PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Stig Salming has probably been a role model for many.
He himself had unexpected idols growing up.
– They were thought to be strong and talented athletes, says Stig to Sportbibeln.
Stig Salming was a good and tough hockey player, who with his Brynäs won six SM golds. In the club he has become an icon, but Stig was a respected player even outside of Gävle, and is today one of our biggest profiles from the Elitserien/SHL.
Salming’s debut
Born in 1947, Salming grew up around the 50s there. Together with his family, including his younger brother Börje Salming, he lived in Kiruna. The brothers started playing hockey early, they both trained and played spontaneous hockey. They were both raised in the hockey team Kiruna AIF, and Stig was young when he made his debut for the first team.
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Growing up, Stig didn’t directly have a hockey idol, but other athletes were the role models. He himself believes that this may be due, among other things, to his early first-team debut.
– In the hockey world, I know damn well if I had any role models like that right away. I was in the first team in Kiruna AIF already as a fourteen-year-old, so I participated and competed on reasonably equal terms with these grown-ups. That’s why it was probably never pronounced that way, I can’t remember it, says Stig to Sportbibeln.
Stig’s idol
Instead, it was in another sport that Salming’s idols were rediscovered.
– I can remember that I was skiing when I was ten or twelve years old, then I skied a lot. Then I know I was watching these competitions, the Kiruna Games, which were in Kiruna. There were skiers there, I know, that I was watching, and that people admired because they were so talented, he says.
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There were two Swedish skiing legends who stood out a little extra.
– Including Sixten Jernberg and Assar Rönnlund for example. Such personalities were probably ones that you liked, that you looked up to in that way. That they were thought to be strong and talented athletes. So that’s what I can remember for that early age, ten or twelve years old, that you went and watched those competitions and thought it was fantastic, says Stig.
READ MORE: Stig Salming says exactly what he thinks of Phil Esposito – after the sick incident at the hotel: “Strange”
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