Last year, two of PowerPlayGoal.com’s writers saw their very first NHL game at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden, between the San Jose Sharks and Columbus Blue Jackets. They went to the latter game of the two, which wasn’t exactly successful from a ticket sales standpoint when compared to other NHL Premiere events. This year, they returned to the very same place to see another NHL game between the New York Rangers, and – more importantly for one of our writers – the Anaheim Ducks.
Our arrival to Stockholm this year was quite a bit different from last. Not only was it packed due to the blue line being closed off and it being rush hour, but the T-Centrallen station was partially being remodelled, which threw us off at first. We saw more hockey fans too, mostly of the Rangers but there were a small few random other teams fans too, including both a Rangers and a Kings fan who had boarded our plane at London Heathrow, most likely from connecting flights.
After arriving at our hotel, all three of us in our respective teams’ jerseys, there were some Rangers fans sitting in the lobby. “Rangers!” one of them called out. “Stars!” Kev called back. “Ducks!” I joined in. “No comment,” said the Oilers fan who was with us.
After dumping our stuff in our hotel room, we spent the night wandering the city and re-familiarising ourselves with central Stockholm. We found one of many 7 Eleven shops, this one in particular where we got our nasty liquorice puck ice creams from last year; however we found that, much to our indifference, they were no longer being sold. Upon returning to the hotel I learned of the Ducks’ 4-1 loss in their game against the Sabres over in Helsinki, leaving me with a slight feeling of dread as we headed to bed.
Up we got at 7am on Saturday for a day out in the city, exactly 12 hours before the game started. With that much time we had a very similar wander around the city to what we did last year: firstly through Gamla Stan, and then around different parts of the city for the rest of the day. Funnily enough, the folks selling the fake unauthorised NHL Premiere team scarves outside the Globe last year had now moved to the city centre to flog their stuff. Seems the NHL had finally done something about it, but we noticed a little old lady who was more than happy to buy one: she didn’t seem interested in the design, but it was cold and she needed a scarf. Fair enough. At one point we actually had one of these sellers follow us down a street for a brief period of time while they were seemingly desperate to sell the scarves: fortunately, we couldn’t understand a word they were saying so we politely ignored them.
During our pregame dinner at a Max restaurant we saw a pair of Rangers fans walk past the window and they spotted me in my Ducks jersey: I pointed at them whilst pulling a faux angry face as they continued to walk past, and got some laughs back from them. Seems I achieved my goal.
And at last, it was time to head to the Globe for the game. Many NHL jerseys could be seen – mostly of the Rangers as this event was pretty much being advertised as “Come see Lundquist!” But of course, this team’s apparent popularity in Sweden also helped. The number of Ranger fans and jersey wearers was of course followed by the Ducks, and we saw at least one jersey of most of the remaining NHL teams, including someone who already got their hands on a new Winnipeg Jets jersey. Unsurprisingly the merchandise stands inside the building were once again packed, and with overpriced team and event merchandise (totally worth it though) including the New York Rangers’ iconic blue home sweater and the Anaheim Ducks’ boring adequate black home jersey, which I found quite funny as neither of these uniforms were being worn on the ice tonight.
Notably there was a severe cutback of stuff going on around the rink. Last year we had both ESPN America and another group who let us shoot pucks at both a picture of a goalie with holes cut out, and then a real goalie respectively, in addition to EA’s NHL 11 stand. Disappointingly the first two were now gone – not too much of a shocker in ESPN’s case since they lost the European NHL license – and all that was there this time was the NHL 12 stand and one where you could try on Rangers coloured goalie gear, which admittedly was still kinda cool.
Our seats this time around were in the B section of the arena. The view from the high up C section last year was decent enough, but this one being closer to the action and also at a different angle gave us a much better view of the rink – ironically, it also cost exactly the same as the C section seats last year. I imagine the higher prices were off putting for many people last year, but the cheaper tickets this year were just one of many draws for European fans this year.
Soon enough the Ducks and Rangers came out to the ice for their pregame warmup. For me, this brought about the end of an eight year wait as I saw my favourite sports team in the world in front of my eyes for the first time. Normally I’d consider myself a reserved individual, but for this occasion – a pregame warmup, nonetheless – I let out a huge cheer when the Ducks skated out to their end of the rink. I may or may not have gotten some funny looks, but I don’t remember noticing, nor did I really care. Fact is I’d waited a long time for this moment and I was going to savour it in the best way possible. It took a while for the fact that the Ducks were on the ice to sink in, and after a couple of minutes I wondered why the hell I wasn’t taking any photos. Then I whipped out the camera and got as many as I could.
And then eventually, the two teams skated out to the ice again for the start of the game. I must’ve clapped really hard as the Ducks player names were being announced as my left hand ached for quite a while, so I had to refrain from clapping at times, and in the third period I settled for occasionally blowing my Anaheim branded duck call instead. Not surprisingly, Lundqvist and the Rangers’ popularity essentially made this a home game for the Rangers even though it was officially designated as a home game for the Ducks. The “Let’s Go Ducks” on the jumbotron played only once, as it got a comparatively quiet response compared to the “Let’s Go Rangers” video. There were a whole bunch of seats in the A Section where Ducks fans from Anaheim were seated, but the Rangers fans were around everywhere else. Still, the Ducks did get to use their “GET LOUD” video which got a positive response all around. The building was pretty much sold out which helped to make the atmosphere a lot better than last year, and despite me being a Ducks fan, the mass crowd reaction when the Rangers scored their only goal of the game was incredible. For me personally, I cheered loud enough when the Ducks made their scores and such, as did the other Ducks fans in attendance, but hearing the Ducks goal horn was all I needed to complete the experience – even if it was just an MP3 file.
The game itself was great to watch – both teams had an interesting storyline leading up to the puck drop, with them both losing their previous games, and wanting to redeem themselves and take two points home with them. As a result unlike last year we actually did get to see a few fights, and it really felt like there was something at stake for both teams rather than a mutual feeling of “let’s just get this over with and go home”. There were not many goals scored, but the game was kept very close – as you’d expect from a typical game featuring the Ducks. I was excited to see Anaheim score and get the early lead, but New York’s late tying goal in the third period took the game into overtime, and eventually a shootout which lasted for four rounds. I guess I have the Rangers to thank for making the game last longer and making it even more exciting to watch, but the eventual win for Anaheim was the icing on the cake for me. The first Ducks game I ever attended, a victory for my favourite team, got to see my favourite Duck of all time Teemu Selanne at least once before he retires, and all in all the game was great to watch; more than made up for me having to pass when they came over to London a few years back. Seeing them in Stockholm has all but made me forget about that, and I no longer lament the fact that I wasn’t there four years ago. Naturally I left the game with a very good feeling, one that I hadn’t felt in a long time, and pretty much had a grin on my face all the way back to the hotel.
The following two days we pretty much did as we did last year: kill time and enjoy the city some more before flying back home to England. On Sunday we did as we did last year, returning to the Globe arena to take a look around the outside for the aftermath of the game. The remains of tickets and such were nonexistent, despite there being far more people in attendance than there were at last year’s game. This time we also looked deeper into the nearby shopping centre, which had a small shop downstairs which we somehow missed last year: the DIF (Djurgårdens IF Hockey) team store. The nearby arena known as Hovet – a smaller capacity building that’s literally right next to the Globe – is this team’s home, and occasionally the Globe too, so it only makes sense to have the team store somewhere nearby (oddly unless we missed something, the same couldn’t be said for another team, AIK – or Allmänna Idrottsklubben, despite sharing the same venues as DIF). The DIF shop did have merchandise for its own team, but over half of the shop had NHL merchandise up for sale, including a select few team jerseys, hats, t-shirts and scarves, including Sharks and Blue Jackets scarves from last year.
Not much more to add other than the fact that we randomly bought some hockey sticks which thankfully survived the flight home. With this year’s games turning out to be a lot more interesting than past events, here’s hoping the NHL sticks with this method of scheduling for next season’s Premiere.
