– Under the circumstances, he is fine, he is conscious and responds to calls. He is well taken care of, says Villa Lidköping’s communications manager Rasmus Abrahamsson to Bandypulse.
After two minutes of the second half, Gripen’s Johan Esplund got stuck in a Villa player and fell hard to the ice. When the game then resumed, both teams refused to play but remained on the ice as the game clock ticked.
When Esplund fell on the ice, the players immediately realized the seriousness and a couple of players went out to the medics and piloted two to Esplund, who received treatment fairly immediately lying on the ice.
After ten minutes, players and officials were ordered off the ice while Esplund received treatment while waiting for an ambulance. In the meantime, there were meetings about when the match would resume.
The players gave up after 61 minutes
After just over an hour, the match resumed with Villa leading 5-0, something that the players in both teams agreed on. But both teams refused to do anything other than quietly ride around or stand still and confer with the referee as the match ticked on.
After 61 minutes on the game clock, the players thanked the referees and left the ice. The Villa players were quiet past the heel and thanked for the support. Officially it was stated that Gripen had too few players left to complete the match.
Esplund is one of Swedish bandy’s big names. He has four WC golds and two SM golds (Västerås 2015 and Villa 2019). He played at Villa for twelve seasons.