Photo: Bildbyrån
When Tomi Kallio was recruited to Frölunda, Jonas Esbjörs was pushed from first to fourth fifth.
Esbjörs considered hurting his new teammate.
– I wanted to kill him. I thought I would pick him, he tells GP.
Tommy Kallio was a young and promising forward who was overlooked in the NHL when he moved back to Europe in 2003. He came to Frölunda and was promised a place in the first five. His new teammates didn’t know who he was, but knew someone was going to get poked because of him.
Was summoned to the office
It turned out that Jonas “Esa” Esbjörs was the player who had to step aside. He completely panicked when he was called onto the trainer Conny Evensson office. “Esa” and Patrik “Carna” Carnbäck had sat and speculated on who would be poked, then and there it became obvious.
– Then I look at “Carna” who laughed and said “Yes, you did!” You understood that then, because it is not as often as you are in the training room otherwise. Hell, I think it was me. I didn’t think in my wildest dreams that I would go straight down the fourth chain. They didn’t think so. But it was smack, right down. It was really tough, says Jonas Esbjörs to Göteborgs-Posten.
The story was recently retold in Frölunda’s anniversary book, which was recently published in connection with the annual book fair in Gothenburg. In the book, they go through the club’s 80-year history. Among other things, Esbjörs tells how he intentionally wanted to hurt Kallio to get rid of his competitor.
READ MORE: The Frölunda supporter’s absolutely perfect mockery of AIK and Djurgården
– I wanted to kill him. Yeah, I thought I’d pick him. I run him over, that was the idea: That now I will take him. It was him or me. It was also my future somewhere. I live on hockey, so it wasn’t that much fun, says Jonas Esbjörs to Göteborgs-Posten.
Changed about Kallio
Fortunately, Esbjörs quickly changed their mind about Tomi Kallio. He realized that the coach probably made the right choice that pushed the Finn into the top five. In Kallio’s debut, he scored against Djurgården. A few months later, he shot the gold to Frölunda when he decided the final series against Färjestad in 2003.
During the season, Esbjörs also started to like the person Tomi Kallio very well. It simply became too difficult for him to be angry with his “rival”.
READ MORE: Joel Lundqvist’s honest words about Roger Rönnberg’s last year in the SHL
– The more time went by… he is such a fantastic guy! He is humble, damn nice and talked a lot. He drove “kill them with kindness”. He is a completely magical person, so it didn’t work out. It’s hard to run over someone you like!, he says.
All’s well that ends well. Fortunately, there was no overtaking and Esbjörs calmed down, despite Kallio taking his place in the team.
It all resulted in a SM gold. So it turned out to be a stroke of genius by Conny Evensson.
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