Klingberg rooting for brother, Sweden to bring home gold

There is an element of the bittersweet with the beginning of the Olympic hockey tournament this week in South Korea. For the first time since 1998, National Hockey League players will not be participating, and in dressing rooms around the NHL, players are lamenting what might have been.
Dallas is no different, as the Stars, in all likelihood, would have sent as many as eight players to the tournament had the NHL been able to smooth out its many differences with the International Olympic Committee, the players' union and other parties to extend its participation.
Certainly, John Klingberg would have been in the running for a spot with Team Sweden.

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That's not to say Klingberg won't be paying attention to what transpires in PyeongChang over the next couple of weeks. His older brother, Carl, will be donning the national Tre Kronor jersey to try and bring home a gold medal for the first time since Sweden's emotional win over archrival Finland in the gold medal game in Torino in 2006.
Not that Klingberg, 25, still doesn't feel the pain of the NHL's absence.
"Honestly, it sucks -- really hard," Klingberg said of the league not participating. "But he's going there (and), obviously, I'm going to watch it for sure. I know a lot of other guys on the team, as well, and I think they have a good chance to fight about the medals."
Still, for two competitive brothers, the fact that Carl will have this opportunity, while his younger brother -- who just happens to be the NHL's leading scoring defenseman and a contender for the Norris Trophy as the top defenseman in the NHL -- will not rankles.
"He's always going to have that above me. He's always going to be able to say he played in Olympics," Klingberg said. "You never know what's going to happen in four years -- where the NHL might be, where I might be. You never know. I feel like with the way I been playing this year, I would be able to for sure play on the national team in the Olympics. It sucks because that's something you grow up watching those Swedish teams. They won in Torino. (Mats) Sundin, (Nicklas) Lidstrom and (Peter) Forsberg scoring that goal against Finland." (Klingberg paused at this point to make sure Dallas netminder Kari Lehtonen, a former Olympian with Team Finland, had heard.)

"It sucks," Klingberg continued. "It sucks because that's a dream you always have to play in the Olympics with your country and fight about those medals."
Carl Klingberg, 27, was drafted by the Atlanta Thrashers 34th overall in 2009. The forward skated in one game with the Thrashers -- the franchise's last in the NHL before relocating to Winnipeg in the summer of 2011. He played 11 games with the Jets before returning to Europe and joining the Kontinental Hockey League and then the Swiss Elite League.
John Klingberg knows this is a great chance for his brother to reopen doors to a possible return to the NHL.
"It is, for sure," he said. "He loves playing in Switzerland, but I mean, everyone's dream is to play in the best league in the world and that's the NHL, and this is a really good chance for him to show that he can come back here and compete with the best players in the world.
"So, obviously, if he has a good Olympics, and then come back after and play a good season. He wants to chase his dream and come over here and try to make a team here."
The two brothers never played with each other in a formal hockey setting, but pretty much everywhere else, yes, there is a strong element of wanting to get the best of each other.
"I mean, just street hockey in the summers, it was always my team against his team. ... It was really competitive and video games and other stuff like that," Klingberg said.
This story was not subject to approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club. You can follow Scott on Twitter at @OvertimeScottB, and listen to his Burnside Chats podcast here.