Three days later, we set out on the longest of our banner journeys, to the town of Kiruna Sweden, located at 68 degrees north, well within the Arctic Circle. After Kiruna, there's just snow… maybe a few white walkers. Kiruna is an iron mining community and the birthplace of Borje Salming. His banner travelled over three days, from Toronto to Frankfurt and then to Stockholm where we met up with Mats Sundin for a quick visit… it was nice to see the big guy. From there it was off to Kiruna. At the airport we picked up Borje's teammate Tiger Williams. It's safe to say, those who proudly call Kiruna home, had never met anyone quite like the NHL's all-time penalty minutes leader. Within seconds, Tiger was chastising the airport bartender for displaying a poster of Zdeno Chara at the bar, in a country that calls Borje "King".
We arrived in Kiruna at 7:30 PM on December 2nd and were taken to our hotel, the Bishop's Arms, which also serves as the town's most popular pub and headquarters for the supporters of Kiruna AIF, Borje's former club. The beer taps were literally right beside check-in. After an evening of sharing stories with the locals, we turned in; Saturday was going to be a big day. Our morning began with a tour of the LKAB iron mine. It goes down 1.6 km under the town, so far under in fact, that they are currently undertaking the daunting task of relocating half of the town to a new location.
Kiruna is a beautiful place but at this time of year, one doesn't see much of the sun. Sunrise was at 10:25 AM that day, sunset at 12:35 PM. The long nights provided a wonderful showcase for number 21. The head office of the LKAB mine, Kiruna's largest building. had turned off all the lights, save those necessary to light up Borje's number for all to see.