Happy 22nd Birthday to this handsome man.
*Photo curtesy of www.hockeymedmariehallman.se
Yes, on this day 22 years ago one particular little boy was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
This little boy’s name was Marcus Krüger. He started out playing hockey for Huddinge IK, a suburban club southwest of Stockholm, where he stayed until he left for another Stockholm club, a slightly bigger one with better opportunities than Huddinge, which was Hammarby IF, where he stayed for three years until he moved on to the club which has the best youth teams and the best prerequisites for any young player.
The club was Djurgårdens IF, where he just two years later, 18 years old, made his Swedish Elite League (or Elitserie, if you will) debut. He proceeded to earn himself a silver medal in the SEL 09/10, got nominated for the rookie of the year-award and was drafted in the fifth round, 149th overall, by the Chicago Blackhawks, and though he went to training camp in the summer he didn’t make the team and spent another year on loan in Djurgården, where they again made the playoffs.
They were sent out by Luleå in the quarter finals and he was immediately called up to the Blackhawks team who were trying to make the Stanley Cup playoffs, where he played the seven games that remained of the regular season and then played five playoff games against the Vancouver Canucks where he made his first NHL point.
After they were sent out of the playoffs he played for the Swedish team in the IIHF World Championship of hockey and went all the way to the final game, where they lost against Finland thus earning another silver medal.
During the season 11/12 he played 71 games in the regular season (11 missed due to injuries), noting 9 goals and 17 assists, 26 points in all with a +/- statistic of +11, 284 faceoff-wins, most of all rookies in the western conference and 4th among rookies overall and averaging 1:20 minutes in penalty killing per game, third among Blackhawk forwards, after Toews and Bolland; only 12 goals were allowed by the Blackhawks in box play with Krüger on the ice. After making the playoffs he played all six games, averaging 18 minutes per game.
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Reporter: “Do you have any particular warm-up routines?”
Krüger: Yeah. I think everybody does. It’s mostly about… It depends whether it’s for a game or just for practice, but for games I have a pretty strict… like how I like to prepare and how I like to do my warm-ups.
Reporter: Could you give me an example?
Krüger: I like to play some soccer before the game, I always do that, but before I do that I always get my sticks ready and I have some warm-up exercises that I do.
Reporter: What kind of music do you prefer to listen to before a game?
Krüger: I don’t really know, I don’t have anything that I particularly have to listen to. I like what we’re listening to in the locker room now, it’s always something different. I usually just listen to whatever’s playing in the locker room.
Reporter: Who’s in charge in the locker rooms?
Krüger: In charge of the music?
Reporter: No, like in general.
Krüger: In general? It’s “Pudding” who’s in charge isn’t it? [“Pudding” is in charge of the equipment in the Swedish team and he has been for years and years now, everyone kind of knows who he is.]
*laughter*
Reporter: Is there any of the players who like step into that role?
Krüger: We have a lot of leaders in this team who knows how everything works, there’s Affe [Daniel Alfredsson], Zäta [Henrik Zetterberg] and [Johan] Franzén, they’ve all been along for quite a while and they know what it takes.
Reporter: Is there someone who jokes around more than the others?
Krüger: I don’t know that there’s a real clown around but “Pajen” [Niklas Persson] talks an awful lot, so you hear him a lot, along with Erik Karlsson.
Reporter: There is a lot of travel as a hockey player, what do you do to pass the time?
Krüger: I usually watch TV shows on my iPad, a lot of TV shows…
Reporter: Which show is the best?
Krüger: I don’t know really, I just finished “Suits” and I thought that was quite good. When you watch a lot of shows you kind of get stuck and you have to follow them so…
Reporter: What do you do during the summer when you get some vacation time?
Krüger: I like to just hang with family and friends, I like spending time here in Stockholm too. I don’t really do anything special, I like to play golf sometimes, when I get the time… Stuff like that.
the saddest part of sweden losing is that landeskog wont make fun of kruger via tweets anymore :(
So true.
kellinbawler asked: thanks for translating that video!!!
It’s no problem, really!
I’m happy to translate videos for all of you who don’t speak Swedish.
(Source: brendanshanaban)
