ENJOY THE GAME

COLD, HARD HOCKEY: THE ÖRNSKÖLDSVIK PHENOMENON

GÖRAN EDENBERG

March 26, 2025

There are certain places that seem, by accident or by fate, to breed excellence. Insular places where the landscape and the people press against one another in some silent, relentless act of refinement. Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, is one such. This town of twenty-nine thousand people is perched along the Swedish High Coast, where the land is still rising from the sea, where the winters are long and dark, and where, for reasons no one fully understands, the world’s best hockey players are born.

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Peter Forsberg was born in Örnsköldsvik. So were Markus Näslund, Henrik and Daniel Sedin, and Victor Hedman. People will tell you that it is thanks to Modo Hockey, a local club with a strong youth development program, or because of Sweden’s disciplined approach to player training. These are easy explanations, the kind that sound reasonable in interviews with coaches or players. But they do not account for the sheer statistical impossibility of one small town producing so many elite players when other Swedish towns—towns with similar resources, similar infrastructure—have not.

Peter the Great makes his professional debut at Modo 1990

So maybe it is something else. Maybe it is the water. Maybe it is the air. Maybe it is the way the light falls in winter, the way the ice forms on the lakes. Maybe it is the silence of a place where, for much of the year, there is not much else to do but skate.

This is a town built on ice, in more ways than one.

Daniel and Henrik Sedin, aka Thelma and Louise

You might think that ice is just ice. That a rink in Helsinki is no different from a rink in Örnsköldsvik. That a frozen pond in Minnesota must feel the same beneath your skates as one here, at the edge of the Gulf of Bothnia. You are wrong.

The ice in Örnsköldsvik is different. It forms in the long, steady cold of a northern winter, undisturbed by sudden thaws or freezing rain. It is fast ice, smooth and hard, and it teaches you to be precise. If you are a child learning to skate here, the ice punishes hesitation. It forces you to find your balance, to commit to every movement.

Forsberg, the Sedins, Hedman—every player to come from this town has been a technically gifted skater. Maybe they were born that way. Or maybe the ice shaped them, the way the right soil shapes a vineyard, the way a particular light can change the way a painter sees a landscape.

The ground beneath Örnsköldsvik is moving. You do not see it, not in a way that registers day to day, but you know it is happening. This is one of the fastest-rising landmasses on Earth, still rebounding from the weight of Ice Age glaciers. Every year, the coastline lifts another few millimeters out of the sea.

Where the ice is smooth and hard

If you grow up in Örnsköldsvik, you understand uneven ground: hills where there used to be water, roads that tilt at unexpected angles. You learn to compensate, to adjust your footing instinctively. Maybe this makes a difference. Maybe this is why the players from here move differently on the ice, why they never lose control of their balance, why they can take a hit and stay upright. Maybe the land itself trains them before they ever set foot in a rink.

You know that moment when you step off a train or a plane in a place where the air is different, and you feel it instantly, as though your body has been recalibrated without your consent? The air in Örnsköldsvik is like that. It is clean, oxygen rich, sharpened by the sea and the forests that surround the town. If you spend your childhood breathing this air, maybe your lungs are stronger. Maybe you develop an endurance that players from other places do not.

And then there is the water. No one talks about the water, but they should. It is drawn from underground springs untouched by industry. It is mineral rich, perfectly balanced, naturally filtered. Maybe this means nothing. Or maybe it is why the players from Örnsköldsvik seem to last longer, why they recover faster, why their bodies hold up better against the grind of an NHL season.

Winters in Örnsköldsvik are long. They are dark. There is no escape, not unless you leave altogether. There is nothing to do but endure. A child growing up in Örnsköldsvik does not have the options that a child in Stockholm or Gothenburg does. There is no soccer in winter. No golf, no tennis, no distractions. If you are five years old, six years old, you are already skating, because what else is there? If you are fourteen, fifteen, you are playing hockey every day, because all your friends are. There is an inevitability to it. A narrowing of focus. There is no NHL draft in sight (yet), no clear path forward, only the game itself and the understanding that this is what you do, because this is what everyone does.

För kärleken till hockey. Forever Modo

The players from Örnsköldsvik are not just skilled. They are mentally different. Forsberg was relentless, almost pathological, in his refusal to be beaten. He played through injuries that would have sidelined anyone else. The Sedins spent their entire careers proving people wrong—they were too soft, too slow, too polite, until suddenly they weren’t. Hedman, a defenseman of quiet dominance, never seems rattled, never seems unsure. Maybe this is just who they are. Or maybe this is something Örnsköldsvik gives them. Maybe it is the cold. Maybe it is the isolation, the way winters stretch out endlessly and test your patience. Maybe it is the way the town talks about hockey—not as a game, not as entertainment, but as something serious, necessary, inevitable.

You could say it is luck that a few great players came from Örnsköldsvik, and that their success inspired others, and that Modo Hockey knew what to do with them. Or you could say that Örnsköldsvik is a perfect storm—of ice, air, and water. Of shifting land. Of winter. Of the culture, the expectations. There are things you can measure, like the number of NHL players from Örnsköldsvik, and things you cannot, like the reason for this. Maybe it is all coincidence. Or maybe, if you wanted to build the perfect town for producing hockey players, it would look exactly like this one.

Göran Edenberg (b. 1958, Örnsköldsvik, Sweden) is a journalist known for examining the intersection of place, identity, and sport—particularly his hometown’s uncanny ability to produce NHL stars. After studying literature at Umeå Universitet, he researched Ethiopia’s legendary marathon runners, analyzing how altitude, terrain, and cultural conditioning contribute to their endurance and dominance. His book “Frozen Lines” (2004) explores how northern landscapes shape hockey styles. His most recent publication, “The Code” (2021), investigates how environmental factors, from air density to daylight hours, subtly shape athletic excellence.

Cover image: 63°17′27″N 18°42′56″E