PHOTO: Bildbyrån
HV71 is in a crisis and recently fired both of its coaches.
Now club icon Fredrik Stillman opens up about his great concern.
– Now I feel that people must be told what is happening in HV, he tells Jnytt.
Jersey number 14 hangs from the ceiling of Husqvarna Garden and he has won four SM gold medals with HV71 as a player, coach and sports director. But on Monday, the club icon got Frederick Stillman fired from the club in his heart.
Leave HV71
Together with the head coach Tommy Samuelsson assistant coach Stillman had to leave the club with immediate effect following a board decision. Instead, the club director took Johan Lindbom over the assignment as head coach to get HV to rise in the table.
The article continues after the picture.
It didn’t start well at all when HV71 lost the first game with a new coach on Tuesday with 1-3 at home against Timrå. Thus, they are still second to last in the SHL table with 40 points in 39 games.
READ MORE: The bombshell: The star breaks the contract and returns to Sweden – here is the decisive news about Leksand
“I kept my mouth shut”
Now Stillman breaks his silence after getting the kick and reveals the root of the major problems in HV71. Where one of the reasons is that the club has changed coaches eight times in the last nine seasons.
– The thing is that in 2021 Anders Wilander (chairman of HV71) calls me and wants me to come home and manage HV71. That’s where it starts and that’s what’s gnawing at me. Then and there I was the most important person in the whole world for HV71 because I had such a big HV heart. I grabbed it. I swallowed the resentment from 2015, something I didn’t want to talk about at the time and so I kept my mouth shut. But now I feel that people must be told what is happening in HV. It is something that is not right, that is my opinion, says the club profile in an interview with JNytt.
The article continues after the picture.
Stillman directs strong criticism at HV and believes that the club does not have a clear picture of its own identity.
– Last year we (Samuelsson and Stillman) were kings in the spring (when the duo brought HV71 back to the SHL) and until August, September we felt that we were on the right path and then half a year goes by and then we can’t stay any longer . Then I came to the conclusion that there is no conviction, or there is no fundamental faith or persistence in HV. You say you want to do the right thing, but when you come across problems, you can’t identify them, so you shoot from the hip and then it becomes these clichéd things like firing the coach, he says in the interview.
– I understand how it is in this industry. I don’t want to come across as bitter and I’m not sitting here crying, I’m not. But at some point it has to be right now. I really thought it was time we built the HV71 again, come to the conclusion that this is HV, this is what we stand for. I believed it now when I came home this turn, that we would have a chance to implement it. That you stick together and are strong in adversity and that you remain so over time.
READ MORE: Stig Salming’s heartbreaking confession – after the harsh criticism of Börje Salming’s tribute: “I will be sad”
It hurts Fredrik Stillman that he is forced to leave the club in this way. That he must not help and fight for HV71 by reversing the gloomy trend.
– I had intended to take this to the finish line in a good way, even though I knew that it might go all the way to qualifying. It feels terrible not to be able to participate anymore. I have my HV heart and so much more to give, but now we just get thrown out and get no explanation for it other than that we have to change coaches, he says to the local newspaper.
What do you think about the crisis in HV71? Share the article and have your say!