Facts: Rikard Grönborg
Born: 8 June 1968 in Huddinge.
Family: Wife Dawnie, daughters Chloe, 11, and Grace, 4.
Lives: Villa in Tampere.
Main merits: Three WC golds with Three Kronor, two as main manager, one as assistant to Pär Mårts, JVM gold as assistant to Roger Rönnberg. Employed at the association between 2009 and 2019.
Clubs: ZSC Lions (2019-2022), Tappara (2023- ).
Tre Kronor’s former gold coach – who led the national ice hockey team to two straight World Cup golds in 2017 and 2018 – is sitting in a hotel in the World Cup city of Tampere and talking about the nightmare period in the winter and spring of 2019.
Now Grace has been well for a longer time and the family has just moved to Finland’s third largest city where Grönborg has signed a three-year contract with the champion team Tappara.
But then and there, life was turned upside down.
The Grönborg family’s youngest daughter was born with the unusual disease laryngomalacia, which means that breathing becomes difficult. During the night she stopped breathing and the parents – Rikard and his American wife Dawnie – then had to wake her up so that she would breathe again.
It is a disease that disappears with time.
“Black hole”
But then Grace suffered convulsions and during an investigation the parents found out that in the worst case it could lead to permanent brain damage and a life in a wheelchair.
— It was called baby seizure (infantile spasms) and it was not a good diagnosis to get. But there were a lot of question marks and we would have to wait and see. But when you get a diagnosis like that, you always think the worst. It was like being pulled down into a black hole, he says.
After the World Cup, the family moved to Switzerland, where Rikard Grönborg became a coach in the big club ZSC Lions from Zurich. A job he was fired from last December. In Switzerland, the doctors arrived at a different diagnosis and that the spasms would pass with time and not cause lasting pain.
“Now we haven’t seen them for a long time so it looks good,” says Grönborg about the youngest daughter, who turns five in August.
Rikard Grönborg makes a fist bump with an unknown passerby in Tampere.”Felt powerless”
But during those uncertain months it was a nightmare. At the same time, Grönborg would end his time as national captain by trying to chase a third straight gold with Three Crowns in the WC in Slovakia. It ended with a bitter quarter-final exit against Finland.
— Many have gone through crap in their lives, but it was tough. You felt so powerless and she was only a year old. And then you go down to your last WC tournament and think that you should enjoy and do something really good together, but there wasn’t much of the enjoyment, he says.
During the interview, people come forward and wish Grönborg welcome and good luck. Among other things former Modo and Mora trainer Harri Rindell.
This season, Tappara won both the Champions Hockey League and became Finnish champions for the second year in a row.
TT: What attracted you to Tappara?
— The curiosity of why they are so good, what makes the organization so successful and to try something new. It is a challenge to be the first foreign coach in the league since 2008 and take care of the best team, says Grönborg, who is a guest expert on Finnish television during the WC.
May leave for NHL
Grönborg also has an NHL clause in the contract, he can leave if the right offer comes.
After the two WC golds, he became a hot name in North America and Grönborg was in the USA and guest lectured for the NHL coaches on a few occasions.
Rikard Grönborg celebrates in Tre Kronor’s booth after the World Cup final victory over Switzerland in Copenhagen 2018. Archive image.
During his years in Switzerland, it has been reported that he was in consideration for both San Jose and Buffalo.
— Yes, I have been interviewed by NHL clubs. There has been interest, but I can get more interest here because there are young talents here that the NHL clubs are always looking at. If I do a good job with them and with the club, I think I’m more in the NHL loop here than in Switzerland, he says.
So the dream of becoming the first Swedish head coach in the NHL is still alive.
But it is conservative in the NHL and European coaches are rare. He is aware of this to such a mild degree that he presents the numbers himself:
“In the last eleven years, 60 different people have been head coaches in the NHL, but none of them European,” he says.
TT: But you still don’t think it’s impossible?
– Nothing is impossible. There are many, many good coaches here in Europe and I think the NHL can do itself a favor and come over and scout coaches as well as players. Then there are cultural differences, but then you might be at the forefront and do something different as an NHL club, he says.