Håkan Loob’s proposal to change the SHL is clear.
But that makes Niklas Wikegård go crazy.
– It’s as crooked as you can draw it, says Wikegård.
There is always great debate about which way forward is really the best for the SHL, when it comes to the number of teams in the series, promotions and relegations. Today it is a team that is guaranteed to leave the SHL, and a team that is guaranteed to move up from the Hockeyallsvenskan.
Great discussion
But Håkan Loob, iconic hockey player and now an expert in SVT, thinks it should be even more difficult to leave. This week he proposed another qualifier, that the loser in the SHL meets the winner in the Hockeyallsvenskan in another series. But it has been met with strong reactions.
Among other things from Niklas Wikegård. The TV profile, who will soon take over as sports director in Djurgården as a player in Hockeyallsvenskan, published a post on Instagram earlier this week in which he said that there are three teams that should leave the SHL every season, and thus also three teams that go up, to increase movement between series. Yesterday both Wikegård and Loob were in SVT’s Hockey evening, and then Wikegård did not hold back.
Wikegård roars away
He meant, with all clarity, that Loob was really out and about with his proposal.
– I think Håkan is going very far in the wrong direction. I think talking about inertia at all in something where everything is about warmth, love, opportunities, dreams… It’s as crooked as you can pull it at all, I think, says Wikegård in the program.
For Håkan Loob, however, a lot is about the economy, and that many organizations in the SHL would not be able to leave the series, even if it were only for one year.
– If you step down, even if only for a year, you get a huge drop, a fall, for a lot of people. To possibly tell them that “you can be laid off for a year, then you can probably come back if we go up again”. That is a completely different discussion, he says.
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