PHOTO: Bildbyrån
He is one of Swedish hockey’s greatest ever.
Today we pay tribute to the icon Mats Sundin on his 53rd birthday.
And “Sudden” reveals Grandma’s heroic effort that made him an NHL star.
With number 13 on the back was Mats Sundin one of our most successful and popular hockey players of all time. He played a full 17 NHL seasons in the world’s best hockey league and to this day is the Swede who scored the most points ever in North America.
Sundin’s success
There were an incredible 1,349 points in 1,346 games in the NHL from “Sudden’s” club and he is also one of the few Swedes to be chosen number one in the NHL draft. He is forever a great icon in the Toronto Maple Leafs after his ten years as the team captain of the club but never managed to win the long-awaited Stanley Cup.
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Sundin managed to win more in Swedish hockey in the form of an Olympic gold and three WC golds with Tre Kronor as well as a SM gold with Djurgården. It is above all that iconic goal in the Olympic final in 2006 that no one in our country forgets when Sudden, Peter Forsberg and Nicklas Lidström played each other to decide the match against Finland.
Mat’s grandmother Märta
But it all started at home in Sollentuna once upon a time. And above all on the small frozen lake Ravalen, where a young Mats spent many hours playing hockey.
– I know that Markus Näslund’s father did a deep dive into whether there were any parallels when it came to myself, Peter Forsberg, Nicklas Lidström and Markus Näslund. He spent a few months on it and came to the conclusion that there were a few things in common, one of the things that stood out was that we had 30 hours of spontaneous sports a week. Those 30 hours a week are an incredible amount of play. At a fairly early age, we also played and competed with older people, says Sundin in the TV4 program “Wikegård vs”.
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The hockey icon also reveals his grandmother Märta’s unsung childhood heroism that would further help him achieve his dreams of becoming the best in the world at hockey.
– I especially remember when we had my grandmother here. At that time, children were out – there was a match here, there were six, eight, ten kids of different ages. Märta came out, we didn’t have a goalkeeper, so we said: “You have to go out and put yourself in goal”. Grandma was in goal, she was almost 80 years old. We didn’t shoot pucks at her, but there were tennis balls and everything possible at her, says Mats Sundin in the TV program.
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READ MORE: Dick Axelsson performance – he is actually the best of Peter Forsberg, Mats Sundin, and Nicklas Lidström: “He is the greatest”
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