Planes, trains and buses: A journey to discover the secret of Ovik, the unlikely hockey factor

Publish date: 2024-04-13

ÖRNSKÖLDSVIK, Sweden — When I told Victor Hedman’s father I was coming to his town, the first thing Olle Hedman said was, “I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

I knew Swedes were nice, but come on. You sure?

“I’m free,” Olle Hedman said. “I’m retired. I’ll be the ‘Olle cab.’”

Count me in.

I came to explore Örnsköldsvik (pronounced ORN-SHOUL-SVEEK), the mill town of 30,000 on Sweden’s northeastern coast. It hugs the banks of the Baltic Sea’s Gulf of Bothnia and is just a five-hour drive from Stockholm, but you feel a world away.

The 125-year-old city is a story of contrasts, where blue-collar meets Bluetooth. Smokestacks and cranes hover near the modest skyline, which includes a ski jump and the jumbo red waterslides at Paradiset, a waterpark wonderland that features a spa. The forest’s colorful fall foliage, nestled along the waterfront, remind me of Midwestern lake towns, and so does the charm, with the most famous landmark restaurant a family-owned Italian place called “Mamma Mia’s.” The pizzeria doubles as hockey museum, of course.

“Ovik,” as Swedes call it, is known for producing two things: paper and star hockey players. There are more Art Ross Trophy winners coming out of this city than any other in the world, with Peter Forsberg and Canucks twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin. They, along with the likes of Markus Naslund and Lightning Norris Trophy winner Victor Hedman, began their careers on the half-dozen public rinks and countless other open-air surfaces here.

Everyone wants to know, “What is Ovik’s secret?”

Is it the access to rinks?

The hockey school?

That it’s a small town and there’s not much else to do?

The water?

“That’s the rumor,” Daniel Sedin said, laughing. “But I think there’s more to it.”

There’s certainly more complexity to the genesis of the Ovik-to-NHL pipeline. That it’s in jeopardy as a hockey hotbed is less mysterious. This once hockey-crazed community is at a crossroads. Its local team has lost its place in Sweden’s top league. Some of its younger players are drawn to different locales. The leader of its once-thriving hockey school has retired. Will there ever be a new wave of stars to follow Ovik’s previous greats to the NHL?

I was on a 24-hour quest to find out.

There are a few options for getting to Ovik from Stockholm, the site of the two NHL Global Series games last month between the Lightning and Sabres. It’s a five- to six-hour drive north. You can also take a train or a quick flight. I flew, thinking it would save time. I knew it got dark early in Sweden, especially the farther north you traveled, so it seemed like the prudent choice.

It turned into an adventure. An electrical issue shut down Ovik’s airport, so we got diverted to a nearby town called Umea. A bus, 15-minute walk and an hour train ride later, I had finally made it to my destination.

When I arrived at the Ovik train station, it took me just a minute to breeze through and zip down the one-story escalator. Olle was there waiting for me, wide smile and wearing a blue jacket and jeans. We shook hands.

“You’ve seen a lot of Sweden today.”

As we walked to the parking lot, a half dozen cars were within 20 yards. It was dark and flurrying with snow.

“Guess which one is mine?” Olle asked.

Olle Hedman’s car stuck out. It was a gray Volvo V90 with a Lightning logo on the window of each side of the back seat. As the guided tour began, Olle took the wheel and the sound of classic American rock — Boston’s “More than a Feeling” — filled the interior. I’d later find out Olle’s phone’s ringtone is AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.”

He arrived in Ovik in 1969. His family moved there when he was a teenager. He played hockey a bit — “I wasn’t any good,” he said — but he eventually landed a job where pretty much everyone else did: at the Modo paper mill.

Olle retired this past July after 45 years at the mill, where he worked in the lumberyard. You ask many locals about Ovik and what they mention first is the pungent citric aroma coming from the large smokestacks that rise from the subtle, water-front skyline.

“It’s the smell of money,” said Jonatan Lindquist, a Swedish journalist and one of Victor Hedman’s childhood friends.

The paper mill was the town’s industry. But hockey has always been its heart. The blue-collar workers would leave the factory and pile into the local arena, taking out their anger at their bosses with soccer-like chants for their home team, Modo. In the glory days of the late 1970s, the old barn, Kempehallen, would be packed to the brim of its 5,000 capacity. Roughly a quarter of the town was there.

That included kids like Forsberg, Naslund and, eventually, the Sedins and Hedman. They watched their heroes like Anders Hedberg, the first player from Ovik to make the NHL in the 1970s. Then they became the idols.

“We had long winters and short summers, and hockey was the No. 1 sport,” said Daniel Sedin. “Growing up, you always had someone to look up to. For us, it was Peter Forsberg, Naslund. We saw them every day, how hard they worked and what they did on the ice.”

“You got to watch the best players in Sweden up close, see what they did,” Forsberg said. “You got to see their skill. You learned.”

“You saw what was possible,” Hedman said.

You want to start a conversation in Ovik but don’t know the person? Just say “Modo” and you’ve got a fast friend. Naslund, the former Modo and Vancouver Canucks star, said it’s the first thing you bring up in business meetings.

As the team goes, so goes the town.

Olle Hedman knew this full well. He worked at the mill, sure, but he also served as the equipment manager for Modo for a quarter-century. He’d pack yogurt and sandwiches for Victor and older brothers Johan and Oscar, and they’d spend their afterschool hours playing hockey.

There are six rinks in town and multiple family-made sheets around various neighborhoods. There was a hockey academy, where select players (ages 16-19) practiced before school, took a hockey theory class and then practiced again in the afternoon. Hockey has always been the big show in this town.

Hedman pointed out, unlike some Canadian and American towns where kids jumped from one travel team to another, there was only one team in Ovik: Modo. And, up until he was 14, there were no “tryouts.” Hockey was about community, family and fun.

“Between classes, you’re playing outside,” Hedman said. “You played all the time. Before school, after school, during school, that’s what we did. It’s what we do.”

The rink Hedman played on was 500 meters from his house, on his street. Olle pointed it out before pulling into his driveway where the headlights illuminated a welcome sign.

“Reserved Parking. Lightning fans only.”

There’s a hockey goal set up just past the porch of the green, five-bedroom home that was built in 1943. It’s where Olle Hedman’s parents lived, and he bought it after they moved.

As we walked in and took off our shoes, we met Victor’s nephews — Oscar’s boys — Oliver, 8, and Truls, 4. Oliver greeted us on the spiral staircase, his arm in a cast thanks to jumping off a playground swing.

Each room features photos of the three sons, their parents’ pride and joy. In the office, where Truls is on the hardwood floor with his toys and Legos, pictures of Victor, Oscar and Johan as youngsters line the top of one cabinet.

“They grow up fast,” Elisabeth Hedman, the family’s matriarch, says.

“You want to see his room?” Olle asks.

We walked upstairs and past a trophy case that held pucks, medals and other mementos including a watch given to one of the best players on the world junior team in Sweden that year. “Oscar has won it three times,” Olle said.

There’s Victor’s world championship gold medal, won with Sweden a few years back, the best moment of his career so far. There’s a Russian police hat, acquired in a trade for one of Hedman’s sticks. On the wall is a framed and signed polo shirt of the “IceBreakers,” a Modo All-Star team formed for charity that featured Forsberg, Naslund and the Sedins.

One summer, Hedman played with them.

“It was like a dream,” he said.

We moved downstairs to the living room. The “Gold Puck,” given annually to the best player in Sweden (Hedman won it in 2014-15 after the Lightning’s run to the Cup final), was displayed on the mantel.

A bookcase here, not in Tampa, holds Hedman’s Norris Trophy.

Another end table held a scrapbook Hedman’s wife, Sanna, made for him of articles starting in 2006. The wedding album for the high school sweethearts, a match made in Ovik, was there, too. The couple got married in July 2017 in the town’s biggest church. Locals still talk about it.

Olle, Elisabeth and Oscar sat on the couch and shared their favorite Victor stories. One detailed Hedman’s competitive fire, which flared when a call went against his team when he was 5 or 6 years old. The teacher said, “It’s just a game.”

To which Hedman yelled: “No, it’s not!”

Not in Ovik.

“It was Peter Forsberg who said once, ‘They didn’t play hockey, they played hockey like it was life or death,’” said Per Hagglund, an Ovik native and long-time journalist for Örnsköldsviks Allehanda who has covered Modo’s pro team for 30 years. “Everyone was a winner. You couldn’t take a loss. They competed every day.”

You talk to any of the stars from Ovik, from Sedin to Forsberg to Hedman, and their goal wasn’t to play in the NHL.

“I wanted to play for Modo,” Sedin said.

“That was the dream,” Forsberg said.

“That’s our team,” Hedman said.

The NHL highlights were few and far between, especially in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, so the main reference point young Ovik players had for hockey stars was a few miles from their homes.

In 1973, though, Naslund and Forsberg were born 10 days apart. They would go on to set the standard for hockey players growing up in Ovik, becoming two of the best players in the NHL by the 2002-03 season; Forsberg won the Hart Trophy and Art Ross, with Naslund taking home the Lester Pearson Award (now called Ted Lindsay Award) as the players’ choice for most outstanding player.

The Hedmans recalled how Naslund and Forsberg trained in Ovik during the summer months. The Sedins did the same. They weren’t just stars, they were neighbors.

“There have always been guys playing in the NHL from around here. You know their family,” Oscar said. “So when they make it, the dream feels close. It feels possible.”

Oscar, 33, still plays for Modo, recently competing in his 900th pro game (600 for Modo). For decades, the club (founded in 1921) was in Sweden’s highest pro league, but it has since fallen to the second tier, a big blow to the town’s pride and the team’s finances. Most nights, the 7,000-seat arena is one-third or half full, a far cry from the glory days, though Modo’s recent 12-game winning streak has led to some optimism.

Oscar was proud there would be a full house for a mid-November showdown with Umea, their rival and the league’s No. 1 team. It was Modo’s first sellout in several years.

“It’s been too long,” Oscar said.

Oscar had played for Modo on their last championship team in 2007, which snapped a nearly 30-year drought for the Le Mat Trophy (the team’s previous title was in 1979). Of the 23 Swedish players on the Modo roster that season, 17 were from Ovik. Everyone in the city remembers that run, which ended in the sixth game of the final against Linkopings HC, with former Atlanta Thrasher Per Svartvadet scoring on a two-on-one, top-shelf snipe. Sabres winger Victor Olofsson, now 24, was a teenager at the time playing for Modo’s youth teams and was watching at a cousin’s house as the family celebrated with champagne.

“It gave you something to shoot for,” Olofsson said. “You want to uphold that tradition.”

When Modo players arrived home, they packed Mamma Mia’s, the Italian restaurant and hockey hangout. There were 30 bottles of Dom Perignon waiting for them, thanks to Forsberg, one of the many former stars watching from afar.

Oscar, who was drafted in the fifth round by the Washington Capitals in 2004, had watched his favorite local stars play when he was a kid. Now he was one of them — and a champion to boot.

The Hedman’s basement is a shrine to their children. There are photos of the three boys together on the walls as you walk down the steps, dubbed “Lightning Blvd.,” in their old jerseys. At the bottom, there’s a carpet with the Lightning logo. Like in the team’s dressing room, you’re not allowed to step on it. There are milk cartons with Victor on the back. Bobbleheads. Photo albums.

On one wall, there’s the backdrop from the 2009 NHL Draft where Hedman first addressed the media. To the left of that, there’s a framed Sports Illustrated cover of Islanders legend Mike Bossy. With the Islanders picking first in the draft, the top brass had dinner with Hedman, too. Bossy was there.

The middle wall is the best. There are four newspaper front pages in Swedish. Olle translated the headlines for me.

“Hedman wrote dream contract — ‘This is fantastic.’”

“Hedman got rich tonight.”

“Star from Modo makes success in NHL. He’s sensational.”

On the opposite wall is a fake movie poster, playing off the “Lord of the Rings.” It’s “Lord of the Rinks” and the heads of Forsberg, Naslund, the Sedins and others take the place of the movie characters. In Ovik, those hockey stars were larger than life.

Hedman recalled a bus ride while in juniors when the entire team was silent as they listened to the 2006 Olympic gold medal game on the radio. Sweden vs. Finland. They cheered on Ovik’s hometown heroes: Forsberg, the Sedin twins and Naslund (who was injured). The Swedes were up 3-2 in the third, but the Finns were pushing, having pulled their goalie. Hedman said the entire team was anxious.

Then the announcer on the radio got louder.

“Lundqvist.”

“Gör en otrolig räddning med klubban!!!!!!”

“(Henrik) Lundqvist … makes an incredible save with his club!”

“Tre. Två. Ett. Noll.”

“Three. Two. One. Zero.”

The whole bus erupted, sharing high fives and screams.

“It’s one of those memories that’s going to stay with you your whole life,” Hedman said. “Then, 12 years later, I’m on the bench and (Lundqvist) is making another save — for us to win the World Championship.”

Hedman’s photo is on the Wall of Fame at Modo’s new arena, the Fjallraven Center.

It’s a beautiful building that opened in 2007 and sits on the shore of the Gulf of Bothnia. You can see the smokestacks of the paper mill across the bay.

But its presence is still a sore spot for locals and former players. The old Kempehallen was torn down a decade ago. It was where the local players made history. There’s an empty outline of the rink now, covered in snow, but the adjacent practice rink is still there. The Hedman kids spent countless hours there, both on the neighboring soccer fields and on this sheet of ice. It’s where they learned how to skate.

Now Hedman won’t even drive past it.

“I’ll take another way,” he said.

The memories will last forever, however.

This is where Anders Melinder, dubbed the “Godfather” of Ovik hockey, taught future stars his progressive style. Melinder was in charge of the town’s hockey school, working closely with Modo’s junior program. The coach/advisor/mentor once visited a Soviet hockey camp, realized Swedish training was behind. So Melinder increased Ovik’s regimen, blending a unique style. The fact Melinder’s reign spanned decades allowed him to coach different generations, from Forsberg and Naslund to the Sedins and Hedman.

They were given a strong reference point, and window, to their idols.

“Melinder was a big part of it — he was groundbreaking,” Naslund said. “The way he ran practices, worked on skill development. He was ahead of his time. He was one of the first ones in Sweden that really pushed for attention to detail and doing things at high speed.

“There was such a high standard set. When you grew up here, you were a role model, you had to behave the right way around town. When you walked up and down Main Street, people knew who the elite players were, so that pushed you to be the best. This city is really proud of their hockey team, like a lot of cities around the world. But this has been this city’s identity for generations.

“It means a lot to them. You take responsibility for that. You’re proud of the Modo brand.”

Former NHL star Markus Naslund at Mamma Mia’s.

That’s why it’s frustrating to Naslund and other legends that the club has fallen on tough times. Ever since the team was relegated to the second division a few years back, attendance has fallen off.

There are many reasons for the decline, from the team’s struggling play to changes in management and players after decades of continuity (even Melinder has retired and lives outside of town). Where once Ovik had one of just three hockey schools with national status, they’re popping up in more places now, in warmer and more heavily populated towns nearer to Stockholm. “Not everyone wants to be where it’s dark and cold,” Naslund said.

Players have more options to make the jump to the NHL, whether it’s playing in juniors in North America or going to college. Several have left early, including Olofsson, who played two years for Frolunda HC. Modo sold the paper mill to another international company, so while the club name remains, the synergy is not there.

“When they left the top Swedish league, it marked a scar for our fans, and I think a lot of people haven’t been to the rink since that day,” said Adam Johansson, 25, an Ovik native and journalist for the local paper Allehanda. “You have to build this success over years to get the crowd back to the arena.

“From the (championship) in ’07, the attendance has decreased every year. I was 13 when we won the title. I remember every game, it was packed. Now, it’s a whole new world. You can’t even compare it.”

So could this be the end of the line?

There is still some promising Modo-produced talent in the NHL, from Hedman and Olofsson to Sabres goalie Linus Ullmark and the Kings’ Adrian Kempe and Carl Grundstrom. Modo currently features stud left-shot defenseman Mattias Norlinder, 19, a third-round pick by the Canadiens in 2019. “In five years, he’ll be a Norris winner,” Hagglund said. “He’s a Nicklas Lidstrom — so smart, great hands, skating. He’ll be the next Modo player you’ll write and talk about.”

But if Modo can’t reclaim its spot in the top Swedish league this season, Hagglund predicts “a lot of problems.” He believes young players of Norlinder’s ilk will leave for better opportunities. “This is the season to go to the top league, or you’ll have to start at the bottom again,” Hagglund said.

Hedman is hopeful. Along with the Sedins, he donated $50,000 to build a couple of outdoor rinks in Ovik, one of which is next door to the old practice facility near his home. The past 10 summers, Hedman has run a hockey school in Ovik where kids can pay the equivalent of just $200 U.S. for a week of instruction and interaction with pros. A few of the kids from those camps have gone on to play for Modo, Johansson said.

Ovik’s former stars don’t just give back, they come back. Several of the players, including Hedman and the Sedins, have built summer homes along the “Gold Coast,” a waterfront street that gets the name because its most high-profile residents have won gold medals at either world championships or the Olympics. Forsberg is part owner of Ovik’s main hotel, Elite. Naslund has been part of a group investing in the neighboring waterfront apartments.

“Everyone knows who you are, but it’s not a big deal — nobody bothers you,” Daniel Sedin said. “It’s a nice quiet town to live in after you’re done.”

Naslund and former NHL defenseman (and current Modo captain) Tobias Enstrom have homes on the other side of the bay along the coast.

“There’s some trash talk on which side has a better view,” Naslund said.

“Mine does,” Hedman said, smiling.

On my last morning in Ovik, in early November, Hagglund gave me a tour of Fjallraven Arena and its wall of fame. I had lunch with Naslund at Mamma Mia’s, where dozens of Modo and NHL jerseys hang in frames from the wall, a stick tap to the tradition sparked by Forsberg, the Sedins & Co. The pizza was good, but so was the hometown charm and history, with Naslund fondly recalling how the owner gave them free meals after wins. “It was like a little carrot,” Naslund said.

Hedman, Naslund and Forsberg did a commercial for the restaurant, pretending they were working in the kitchen.

“This is a small town, a hockey town,” Hagglund said. “If you live here, you play hockey or you go to the church. That’s it. We don’t have football or other sports. The problem today is that young kids don’t play sports at all — there’s a lot of TV and esports. But hockey culture has always been big in Ovik, always been the No. 1 game.

“When you create a big star like Forsberg, everyone wants to be like Forsberg. The next generation wants to be the Sedin twins or Hedman. They were the idols for the young ones, and so it goes.”

Before I left for the Ovik airport, Olle took me for one last drive. We went by the old hockey arena, drove along the Gold Coast to check out Victor’s renovated, two-story, waterfront home. We went to the track where Victor trains every summer with former Penguins defenseman (and Modo standout) Hans Johnsson, part of the Naslund and Forsberg birth class of 1973. “The man behind Victor’s renaissance,” Olle says.

Olle shows me the paper mill, where he’d worked 14-hour shifts. His first apartment with Elisabeth. The couple, who met nearly 40 years ago on New Year’s Eve at an Ovik hotel bar, recently celebrated their 37th anniversary. Their three sons bought them a Caribbean cruise as a present. “You never know what would have happened (with Victor) if I hadn’t moved here,” Olle said.

“Everyone comes here to discover ‘the secret.’”

When I returned to Stockholm to cover the two Lightning games there, Hedman played a starring role in his storybook homecoming. He had an assist in a win over Buffalo on Friday night, then notched a power-play goal on a one-timer in Saturday’s sweep-clinching victory. The sellout crowd at Ericsson Globe chanted his name as he left the ice.

“A moment I’ll cherish forever,” he said.

During the postgame news conference, I asked Hedman if the fact that Modo (and his brother Oscar) had won that night, their 10th victory in a row, had made the moment sweeter. He nodded: “The entire Hedman family is happy.”

When Hedman walked off the podium and toward the dressing room, I thanked him for helping make my trip to his hometown such a success. Hedman shook my hand and asked: “So, did you figure it out? The secret?”

“Well,” I said. “It’s a long story.”

Hedman smiled. “You’re right about that.”

Joe Smith can be reached at [email protected]. Follow @JoeSmithTB.

(Photos: Joe Smith / For The Athletic)

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Planes, trains and buses: A journey to discover the secret of Ovik, the unlikely hockey factor