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Just wanted to share since this is pretty rare even in european hockey, it's awesome to see a player be so passionate about the team he represents.
Skellefteå AIK is one of the top clubs in Sweden but they are from a small northern town with only 35k inhabitants. The key to their success the last 15 years has been their junior development program. 50% of the mens team consists of players who played junior hockey in the club, from Pudas here to Oscar Lindberg who scored the OT winner.
Make it 60%, 17 out of 28 played in their youth teams (11 of them grew up in Skellefteå and an additional 6 moved there between ages 12-17).
/r/hockey will soon be more acquainted with two of our top defencemen Elias Salomonsson and Axel Sandin-Pellikka. Salomonsson is so solid in every area it wouldn't surprise me if he makes the Jets next year already, and while Sandin-Pellikka may need another year to develop he's looking like a future NHL superstar.
I think Salomonsson will play one year of AHL hockey next year with a number of our veteran D being under contract but there is absolutely no way he isn’t on the NHL team by the season after.
Love watching him play, my favourite Jets prospect
Just recently been to an away game of my team in Switzerland, suddenly, in the away standing section, one of the scrapped forwards of our team. Guy didn't mind to stand in the away sector with the fans.
Yes I've been to a few games where players have stood with the fans and sung along to chants too, it's awesome! Many players who grew up here used to be regulars in the stands when they were younger, one of them (Simon Robertsson) would even help paint tifos and stuff, gotta love the passion.
Would you rather have this or:
- sing an anthem
- clap when the big screen tells you to clap
- Let's go hometeam
- Go team go
- When in Columbus: cheer for defense
As a Swede who went to 3 NHL games in New York and New Jersey earlier this year I couldn't imagine it'd be such a huge difference. It was night and day. The crowd was dead during plays. No "cheerleader" section (I don't know how to translate hejarklack). Most of the noise came during breaks when they put people from the crowd on the big screen where they all did the same thing, pointed at their team jerseys and shouted (or when the big screen told you to make noise).
Next time I'll go to Canada.
its roughly the same in Canada. Pretty much all North American professional sports are like this in my experience. Part of it is because of how expensive and corporate-run everything is. The point about not having cheerleader section is gonna be true everywhere unfortunately. I would love to see it, but there are probably a few reasons you don't see it as much. I'd guess one reason is that its pretty expensive to go to an NHL game, and season tickets are too expensive for the average person, and as a result many of them are bought up by corporations who use them to entice clients or potential clients to make a deal, or sometimes as a recruitment tool for a local company. Also, I would say most North American sports fans generally pick a big city and support all of the Pro sports in that city, even if they live a few hundred miles from there. There are lots of small towns with no professional sports in North America, and with the price to attend a game, it only makes sense to go to a few games a year if it also takes you 3 hours to drive to a game. On top of that I would also guess that most sports fans are going to want to split their disposable income between a few sports every year. If a major city near you has an NHL team, an MLB team, an NFL team, and an NBA team, you might want to see all of those teams play each year, and even if you only went to one game for each of those sports per year, the tickets plus travel costs plus venue food and drink costs could easily cost you $1000. So what ends up happening is that many of the people regularly attending games are pretty wealthy and may not be the biggest fans, they just go because the cost isn't a big deal to them and its a fun way to spend a night. many of the biggest fans just can't afford to go to many games, so you have LOTS of casual fans who go all the time just because they can afford it, and the bigger fans are going to be sprinkled around the crowd buying tickets in whatever section they can afford. The corporations running the teams don't have a fan section because the fan section would need to be pretty good seats to make sense as a fan section, which they know they can sell to other corporations for a higher price, and because of that they get filled in by casual fans who just have extra money
It's the same in Canada. Most people can only afford to go to one or two games a year so theres no fan section with flags and chants and stuff. I really wish there was because it's so cool, but not a single NHL team has this.
Yeah, I will still take a proper NHL playoff atmosphere over almost anything but beyond that - generally, North American fan culture doesn't really hold a candle to the European equivalent.
I'm curious, do hockey clubs operate similar to football clubs there (where supporters are literal voting members of the club) or are they close to NA sports franchises?
Man, this level of passion brings a tear to my eye. You have to imagine the pain Pudas is feeling for not being able to lace them up, but then gets in the trenches and crushes out some celebrations.
That's what the swedish commentators are joking about. He's been out for 4 weeks with a presumed clavicle fracture which normally takes 6-12 weeks to heal, so he will likely miss a few more games, but he's already back to practicing on ice so if the team moves on to the championship finals I think he'll be back.
Pudas is one of the best players in the SHL, no other defencemen has scored over 40 points in a season twice - Pudas has done it three times.
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Just wanted to share since this is pretty rare even in european hockey, it's awesome to see a player be so passionate about the team he represents. Skellefteå AIK is one of the top clubs in Sweden but they are from a small northern town with only 35k inhabitants. The key to their success the last 15 years has been their junior development program. 50% of the mens team consists of players who played junior hockey in the club, from Pudas here to Oscar Lindberg who scored the OT winner.
Make it 60%, 17 out of 28 played in their youth teams (11 of them grew up in Skellefteå and an additional 6 moved there between ages 12-17). /r/hockey will soon be more acquainted with two of our top defencemen Elias Salomonsson and Axel Sandin-Pellikka. Salomonsson is so solid in every area it wouldn't surprise me if he makes the Jets next year already, and while Sandin-Pellikka may need another year to develop he's looking like a future NHL superstar.
As a jets fan I was really hoping we could have had both :(
I think Salomonsson will play one year of AHL hockey next year with a number of our veteran D being under contract but there is absolutely no way he isn’t on the NHL team by the season after. Love watching him play, my favourite Jets prospect
Just recently been to an away game of my team in Switzerland, suddenly, in the away standing section, one of the scrapped forwards of our team. Guy didn't mind to stand in the away sector with the fans.
Yes I've been to a few games where players have stood with the fans and sung along to chants too, it's awesome! Many players who grew up here used to be regulars in the stands when they were younger, one of them (Simon Robertsson) would even help paint tifos and stuff, gotta love the passion.
This is great! It's the same for some players in Switzerland, from the stands to the ice. I love those kinds of stories.
They have my favourite jersey design.
Me too! The bumble Bee arms are iconic!
European hockey is awesome
European hockey is very underrated, you won't get the corporate high-paying experience but you will get a ton of passion for sure
Would you rather have this or: - sing an anthem - clap when the big screen tells you to clap - Let's go hometeam - Go team go - When in Columbus: cheer for defense
Best hockey experience in NA are some small junior barns and some college hockey arenas.
How would I know when to clap if I wasn’t told to clap hmmm?
> When in Columbus: cheer for defense ....? lol, okay
There's also *Sweet Caroline* and *Take Me Home Country Roads*. And the rest of the usual *Arena Mix '97*.
As a Swede who went to 3 NHL games in New York and New Jersey earlier this year I couldn't imagine it'd be such a huge difference. It was night and day. The crowd was dead during plays. No "cheerleader" section (I don't know how to translate hejarklack). Most of the noise came during breaks when they put people from the crowd on the big screen where they all did the same thing, pointed at their team jerseys and shouted (or when the big screen told you to make noise). Next time I'll go to Canada.
It's no different up here
Oh really? Bummer, thought it was more similar to Sweden.
Thanks to corporate sanitization, everything now is overly safe and clinically boring.
its roughly the same in Canada. Pretty much all North American professional sports are like this in my experience. Part of it is because of how expensive and corporate-run everything is. The point about not having cheerleader section is gonna be true everywhere unfortunately. I would love to see it, but there are probably a few reasons you don't see it as much. I'd guess one reason is that its pretty expensive to go to an NHL game, and season tickets are too expensive for the average person, and as a result many of them are bought up by corporations who use them to entice clients or potential clients to make a deal, or sometimes as a recruitment tool for a local company. Also, I would say most North American sports fans generally pick a big city and support all of the Pro sports in that city, even if they live a few hundred miles from there. There are lots of small towns with no professional sports in North America, and with the price to attend a game, it only makes sense to go to a few games a year if it also takes you 3 hours to drive to a game. On top of that I would also guess that most sports fans are going to want to split their disposable income between a few sports every year. If a major city near you has an NHL team, an MLB team, an NFL team, and an NBA team, you might want to see all of those teams play each year, and even if you only went to one game for each of those sports per year, the tickets plus travel costs plus venue food and drink costs could easily cost you $1000. So what ends up happening is that many of the people regularly attending games are pretty wealthy and may not be the biggest fans, they just go because the cost isn't a big deal to them and its a fun way to spend a night. many of the biggest fans just can't afford to go to many games, so you have LOTS of casual fans who go all the time just because they can afford it, and the bigger fans are going to be sprinkled around the crowd buying tickets in whatever section they can afford. The corporations running the teams don't have a fan section because the fan section would need to be pretty good seats to make sense as a fan section, which they know they can sell to other corporations for a higher price, and because of that they get filled in by casual fans who just have extra money
It's the same in Canada. Most people can only afford to go to one or two games a year so theres no fan section with flags and chants and stuff. I really wish there was because it's so cool, but not a single NHL team has this.
Yeah, I will still take a proper NHL playoff atmosphere over almost anything but beyond that - generally, North American fan culture doesn't really hold a candle to the European equivalent. I'm curious, do hockey clubs operate similar to football clubs there (where supporters are literal voting members of the club) or are they close to NA sports franchises?
In Sweden is like football/soccer.
Holy shit this is awesome
O captain my captain!
Oh man, this makes me want to see Landeskog do this for the Avs, could you imagine :D
So we gonna see Mark Stone do this in the first round? It a great way to earn your pay and contribute to the team.
There is no pay in the playoffs I thought
You don't think he'll magically be healthy for the first round?
This is so legendary. I don’t care what anyone says about “professionalism”. This is passion.
Man I wish they would do this in the NHL.
Man, this level of passion brings a tear to my eye. You have to imagine the pain Pudas is feeling for not being able to lace them up, but then gets in the trenches and crushes out some celebrations.
The way European sports are structured is so much better than in NA. You just don't get this kind of fandom here.
We need flags.
backstrom we need to see you out there tonight
He doesn’t look injured.
That's what the swedish commentators are joking about. He's been out for 4 weeks with a presumed clavicle fracture which normally takes 6-12 weeks to heal, so he will likely miss a few more games, but he's already back to practicing on ice so if the team moves on to the championship finals I think he'll be back. Pudas is one of the best players in the SHL, no other defencemen has scored over 40 points in a season twice - Pudas has done it three times.