PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Being elected to the Hall of Fame was a great honor for Peter Forsberg.
Before “Foppa”, there were only two Swedes who had received the same honor.
– The Hall of Fame is something that is incredibly difficult to get into, says Forsberg to Hockey Sweden.
Peter Forsberg was an incredible hockey player with a fine career. Unfortunately, it was marked by a lot of injury concerns, but “Foppa” still managed twelve seasons in the NHL.
Foppa’s ending
The injury problems were – not entirely unexpectedly – at their worst towards the end of Forsberg’s career. After several attempts at comebacks after a long battle with a foot injury, he gave up. It wasn’t the way Peter wanted to end his hockey career, but there wasn’t much of a choice.
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Foppa played the last game with the Colorado Avalanche in the 2010/11 season.
– If I hadn’t done all the attempts, I might have thought that I should have done them. Somehow I feel a sense of calm that I really tried everything, but I couldn’t get my foot in order.
– It didn’t go well, which is a bit tragic, but I feel that today I don’t have to worry because nothing could be done about it anyway. It just didn’t work and at least I know it. Had I, on the other hand, known in 2004 that it would not be possible to arrange, I would have given up, but I still tried to get everything in order as long as possible, Forsberg said in an interview with Hockeysverige in connection with his turning 50 earlier this year.
Salming & Sundin
As a plaster on the wounds, a few years later Peter was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Before him it was just Mats Sundin and Börje Salming of Swedish hockey players who had been selected.
– Being inducted into the Hall of Fame means quite a lot anyway. When playing, I never thought about individual awards. Instead, I could think about that afterwards in some way. The Hall of Fame is something that is incredibly difficult to get into. For example, only two Swedes have been inducted there before, “Sudden” and Börje Salming. It is perhaps a sign that you have had a good career. For me, it was a problem in the last few years, but when you receive an award like this, you instead think about all the good years that I had before, Foppa tells the hockey site.
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The 50-year-old also took the opportunity to pay tribute to the two greats before him.
– I was lucky enough to play with Mats for many years and we won both the WC, 1992 and 1998, and the 2006 Olympics together. It was great fun to play with Mats because he was passionate about hockey just like me. It felt like you were at the tournaments to win a WC or Olympic gold when Mats was there. He was also a good leader and a fantastic hockey player.
– I got to play a match against Börje Salming when he played in AIK and I in Modo. Otherwise, you didn’t see much of him playing because there wasn’t much moving pictures from the NHL at the time. But, as I said, I got to play against him. What a heart! Totally amazing. He was 41 years old at the time, but he lunged, slashed, cross-checked and fought. It didn’t matter that he played 17 seasons in the NHL, his still threw himself and covered shots with his head. I can only imagine how loved he was in Toronto with that aggressive style of play.
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