Three principals welcome an overhaul of the school system: It’s very unfair
School representatives describe a series of challenges for Swedish hockey talents even to make it through high school.
The Swedish Ice Hockey Association’s match schedules and competition regulations don’t help either.
– It’s paradoxical, says Susan Oakeson, principal of Angelholm High School.
The J18 and J20 operations of Sweden’s elite clubs are in practice run as school teams. This is done through NIU activities conducted by local high schools along with Sweden’s elite associations.
The idea is that the student will receive a solid education while at the same time having the opportunity to increase their potential as an elite athlete.
But are the two compatible?
Susan Oakeson is the principal of Angelholm High School, who was educated at NIU along with Rögle BK. It describes a world in which young people find themselves in trouble.
The guardians want to get an incredibly good education because otherwise they lose out to their friends of the same age. But because these guys don’t have the ability to read school at the level it entails and manage their lives like the elite athletes they really are, they end up in trouble. The reason is that in Sweden we do not have a good school system that can be combined with the efforts of the elite. Because we don’t have that.
39 games a week
Take a look at the fixture schedule in the Swedish Ice Hockey Association’s J18 National Series North. Here, all teams are associated with an elite hockey education.
At 19:00 on Wednesday in February, J18 Modo played an away match against Skellefteå – at the same time they met on Thursday with Luleå.
The bus journey takes over four and a half hours between Örnsköldsvik and Lulea.
A week later, Lulea, in turn, traveled six hours south for a match against Timra at 19:00 on a weekday evening.
Of the total 90 matches arranged in the series between January and March, 39 were scheduled on weekdays. The teams were distributed simultaneously from Luleå in the north to Örebro in the south.
In March and April the playoffs continued with 24 matches and other teams from all over Sweden. J18’s SM final is scheduled for Friday in April.
The Swedish Ice Hockey Association, which set the game’s schedule, is also responsible for developing and monitoring NIU’s operations.
– It’s contradictory. I don’t really want to say more than that, says Susan Oakeson.
Dennis Olander is the director of the Sanda Sports Center in Jönköping municipality. There, training is conducted in a total of 15 sports, and ice hockey in association with HV71.
– We don’t see this amount of matches during the weeks in any other sport. It is an amazing device that hockey attracts at those ages and naturally a great responsibility falls on the school, the individual and the association. I feel like a parrot because I talk all the time when we’re recruiting new groups about what to do on the bus three hours down to Skåne and three hours back. That’s 25 percent of the day they sit on the bus, and if I can get a culture that they pick up their textbooks afterwards, I’m still convinced that with the help of digital means and the understanding of teachers we can get 2,500 school points together. There I always have a conversation with the HV71 because I think it’s about the leadership to make it work.
There is also criticism of the fact that clubs with teams in the highest league, the SHL, are automatically awarded a place in the highest league for J20 teams.
– I think this is very unfair. It provides not only the same conditions for competition but also for development and training. Färjestad would have been out last season if they didn’t have an SHL team, while Karlskrona, who worked hard, fought and invested a lot of resources and money, was out. If municipalities are going to invest money and resources, at least the same conditions should apply, says Andreas Lindbäck, principal and teacher at NIU School in Södertälje, Täljegymnasiet and Södertälje SK.
Whistleblowers tell Sportbladet how the chain’s composition is also causing anxiety among students. The perception that playing in the best J20 series is important for future career opportunities causes students to change schools or abandon their education.
Other times, the conditions for clubs with weaker brands, who unexpectedly gained access to the SHL, changed overnight. With the series’ place also at the top of the J20 series, they were suddenly able to attract more promising junior players.
Something to tear the difference and education for themselves and others.
Lindbäck mentions smaller clubs like Björklöven and Huddinge that he saw suffering the consequences of the system.
– They have a problem that they are great in J18, but then in J20 not all students want to stay. I see players leaving and they also have people calling us because they want to play in the Premier League even in their last year. I believe all accredited NIU clubs must play in their first division every three years. Then we were going to get away with this, otherwise you have to make sure everyone can get out. Because, oddly enough, the clubs that make the most money get the best conditions, Lindbäck says.
“I think this is the worst.”
Movers create major problems and, in the worst cases, cause students to drop out of their studies.
– What I think is the worst, and which I have experienced at some point, is when parents or agents for some reason want to transfer a student to another association, but the program they are training in is not available there. Then they cannot complete their education properly. There I think they abuse the students. The meaning of NIU, says Andreas Lindbäck, is that you must be able to get two jobs.
Susan Oakeson in Angelholm recognizes herself.
– With my club behind me, players will come here and then I can’t offer the same program as before. But you still really want to play ice hockey for this club and see it as an opportunity in life. Then you choose to ignore education and certification.
Magnus Hävelid is the J20 captain of the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation and has worked with NIU high schools in the country for several years. Describes how the association works consistently with the game schedule to make it easier for students.
Nothing goes unnoticed without a constant dialogue about how to achieve it. But we have to come to terms with the fact that sometimes the game is late. There are more teams and representatives at the ice rinks.
Can you play fewer games?
– Then comes the international perspective, which is that opponents play more matches than we do. So what is optimal? When we only had the J20 on Saturdays and Sundays for a while, a junior subject study (done in 2003) came to the conclusion that the boys should go to the SHL and play games three days a week. Then we have to get a weekly game too so they get used to it.
Hävelid also talks about the idea that the regional series should give students a study break during the fall, before games start in the spring. As for fixed places for SHL teams in the J20 series, he called it a privilege after the aforementioned investigation in 2003, when clubs were asked to invest more money in junior hockey.
– Some clubs at the time were on the verge of closing youth activities. But this keeps coming up. Should we get it this way? Because it is mathematically unfair from this perspective. But the background is that SHL clubs put a lot of money and commitment into this, so today it’s part of a larger agreement between the leagues.
At the same time, Susan Oakeson wonders if sports and school will ever become fully compatible.
“Fast downhill if it starts to swing”
She describes how the current NIU system is simply placed on top of the regular school system. The two do not adjust to each other and clashes continue.
Students at NIU are not in the same class but are spread out across different programs. Something that is very challenging in scheduling training and matches.
And the tight game schedule and grueling training routine make it virtually impossible for students to study 100 percent of the course material simultaneously. The alternative is to study high school in four years instead of three, but Oakeson’s experience is that this, in turn, is incompatible with ice hockey.
My experience is that they rarely stay for four years. They may be able to raise a grade in ice hockey or lure them somewhere else because they think it’s better there, Okeson says.
It can also happen that students are no longer allowed to play in the J20 team of the association, and at the same time they are very bad for the first team. Then they also have to move.
Hockey and school often go hand in hand. If you do well at hockey, you do well in school, too. But if they get a group that they’re not included in, things can quickly swing for these 16-year-olds. Which could lead to the downfall of the school, if the guardians are not there and can support.
It is clear that she advocates for students and is interested in painting the full picture of education. That there are many advantages and that many young people have impressive ambition both in ice hockey and in school.
But at the same time, she cannot close her eyes to the challenges.
There are a lot of pieces that have to work if these students are going to complete three years of high school. But as I see it, it’s our job to try to make everything as smooth as possible for the sake of the students. Then it crashes, but we still have to keep working to improve it.
At the same time, the manager sees new challenges soon piling on top of the already existing ones.
Inflation in the system
Today, select NIU schools offer students the opportunity to choose professional programs. This often means a slightly easier study trip.
But in 2023, professional programs will change. Courses required for basic university eligibility are added and the range swells when the guaranteed teaching time and number of secondary school hours per semester are increased.
– How will things go together, when the students are also on an internship? NIU students will not be able to choose to obtain their general eligibility because they will not have the time. Then I understand what they want with change but integration with NIU becomes impossible if you put in the right number of teaching hours.
The three deans welcomed the government’s investigation into the NIU system. But after the proposals were delayed, there is now uncertainty about what the future of the nation’s elite hockey high schools looks like.
– I’m divided because I see football doing a good job of showing it at the same time that there’s been a bloated seat. At the same time, I can see that it wouldn’t be stupid for a national takeover of ice hockey to make it happen evenly and that SHL clubs don’t control the search for players, which many think is a negative. So I see the advantages and disadvantages of both Susanne Åkesson in Ängelholm.
– I think it’s a shame that the investigation has been suspended. Much of what you’re asking about has been going on for many years, even if it has changed quite a bit. It could have been fine with a proper investigation and a fresh start with clearer frameworks, says Andreas Lindbäck in Södertälje.
Dennis Olander from Jönköping also wants to see something change.
– My personal opinion is that there was bloating in the NIU system. So I welcome a review so we can get quality across the board. Then we may have lost some sports with us, and it is clear that all sports federations are sitting on pins and needles in case they risk losing training grounds.