STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN,  2007

 

I remember that morning. I was going to portray one of the coolest hockey legends ever for a magazine and had no ideas up my sleeve. Stopped at a Seven Eleven for a latte on the run. My eyes picked up on the Ice-cream menu....yeees!! Of course, the hockey puck ice-cream – smashing white vanilla with a sweet black liquorish layer on top!

 

Boom! Börje Salming biting back on the pucks that knocked his teeth out during his career.

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We had a great time in the studio and the image made a great cover. I interviewed him as I have done with most of the people I portrayed over the years. On my question how it is to live the dream life, now after his über-successful hockey career, he answered: "This is not my dream life, I want to be a farmer up in the north where I grew up".

 

His childhood life was up in the northern Sweden, a beautiful house far away from the small town Sami. Only a few neighbohrs around. Next to the lake Torneträsk in Jukkasjärvi. With deep forests right around the corner His father was a true indigenous sami and his mother was Swedish.

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That is a good reminder of the whims of happiness. Its all there inside of us no matter what the world outside have to offer. Being a hockey legend and hall of famer he is offered premises others can only dream of. Still he is searching for his happiness in his way. I bet he learned skating on the Torneträsk ice, and that those days were closer to his inner happiness than the days of fame today. I should have asked him that. Next time I will.

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Thank you for the inspiring moments together, Börje.

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