NHL.com staff writer Mike Zeisberger has been covering the NHL regularly since 1999. Each Sunday he will use his extensive networks of hockey contacts to write his weekly notes column, “Zizing ‘Em Up.”
TORONTO -- It was at Hall of Fame weekend exactly one year ago that Borje Salming, losing his valiant battle against ALS, made back-to-back pregame appearances at Scotiabank Arena, eliciting well-deserved standing ovations each night.
We soon learned it was his way of saying goodbye to the city and the fans where the defenseman played 16 of his 17 NHL seasons with the Maple Leafs (1973-89) before finishing his career with the Detroit Red Wings (1989-90).
Less than two weeks later, he died in his native Sweden.
Twelve months later, he certainly hasn’t been forgotten. Glenn Healy and the NHL Alumni Association are helping make sure of that.
The organization has created the Borje Salming Courage Award in honor of the Hall of Famer. The first recipient will be fellow Swedish Hall of Famer Nicklas Lidstrom, the seven-time Norris Trophy winner as the NHL’s best defenseman with Detroit.
According to Healy, the president and executive director of the NHLAA, Lidstrom will be presented with the award prior to the opening game of the 2023 NHL Global Series presented by Fastenal in Stockholm between the Red Wings and Ottawa Senators on Thursday.
Asked about the genesis of creating the award, Healy pointed to Salming’s influence not only for Swedish hockey, but to clear the way to make the NHL the global league that it has become.
“There has to be a first guy, right?” Healy said. “The first guy to pioneer. The first guy to trailblaze. The first guy, and I’m not trying to be corny, but the first guy to go where no guy had gone before.
“When you talk to Swedish players, he’s still revered over there. He’s a God-like figure when it comes to the sport there.”
In 1973, then-Maple Leafs general manager Jim Gregory made waves by signing Salming and forward Inge Hammerstrom. On Jan. 4, 1988, he became the first European to play 1,000 NHL games. In 1996, he became the first European player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, representing a legacy that opened the door for players around the world to aspire to play in the world’s top league.
But it didn't come without it’s aches and pains. Salming was often targeted with cheap shots by opposing teams who questioned the resiliency of the guy from across the Atlantic.
Salming may have bled, but he never flinched.
“When he came here, he was challenged by every team,” Healy said. “They didn’t think he was tough enough. He wasn’t big enough. He wasn’t fast enough. They all challenged him. And he met every one of those challenges. And while doing that, he in some ways paved the way for all of them to come over.”
Healy said there are statistics to back up Salming’s impact on the NHL to this day.
“The numbers that stand out to me is, we’ve had 1,300 Europeans who have played in the NHL," Healy said. "We’ve had 1,200 Americans, and they had a 60-year head start. What’s that tell you?
“You’ve had this European invasion led by one pioneer, one trailblazer with a tremendous amount of courage. And that was Salming.”
To this day, Healy still marvels at the physical hockey specimen that Salming was. Specifically, he remembers the summer skates some of the local NHLers would have in the late 1980s in Scarborough, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto.
“We would have skated for about a month,” said Healy, a goalie with the Los Angeles Kings at the time. “We’d train every day. We’d ride the bike. We’d lift weights. We’d do sprints. We’d do it all. Every guy was an NHL player. It was pretty intense for the entire month of August.
“In would come Salming in the first week of September. Not skated. Not trained. Not anything. He’d step on the ice. First minute, best player. How? Bouncing the puck off his skate. Bouncing the puck off his stick. Pure skill. And that’s against all NHLers.
“The first words out of every guy’s mouth to him were … well, I can’t really repeat them, but they weren’t nice words.
“Incredible talent.”
As such, Healy thinks Lidstrom is the perfect first recipient of the award.
“Look at the Norris Trophies,” he said. “And look at the classy way he conducted himself.”
To that end, Lidstrom is a board member of the Borje Salming ALS Foundation, an organization that supports research to find a cure for the heinous disease.
[Borje] was one of the first to pave the way for us Swedes in the NHL in his way of playing,” Lidstrom said last year.
“He was an amazing person. So caring, so humble, so warm.”
