How Swede it was

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This article was published 19/09/2004 (7903 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In 1974, Winnipeg Jets fans

were witnesses to a hockey revolution

when two unheralded young players from Sweden

teamed up on a line with Bobby Hull

and changed the way hockey

is played in North America

When Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson arrived in Winnipeg in 1974, they joined superstar Bobby Hull on a line that would turn the Winnipeg Jets into a World Hockey Association powerhouse. The following in an excerpt from a new book about the WHA by Vancouver Province columnist Ed Willes, a former Winnipeg hockey writer.

BOBBY Hull was aware he hadn’t selected the path of least resistance when he signed with the Winnipeg Jets, but by the end of his second year, the romance of his trailblazing experience was starting to wear as thin as his hairline.

The Jets of Year 2 finished five games under .500 and were blitzed by the Houston Aeros in four straight in the first round of the playoffs. Hull scored 53 goals that season, but the next-closest Jet was Norm Beaudin with 27. At one point, in order to spread out the team’s scoring, Hull took himself off his regular line with Beaudin and Christian Bordeleau and skated with Danny Spring and Ron Snell. Suffice to say, no one bothered thinking up a nickname for that trio.

“After a while I learned why a lot of these guys couldn’t make it in the NHL,” Hull says, before adding, “That first year I rarely had a meal with the team. I was shuttled in and out of towns to speak to the chambers of commerce. I must have talked to everyone in Winnipeg four times that first year. My dad told me what would happen, but I thought, What the hell, nothing ever bothered me before. But I hadn’t gone through anything like that before.

“By that third year I was just about done. I went to Billy Robinson (the Jets’ chief scout) and Gerry Wilson (team doctor and a former junior star) and told them we had to do something about the menagerie we’d collected.”

A world away, something was being done. While the Golden Jet was bemoaning his lot with the Jets, events were taking place in Sweden that would unite Hull with two young Swedes, Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson. These two, along with another Swede, defenceman Lars-Erik Sjoberg, would arrive in Winnipeg that year and form the nucleus of the best WHA team ever. They would also break down the prejudices against European players and introduce elements of artistry and imagination that, when combined with the best aspects of the North American game, would forever change the face of hockey. You can argue whether the Hull-Hedberg-Nilsson line — the Hot Line — was the best line in the game’s history, but they were inarguably the most influential. They played together for just four years, but when they were done practically every NHL team was trying to capture the magical combination of speed, skill and creativity the line possessed. Glen Sather built his Edmonton Oilers dynasty on the Jets model. The modern transition game was pioneered by Hull and his colleagues, as was the practice of interchanging forward roles on the rush. The numbers they accumulated in their four seasons together are staggering, but they played in a league that didn’t have a television contract, which means most of their legacy is anecdotal and almost mythic. In the end, that only seems to add to their aura. And if the NHL never saw the best of Hedberg and Nilsson, in much the same way the NBA never saw the best of Julius Erving, it makes their four years in Winnipeg that much more memorable.

“They revolutionized the game,” says André Lacroix, the seven-year WHA veteran. “They said, Just because you play left wing doesn’t mean you have to go up and down your wing like a robot. You can use the whole ice. It was exciting.”

“They were unbelievable,” says Glen Sonmor, the longtime WHA and NHL coach and general manager. “It’s a pity the NHL never saw the best of the two Swedes. They never wanted to give our league any credit, but they were as good as any line I’ve ever seen.”

“There was no line in our league who even came close to them,” says Joe Daley, goalie with the Jets for all seven years of the WHA. “You had to compare them with players they didn’t play against, but they were the best I ever played with or against.”

Hull played on three of the most famous lines in hockey: the Million Dollar Line in Chicago with Red Hay and Murray Balfour; the HEM line in Chicago with Phil Esposito and Chico Maki; and the Hot Line. He says the two Swedes were, hands down, the best he ever played with.

“The first time we went up the ice together it was like we’d never played with anybody else,” says Hull. “It was one of the greatest lines to ever play the game. It made the game fun for me again.”

It also made the game fun for everyone who watched them.

As with all great stories, there is an element of serendipity in the tale of Hull’s union with the two Swedes that adds to its appeal. Dr. Gerry Wilson was one of the best junior prospects in all of Canada during his playing days, but a knee injury ended his career and sent him into medicine, where he eventually became an orthopedic surgeon. In the fall of 1973, he was given a $30,000 grant to conduct research at a Stockholm sports institute, where his research assistant was a young winger on the Swedish national team named Anders Hedberg. Wilson, who was from Winnipeg and the father of future NHLer Carey Wilson, wasn’t officially connected with the Jets but was close to several members of the organization, particularly Billy Robinson, the chief scout. Hedberg, for his part, was playing for Djurgarden in the Swedish elite league at the time, and while he was curious about the game on the other side of the ocean, it wasn’t his burning ambition to play in North America.

“I didn’t know much about the NHL or the WHA in those days,” says Hedberg, now the director of player personnel for the Ottawa Senators. “Teams were just starting to tour. There was no television and there wasn’t much of an exchange of ideas. We played Canada in an exhibition game in ’72 (before Team Canada went on to Russia) and we kept hearing this term superstar. We didn’t know what it meant, but it seemed they were playing the same game as us and skating the same speed.”

Others weren’t so sure. Despite the epic Canada-Russia series of 1972, the hockey world of that time had a narrow, dismissive view of European players. Ulf Sterner, a member of the Swedish national team, played four games with the New York Rangers in 1964-65 before he returned to his homeland. Defenceman Thommie Bergman, who would play with the Jets, came over and played a full season with the Detroit Red Wings in 1972-73. Defenceman Borje Salming and winger Inge Hammarstrom joined the Toronto Maple Leafs the following season. Slowly, attitudes were changing, and the Europeans had some champions in North America, but they were still regarded with suspicion and mistrust. The enduring image of all Swedish players was forever cast when Leafs owner Harold Ballard said of Hammarstrom, “He can go into the corner with eggs in his pockets and come out without breaking any of them.”

The Jets, however, weren’t in a position to be choosy prior to the 1974-75 season. With Hull growing increasingly sour on the Canadian Prairies, Wilson struck up a relationship with Hedberg — “It was a case of two hockey guys hitting it off,” Hedberg says — and was invited out to some of Djurgarden’s games. There, the good doctor quickly formed the opinion that the chasm between the North American and European games wasn’t as wide as some had suggested. The best Swedish players could not only survive in the NHL and the WHA, he concluded, they could thrive. About the same time, Wilson received a letter from Robinson saying the Jets needed help and he should keep his eyes open for players. Wilson approached Hedberg, who told him he preferred the idea of playing in the NHL, but he’d listen. Hedberg then gave Wilson the name of a slender young centre playing for AIK, Ulf Nilsson, and a defenceman playing for Leksand, Lars-Erik Sjoberg. Wilson eventually contacted the other two on behalf of the Jets.

Again, the Jets had help from outside forces in landing the Swedes. Nilsson had been on Buffalo’s negotiating list, and Sabres GM Punch Imlach had gone to the 1974 world championships in Helsinki to scout him. Nilsson, however, had taken some cough medicine before the tournament, tested positive for a banned substance, and never played. Sjoberg, meanwhile, was on the Minnesota North Stars’ list but cracked a rib early in that same tournament and missed the first week of play. The Stars’ scout went home and recommended the defenceman be taken off the team’s list. Sjoberg returned to the Swedish lineup later in the tournament and was named outstanding defenceman for the championship.

Hedberg was on Toronto’s negotiating list, and even though the Leafs would offer more money, he was intrigued with the idea of playing in Winnipeg with Hull and with his fellow Swedes. As chance would have it, Dennis Sobchuk, the WHA’s young million-dollar star, had just toured Sweden with his junior team, and the Regina Pats were drubbed in a series of exhibition games.

“I thought, If they give Dennis Sobchuk a million dollars, I can play over there,” says Hedberg. “I also thought, What the heck, if I don’t make it in Winnipeg, I can always play in Toronto.”

“It’s gratifying to know I was an inspiration to such a great player,” Sobchuk responds dryly.

Hedberg and Nilsson also needed representation in North America, and Wilson recommended a young lawyer of his acquaintance, Don Baizley, who’d done some work with the Jets’ Fran Huck. The two players and Baizley met with Billy Robinson at the Viscount Gort hotel coffee shop in Winnipeg and a deal was struck. Sjoberg would sign up later. The Jets had taken a huge step into the unknown.

“We talked about it among ourselves, and we decided it would be so much better if we could go together and influence a team with the European style of play,” says Nilsson. “I think I would have had trouble if I went by myself to Buffalo. The more we talked about it, the better Winnipeg sounded.”

The Jets weren’t finished with the great European experiment. Robinson, whose role in hockey history has been under-reported, made three trips into northern Europe prior to the 1974-75 season and would eventually add Finns Veli-Pekka Ketola and Heikki Riihiranta and Swedish goalie Curt Larsson. Thommie Bergman, the original pioneer, would join the team midway through that season. Wilson and Robinson then returned home with their new players and the belief that the Jets were on the leading edge of an exciting new movement in hockey. Others thought they were insane.

“The first impression from everybody in North America was this was a joke,” says Wilson. “But once it started, it just took off. There’s no question it was Bill’s initiative. He kept it alive.”

“My biggest problem was convincing (Jets owner) Benny Hatskin to spend the money to go over there,” Robinson says. “He kept saying, ‘Why the hell do you want to go over there? How much is this going to cost me?’ But I had a friend in the travel business and he’d get me these cheap flights to Copenhagen, then I’d make my own way from there. I’ve often wondered what would have happened to our team if I didn’t know that travel agent.”

For all of Hatskin’s budgetary concerns, the Swedes would prove to be one of the best bargains in hockey history. Nilsson and Hedberg were signed to two-year deals that started at $60,000. Sjoberg signed for a little more, but he was 30 when he played his first year with the Jets. Robinson said his team didn’t pay a nickel to the Swedish hockey federation for the three stars. Hedberg and Nilsson would later sign deals with the New York Rangers for 10 times their original contracts with the Jets.

“I knew I was on to something, but I didn’t really understand until I got them over here,” Robinson says. “I stayed in the background. That was bad for me. It’s not so much the recognition I missed but just the acknowledgment I played a big part in it.”

Maybe the biggest part. Robinson and Wilson kept Hull informed of the negotiations, and the Swedes were promised they’d play on a line with the great left wing. When Hedberg pointed out he was a left-handed shot, Robinson said, “Great, now you’re a right winger.”

Before the Jets opened their training camp in Year 3, Hull was in sweats, skating with the University of Manitoba team at Winnipeg’s St. James Civic Centre when his new linemates arrived for a workout session. Hull was in one corner of the rink. Hedberg and Nilsson were in the other. Hull picked up a puck and took off on a line rush.

He still remembers that moment as clearly as any in his career.

“I just picked up the puck in the corner, and these two guys sprang from the other side,” says Hull. “Then it was bing-bing-bing and in the net, and I just said, ‘What the (expletive) have we got here?'”

“We were doing these line rushes against a college team, and we couldn’t miss,” says Hedberg. “I said to Ulfie after the practice, ‘This is unbelievable! I wonder what Bobby is thinking?’ Bobby had rushed home and called Jerry Wilson. He said, ‘This is unbelievable! I wonder what the Swedes are thinking?’ Honestly, we had goosebumps we were so excited about playing with each other.”

Hull would soon leave for the WHA’s 1974 series against the Soviet national team, and when he returned, Jets GM Rudy Pilous was already doubting the durability of the Swedes.

“He said, ‘Wait till they start laying the body on them,'” Hull says. “I just said, ‘(Expletive), Rudy, you just watch.'”

Pilous and the rest of the league got an eyeful. In their first game together, the new line scored 41 seconds after the opening faceoff against the Vancouver Blazers, and Hull says Hedberg missed an open net later that same shift. After seven games, the Jets had a 6-1 record, Hull was leading the league in scoring with 10 goals and 17 points, Nilsson was third with three goals and 14 points, and Hedberg was sixth with four goals and eight points. They would maintain that pace for the rest of the season, and while the Jets just missed the playoffs, they rejuvenated the franchise in Winnipeg and Hull’s passion for the game. The season before the Swedes arrived, the Jets had drawn an average crowd of 6,102 per game. With the Swedes in the lineup, the average jumped to 8,586 fans. The year before, Hull had scored 53 goals and totalled 95 points. In his first season playing with Hedberg and Nilsson, he rang up 77 goals and 142 points.

“It was a new lease on life,” Hull says. “I was ready to call it quits, then I finally found a couple of kids who could play the game the way I wanted to play it. My dad used to tell me, ‘You’ve got the whole ice in front of you, why would you just go up and down your wing? Go where you want to go.’ And that’s exactly the way they played the game.”

“It was like three great jazz musicians playing together,” Wilson says. “It was three completely different personalities and three completely different styles of play. But they just seemed to fit together. No one knows why. They just did.”

The line, in fact, was a study in contrasts. The Golden Jet is best remembered today for his booming slapshot and end-to-end rushes, but in the autumn of his career, Hull, one of hockey’s greatest individualists, had developed an intelligence and instinct for the team game that was at the core of the line’s success. Hedberg, who’d never really played with Nilsson before their arrival in Winnipeg, had blinding straightaway speed, was fearless going to the net, and could shoot the puck in stride as well as anyone in the game’s history. Nilsson, meanwhile, supplied the X factor with his vision, creativity, and uncanny passing ability. They were three distinctive talents, but they played with one heart and one brain at the same inspired level. As Wilson said, no one knows why. They just did.

“I can’t explain it,” says Hedberg. “I don’t think anyone can. That was part of the magic.”

From The Rebel League by Ed Willes. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.