Tommy Salo is disappointed that he wasn’t nominated for the Hockey Times gala.
Christer Englund, who was the jury foreman, understands the reaction.
– There were difficult choices, we wanted to spread the options over time, he says.
Tommy Salo He won the decisive penalty kick from Canada’s Paul Kariya in the 1994 Olympic gold medal in Lillehammer.
There was also a World Cup gold in 1998 when he kept a clean sheet in the final game against Finland, six more World Cup medals, three World Cup Goalkeeper nominations, ten NHL seasons, Edmonton Oilers MVP four seasons, 37 Clean sheets in the National Hockey League and All-Star Game.
However, he was not listed among the five Swedish goalkeeper choices when the public would have voted for the All Star of the Times team prior to the Hockey Gala of the Times.
– You’re a little surprised. I should have been top five. Tommy Salo says the benefits speak for themselves.
Discuss it at length
It also means that he was invited to participate in the ceremony as one of the specially invited.
Tommy Salo is a great goalkeeper. He was definitely on the list for a long time when we were in the process of reducing the number of goalkeepers to five. We debated back and forth, but in the end there was a lot of consensus and we were very much on the jury. Christer Englund says there are a lot, both full-backs and forwards, that people miss and who may also have been disappointed.
Instead, goalkeepers Leif “Honken” Holmqvist, Lennart “Kleppen” Hagroth, Peter “Pekka” Lindmark, Henrik Lundqvist and Billy Lindbergh were nominated.
– We’ve been watching Swedish hockey for 100 years, especially since its inception in the 1950s. It reflects our nominations, it should be published over time. Christer Englund says it’s hard to play against each other when they’re playing in different eras.
“It’s very hard to compare.”
On the jury were “people with a wide knowledge of ice hockey both presently and historically”.
It’s impossible to pit Tommy Salo against Lennart “Climpen” Hagroth. It’s not just about the present, there are many who remember the “Klimpen” heyday and have the 1962 Ice Hockey World Cup in Colorado as a solid memory. Pelle Lindbergh is also special because he wasn’t in Sweden for long, then spent five amazing years in the NHL and is expected to have a brilliant future before his tragic death. Pitting these things against each other is very difficult, says Christer Englund.
The Times Hockey Gala takes place in Globen on the same day as Svenska Ice Hockey Association He turns 100 on Thursday, November 17th.
The concert is broadcast live on SVT1 from 20:00.