junior. Or should we call him instead Hans Wallman? Nilsson went under a false name at first.
– It was the end of a season that I played in Ösmo and then I was not allowed to play for another team. Djurgården was going to play a tournament and invited some people. My first match was against Surahammar. Then my name was Hans Wallman, he says.
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How it went?
– Hans Wallman scored a hat trick. It was the only hat-trick he scored, haha, concludes Kenta Nilsson.
READ MORE: Tomas Brolin reveals the toughest man he has met – knocks Maldini, Baresi and Maradona(!): “He was rock hard”