PHOTO: Bildbyrån
The SVT program “Hockey night” aroused strong opinions this week.
Now clear criticism is directed at both the program and the television profiles there.
“It is one of SVT sport’s most anemic programs,” writes columnist Johan Croneman in DN.
The TV expert Håkan Loob stirred up strong emotions in “Hockeykväll” when he wanted to spark a debate about the qualification system in Swedish hockey. One of Swedish hockey’s biggest names wants to change the qualifying game between HockeyAllsvenskan and SHL.
Loob’s play
Loob wants the SHL teams to get another lifeline in that the SHL team that loses the decisive qualifying match does not go out immediately. But instead have to face the winner in the HockeyAllsvenskan for a place in the SHL next season.
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The play has provoked strong reactions within Swedish hockey in the past week. And now clear criticism is also being directed at “Hockey Night”.
Criticism of SVT
The TV columnist Johan Croneman is not merciful in his criticism and actually saws the entire program as well as the television profiles that take place in the studio.
“Hockey night is one of SVT sport’s most anemic programs. You can divide it into any number of departments, and name it ‘Overtime’, ‘Icing’, ‘Slashing’ or ‘Pucko over sarg’, it doesn’t matter at all, he writes in his column on Dagens Nyheter.
“Dusan Umicevic is a presenter who wants all the light on himself, it happens that he distributes the word, but rarely without first coming up with a long explanation of his own. Talk mill – but does he say anything? Håkan Loob knows hockey on his five fingers, but is not a big thinker, wooden and expressionless, and Johanna Dahlén has not said a surprising thing during the whole season”.
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Croneman doesn’t like how Loob opens up for the SHL to become a closed series, where no team can leave and thus no team can move up to it.
“Håkan Loob had a performance that undoubtedly looked like a first step towards a closed hockey league. He just can’t say that, because then the whole of Hockey Sweden boils over, so he goes out a little calmly with the fact that all these qualifying games between the Hockey Allsvenskan and the SHL mean far too much anxiety and too little joy. Yes, that’s exactly what he said. And those who lose, they don’t just lose a lot, they can even lose everything,” writes the DN journalist.
“He wants to make it a little more ‘viscous’, harder to fall out of the SHL, harder to get into the SHL. The ‘joyless players’ thing was actually particularly funny. Many SHL players are sitting on million incomes, do they really have to go to therapy to cope with the job? It’s a pity for everyone who has a joyless, monotonous and underpaid job – it’s not a pity for the ice hockey players in the SHL”.
READ MORE: The SHL player’s beautiful gesture to the opponent in the middle of the match makes everyone cheer: “Very beautiful”
The only thing the columnist seems to appreciate about Hockey Night is that they actually invited the TV4 profile Niklas Wikegård who had to argue against Loob.
“However, it was almost sensationally spirited by SVT sport’s editors to suddenly throw Niklas Wikegård into the discussion, he was sitting in a car at home in Sigtuna and said almost straight out that Håkan Loob’s idea was hopelessly idiotic. Niklas Wikegård, and most other people interested in sports, cherish and almost love our pyramids to league systems, where the chance for Knäckebrödhult to reach the SHL is probably minimal – but it exists,” writes Croneman in his column.
“The whole system of promotion and relegation is in our Swedish and European sporting DNA – and I really hope that no one ever succeeds in cracking that system”.
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