As he's inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this weekend in Toronto, Lundqvist was a regular topic of interest for THN – mostly because he was about as flawless a player and person as it gets.
Vol. 65, Issue 9, Nov. 14, 2011The Hockey Hall of Fame’s 2023 induction takes place this weekend in Toronto. This year, a trio of goalies who have graced the cover of THN’s magazines are the key inductees from the player’s category.
This year’s class includes New York Rangers icon Henrik Lundqvist, arguably the most handsome man to ever play NHL hockey.
THN put him on the cover for our Nov. 14, 2011 issue – Vol. 65, Issue 9 – and we playfully jabbed at him for having “freakish perfection” as not just an elite goaltender but as a physical human being.
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In the cover story article for that issue, then-senior writer Ken Campbell detailed all the reasons there were for jealous types to harp on Lundqvist: his looks, his status as a superstar netminder, his place as a New York City icon, his handsome salary and his typically Swedish good graces in dealing with fans and media. If you were a Rangers fan, you knew how fortunate your team was to have Lundqvist – and if you were a fan of a team that was playing the Blueshirts, you knew how hard you had to look to find any fault with him whatsoever.
Lundqvist enters the Hockey Hall of Fame with lifetime NHL stats, including 887 regular-season games played, a 2.43 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage. He didn’t win a Stanley Cup, but he did play in a Cup final one year, and his playoff numbers (including a .921 SP and 2.30 GAA) were always better – a sure sign of an elite competitor. And Lundqvist was fully aware of how blessed he was.
“I like my life; I like what I do,” Lundqvist said in the article. “I feel very lucky to be able to play hockey in New York. When I look back on my career, there are certain points where your ability helped you, but you also have some luck along the way. I’m very grateful that I got the chance to play here.”
As he enters the Hall of Fame this weekend, Lundqvist cements his legacy. Just about as flawless as it gets.
“Got It All”
Vol. 65, Issue 9, Nov. 14, 2011
By Ken Campbell
There are many reasons why we hate Henrik Lundqvist. Foremost among them is the guy can’t even lie very well. Ooh, that really bugs us. For example, Lundqvist is supposed to be a real bear on game days. Don’t mess with him because he’s so focused and intense. In fact, he doesn’t even have much time for his lovely wife, Therese Andersson, Lundqvist’s high school sweetheart whom he married over the summer. “Sometimes I might come off as being rude,” Lundqvist said. “If you run into me on a game day, you might think I am not the nicest guy in the world.”
That should have you shaking in your boots, right? That is, until you realize he politely and cooperatively answered those questions after a morning skate on a day when he was due to start in goal in a little more than seven hours. Please.
If you really want to be hated, be a 29-year-old goalie from Are, Sweden. It helps if you look like you’ve been Photoshopped, with a swarthy complexion and one of those permanent two-day beards. Make an average of $6.9 million a year, have an Olympic gold medal around your neck, be one of the world’s best-dressed professional athletes, play the friggin’ guitar and find your way into People magazine’s list of the World’s 100 Most Beautiful People. Be the NHL’s best shootout goalie, look really good even when your hair is all messed up and remain essentially unaffected by it all.
(This is a guy who has it all, including three Honken Trophies, awarded annually to the best Swedish goalie. We mention that because we think it sounds funny. We also take an enormous amount of glee in the fact that Lundqvist hasn’t won the Big Honkin’ Trophy yet.)
Yes, we hate you Henrik Lundqvist. Because we want to be you. And we can’t.
Lundqvist’s appeal is so broad that he is the subject of the Henrik Lundqvist Hockey Goalie God Blog, which describes him as “sexy, stylish and damn talented.” When you have this much disdain for a guy, you hope against hope the person running the blog is some overweight blue-seater from Madison Square Garden who never washes his Rangers sweater and lives in his mother’s basement. Then you learn the webmaster is a 40-something woman by the name of Christine Breen and she works for a company that does search engine optimization for car dealer websites in the Midwest. Get this, she not only has never seen Lundqvist play, she has never even been to an NHL game and only became obsessed with all things Lundqvist because she watched him play in the 2010 Olympics.
When Breen started the blog, she did some digging for dirt on Lundqvist, but failed to locate any. What she did discover, though, was a legion of fans and a good number of people who were eager to read her blog and pass on any Lundqvist information they could find. One entry was a guide to stalking Lundqvist, complete with his address and pictures of his building in Manhattan, which she pulled down after a storm of protest. Nothing creepy about that. “He’s got talent, he’s got money, he’s genuinely a great guy and he’s drop-dead gorgeous,” Breen said. “Did the guy luck out or what?’
Does he have his share of faults? Of course he does. He says he has a whole bunch of them. Then, like a guy who doesn’t have any, he asks you where you want him to start. By his own admission, he’s a terrible cook and he refers to himself as a time optimist. That and the whole being entirely surly and unapproachable on the day of a game pretty much covers it. “Saying I’m a time optimist sounds better than saying I’m always late,” he said.
And then there’s that cockiness, that swagger that is generally shared by all Swedes, who are more impressed with themselves than any other nation on Earth. (Actually, the opposite is true. If you’ve ever met a Swede who is truly a bad, self-absorbed person, bring him or her by our office sometime because he or she obviously doesn’t play hockey.)
“I like my life, I like what I do,” Lundqvist said. “I feel very lucky to be able to play hockey in New York. When I look back on my career, there are certain points where your ability helped you, but you also have some luck along the way. I’m very grateful that I got the chance to play here.”
See what we mean? Going on and on about his ability. He talks about it like he worked his way up from being a 205th overall draft pick and proved everybody wrong or something. Well, anytime he wants to take that act back home is fine with us. And while he’s at it, he can take fellow braggadocios like the Sedin twins and Daniel Alfredsson with him.
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