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Putting Sweden on the Map At Home
“Canada is fantastic! ...
Global
Börje Salming’s Love Letter to Toronto Interviewed by Kajsa Norman
Photos courtesy of Börje Salming
“Canada is fantastic! I love Toronto and my fans there,” says hockey legend Börje Salming, whose most recent trip to the city almost cost him his life.
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n early June 1973 Börje Salming arrived in Toronto for the first time together with his fiancée Margitta and fellow Brynäs player Inge Hammarström. It was only a few months earlier that a scout for the Toronto Maple Leafs watched as Salming lost his cool and flattened the referee during a game between Swedish Brynäs IF and Canadian amateur team the Barrie Flyers. When Salming was expelled from the game, the scout, Gerry McNamara, followed him into the changing room. Cursing his adversaries, Salming threw his stick in a corner.
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When he turned around, there was McNamara, business card in hand: “Would you like to come to Canada to play for the Maple Leafs?” Salming replied with the one English word he knew: “Yes.” Now, here he was on the other side of the Atlantic. “I kept wondering what I was doing here. I told myself not to be impressed, that I was dealing with flesh and blood people just like me,” writes Börje in his first autobiography Blood, Sweat and Hockey. “The skyscrapers whizzed by and the gentlemen were very friendly. The Maple Leafs worked hard to win us over.” Their efforts paid off. On November 10, 1973, Börje Salming threw off his gloves and fought the notorious Dave “The Hammer” Schultz from the infamous Philadelphia Flyers. It was only his second game in the NHL, but then and there Salming put an end to the reputation of Swedish players as being “Chicken Swedes”– cowardly players who couldn’t handle the physical play of the NHL. Hockey history would never be the same, and the gates were opened for the extensive transatlantic migration of Swedish ice hockey players to the NHL that we know today. For fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Salming’s arrival laid the foundations for a life-long love story. As their star defenceman, Salming played 16 seasons and
1099 games for the Maple Leafs, recording 148 goals and 620 assists. In 1996, Salming became the first Swedish player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and in 2015 he received his own bronze statue on Legends Row in Toronto. To this day, he can’t walk the streets of Toronto without being approached by countless fans, including children who should be too young to know his name. “When I visit with friends, I have to explain to them that Canadians are crazy like that; hockey is passed down through the generations. They never forget you,” Salming says. Salming and Margitta first moved to Mississauga, but the family later ended up in the city near High Park where they bought and renovated an old house. In 1989, Salming left the Maple Leafs to play his last season in the NHL for the Detroit Red Wings before returning to Sweden where he played for Swedish AIK until finally retiring from hockey in 1993. Although he has many favourite places in Toronto, it is the Maple Leaf Gardens he misses the most. It’s home to memories like the 1976 Canada Cup game between Team Sweden and Team USA. When the players were introduced, Salming, donning the Swedish Tre Kronor
