Ten Questions With Ulf Nilsson

 I had the great opportunity to chat with Winnipeg Jets legend Ulf Nilsson. A very candid Nilsson agreed to be interviewed for Greatest Hockey Legends.com. Here's the full interview:

Question: Growing up in Sweden, who were your hockey idols? Did you have any Canadian idols or NHL idols?

Answer: My idols were some Swedish soccer and hockey stars and of course some of the great CCCP stars and particularly Anatoli Firsov!

Question: When you decided to come to North America, did you have any concerns about this strange new league called the WHA? Did you have any offers from the NHL? What made you decide to join the Winnipeg Jets?

Answer: I had an offer from Buffalo Sabres, the team in the NHL which owned my rights. In those days there were no drafting of European players. Lars Erik Sjöberg, Anders Hedberg and I talked a lot at training camp for the WC -74 in Helsinki about our future. We agreed to all sign with Winnipeg for two reasons: one to have an impact on the style of play, would have been difficult on my own in Buffalo. The second reason was to be able to play with one of the greatest players of all time Bobby Hull, which proved to be one of my best decisions of my life. It’s fun to hear Glen Sather saying he formed his Oilers after the old Jets and the Montreal Canadiens. I believe we had a great impact on the hockey played today in North America.

Question: You arrived in North America just one year after Borje Salming. You stepped in and scored 120, one of four consecutive seasons with at least 114 points. You starred with Bobby Hull. But here in North America it is Borje Salming who gets the credit as the Swedish and
European trailblazer in North America. Don't you think you and Anders Hedberg deserve a better legacy in North America?

Answer: Yes, I think we should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame, because of the things we did in Winnipeg!

Question: What was it like to play with Bobby Hull? How did he treat you?

Answer: Fantastic, we clicked from day one and Bobby had a simple philosophy “You work hard in practice, and then the game will be easy”.

Question: How important was Lars-Erik Sjoberg to the Jets success?

Answer: Very important, he was one of the best defensemen of all-time.

Question: Is there a Swedish player from your generation who could have come
over to North America and found great success, but never did?

Answer: Several players would have been great in the right environment, we were lucky to be 3 good players and with the support of Bobby Hull and a management that left us alone.

Question: Who was the best player you played against, be it NHL, WHA or internationally?

I played with Bobby Hull, I did not play against Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux in their prime. My career fell just between those four great North American players. I played against some great CCCP players, most of the people don’t remember the real big red machine. Those five I played against were, Gusev, Vasiliev, Michalov, Petrov and Charlamov!

Question: Why was it tougher to find success in the NHL when you joined the Rangers in 1978?

Answer: My first year before I broke my ankle in February was great. I took so much physical abuse during my 4 years in Winnipeg so I did not have anything left in my body. I believe that was the reason!

Question: How close are you with Anders Hedberg today? How about Bobby Hull?

Answer: Anders and I see each other fairly often, we both are living in Stockholm and unfortunately I don’t see Bobby, but when I see him it’s almost like yesterday!

Question: Can you tell our readers what Ulf Nilsson has been up to since leaving
the ice as a player?

Answer: I moved back to Sweden in 1999 after 25 years in North America, since April of 2001 I’m a partner in Qbrick AB www.qbrick.com, we are the leading hosting company in Scandinavia when it comes to streaming media. I travel 5-6 times a years to visit my 3 children who are all living in the New York area.

Beautiful Hockey

In the mid-1970s Winnipeg's Bobby Hull teamed together with Swedish imports Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson to create one of the greatest lines of all time. The trio instantly clicked and they wowed audiences everywhere with their "beautiful hockey." Transition offense based on speed and creative play making.

They were so much better than everyone else in the WHA that they were immediately targeted everyone else with violence. Yes, some things are eternal in hockey. Let the lesser players beat up the stars rather than protect the stars so they can demonstrate hockey at it's best.

Gare Joyce talks about in his new book, The Devil and Bobby Hull.

"If Hull had little protection against the goons, Hedberg and Nilsson had none at all - they were victims of a slow-to-evolve culture of the '70s dressing room, full of resentment toward Europeans coming in and taking the jobs of Canadians, teammates from past seasons, friends.

"Even the refs had it in for us, letting guys get away with murder going after us, when they could have called penalties if it had been anyone else on the end of it," said Nilsson.

It got so bad that in the 1975-76 season Bobby Hull sat out a WHA regular season game to protest the failure of referees around the league to enforce the rules and the coaches, managers and league itself for encouraging "brutality and savagery."

Here's Hull's quote from Joyce's book:

"It's becoming a disaster. The idiot owners, the incompetent coaches, the inept players are dragging the game into the mud. They're destroying it with their senseless violence. You talk to some of these idiots at the top and they say, 'It's the nature of the game. It has always been that way and always will be.' They're full of bull. It's worse than it ever has been and it's going to end up ruining hockey. They ought to take all these incompetents, these idiot owners, coaches and players and put them in their own league so they can kill each other."

Ouch! Now I'm not going to suggest things have not improved since the low days of the 1970s.  But in many ways things have not changed. Bobby Hull's sentiments have been echoed time and time again since then, including quite famously by his own son Brett Hull and arguably the greatest player in the history of the game, Mario Lemieux. Heck, even in 2011 the Sedin twins, the Hedberg/Nilsson of today, have been treated in similar ways, made to suffer stoically instead of being able to demonstrate "beautiful hockey."

The NHL still does not take this seriously enough. It's always open season on the superstars. look at all the great players we've lost to injuries - Lemieux, Lindros, Bossy, Orr. The greatest player of current time (Sidney Crosby, in case you forgot about him by now) has not played in 10 months because of his head shot.

And that is a shame.

Why does the NHL condone such "useless violence?". Simply because allows lesser teams and players to compete. That allows those markets to sell tickets - not necessarily because of the violence itself, but because it allows them a chance to win. I think that is as big as any reason as to why hockey condones such violence.

Ulf Nilsson On Return To Winnipeg

Upon news of the National Hockey League's return to Winnipeg, I contacted Jets legend Ulf Nilsson for his thoughts:

"Canadians are crazy about their National Sport and Winnipeg with cold, long winters and with a Community rink in every corner of the city deserves to see the best players in the World live!

"I had four awesome years with the Jets and the birth of my two oldest children, Anna in 1975 and Mikael in 1976, the year of our first Avco Cup and I was lucky to be the MVP of the playoffs, a special thanks to my great line-mates Bobby Hull and Anders Hedberg! I believe I had 26 points in 13 games!

"I love coming back to Winnipeg, seeing some of my old teammates and friends! Thanks to all the people that supports The Amadeus Steen Foundation for making the trip back to Winnipeg possible each summer! It brings back a lot of great memories and thanks to the True North chairman Mark Chipman for making it possible to create new wonderful memories for players and fans in one of the greatest hockey cities in the World!"