PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Börje Salming will forever be remembered as one of hockey’s toughest.
But there is still a great myth about the late legend.
– How many stitches do I have? Oh, they ask all the kids too, Börje has told.
Few can measure up Börje Salming fantastic career and incredibly big impact on Swedish hockey. He was a popular tough guy who went through every single generation, whether you liked hockey or not, you knew who number 21 was.
Börje’s passing
He was loved and respected throughout the hockey world and it really shows the enormous love that Salming received in his last months of life. On November 24, 2022, the icon passed away in the suites of the nerve disease ALS and he was 71 years old.
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The grief was enormous for one of hockey’s biggest and most celebrated names. Börje Salming will forever be remembered for his sacrificial style of play and his big heart on the ice.
READ MORE: Olympic hero Sven-Åke Lundbäck snubbed Börje Salming himself for the prestigious award: “Of course you’ll be proud”
Salming’s career
But it also led to a lot of problems and tough injuries. To this day, there is a great myth surrounding the late hockey pioneer. Namely, exactly how serious his injuries from his career were and how many stitches he actually received.
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The classic commercial of Svenska Spel with Salming, Mikael Renberg and Tomas Sandström is really clear proof that Börje’s body had been inflicted with a lot of pain. Another proof is that night in November 1986 when the Swede threw himself on the ice to cover a shot and instead got a skate straight across his face.
READ MORE: Mikael Renberg reveals the truth about the classic commercial with Börje Salming: “He would just…”
The myth of Börje
Then a total of 270 stitches were required to save the NHL defender’s face.
– I thought the eye had fallen out and fumbled with my hands on my face to feel for it, and I heard the panic in the voices of my teammates, Salming himself told in the book “The king”, written by the author Ola Liljedahl.
Incomparably enough, Börje managed without any lasting problems. That famous pain threshold – or lack thereof – would permeate Salming’s entire hockey career, where he did everything for his team at all costs.
– That pain limit that you usually talk about… It seems that he had no limit. Sometimes I think he liked to torture himself, said his old Brynästrainer Tommy Sandlin in an interview with TV4.
But how many stitches were there really? We will probably never get an exact answer to that because even Börje Salming didn’t really know himself, but he always used to take a little extra if someone asked.
– How many stitches do I have? Oh, they ask all the kids too. I usually round off to 600-700, he said in an interview with Expressen a few years after his career ended.
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