Former Toronto Maple Leaf Borje Salming waves to the crowd during a pregame ceremony in Toronto, Nov. 11. The Canadian Press
Borje Salming, a man whose hockey career will be remembered for class, courage, skill and toughness, died on Thursday in Sweden at the age of 71, five months after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig.
A trailblazer for his fellow Swedes and other European players who followed him into the NHL, Salming was the first Swede to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996. He played for the Maple Leafs for 16 seasons beginning in 1973 and the Detroit Red Wings. for a year after that.
The greatest defenseman to ever wear a Toronto jersey, he holds half a dozen team records and was a six-time All-Star during his career.
Despite being terminally ill, Salming’s death came as a surprise because he had traveled to Toronto less than two weeks before the annual Hockey Hall of Fame induction game. He received a standing ovation when he was introduced before the Maple Leafs and Penguins met on Nov. 11 and the following night was the subject of a lengthy, emotional tribute before the game at Scotiabank Arena.
Known as The King, Salming was a great Maple Leaf at a time when the team wasn’t very good.JOHN McNEILL/The Globe and Mail
Salming’s dear friend and former teammate, Darryl Sittler, walked him onto the ice and helped him raise a hand to acknowledge the raining cheers. Tears flowed in the stands and also from Salming’s eyes.
“You don’t have a soul if that hasn’t moved you,” Sportsnet hockey reporter and NHL insider Elliotte Friedman said Thursday.
On November 14, three Swedes, Daniel Alfredsson and Daniel and Henrik Sedin, were brought in while Salming and his family watched from an adjoining room.
On a night honoring Borje Salming, the Leafs great gets his own Lou Gehrig moment
“He loved Hall of Fame weekend and wanted to be there,” Friedman said. “The Hall of Fame people told him he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to do, but he participated in almost everything. It was very meaningful to him.”
In February, Salming began experiencing unusual muscle twitching. In mid-July he was diagnosed with ALS, a progressive disease of the nervous system. He revealed the diagnosis through the Maple Leafs organization on August 10 and said in October that his condition had worsened to the point where he had lost the ability to speak and was relying on a feeding tube.
His death was announced jointly by his family and the Maple Leafs.
“Borje was a pioneer of the game and an icon with an unbreakable spirit and unquestionable toughness,” Maple Leafs team president Brendan Shanahan said in a statement. “He defined himself through his play on the ice and through his contributions to the community.”
Salming was a trailblazer for his fellow Swedes and other European players who followed him into the NHL.STF/The Canadian Press
Toronto players were told of Salming’s death during a team meeting before practice in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Maple Leafs play the Minnesota Wild on Friday afternoon.
“It’s hard to process,” said William Nylander, the Canadian-born Swedish right-winger from Toronto. “It really took me by surprise. We saw it a few weeks ago. It’s really annoying.”
On the night of November 12, Nylander participated in a ceremonial discus release with Oliver Ekman-Larsson of the Vancouver Canucks. Salming dropped the puck between them and then Nylander picked it up and gave it to him and gave him a gentle hug.
That night, the Maple Leafs starting lineup consisted of six Swedish players for the first time in franchise history.
“It’s very sad news,” said Erik Kallgren, a Swede, who was in net for Toronto against Vancouver. “I’m glad the organization took the time to bring him to Toronto and show him much appreciation. I feel for his family and everyone around him.”
Salming signed as a free agent with Toronto in the summer of 1973. Although he had been a star in Sweden’s top league for years before, he was expected to be soft, a prejudice often held against players from europe He took a few beatings in the first year, but he gave as much punishment as he got and changed the perception of foreign players.
Maple Leafs great Paul Henderson, who was an 11-year NHL veteran when Salming arrived in Toronto, remembers the then-22-year-old as a physical specimen.
“He had the best body of anyone I’d ever seen,” Henderson said. “I had five percent body fat and I thought, ‘Who is this guy?’
“He did everything right. It was really impressive.”
Salming owns almost every franchise record for Maple Leafs defensemen. Gary Hershorn/The Canadian Press
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman also offered a glowing tribute. He called Salming a “towering presence and a transformative figure in the history of the league.”
“Borje Salming was as physically and mentally tough as he was gifted,” Bettman said in a statement. “He paved the way for many of the greatest players in NHL history as he broke all the stereotypes about Europeans that had prevailed in a league populated almost entirely by Americans before his arrival.”
Salming holds nearly every franchise record for Maple Leafs defensemen, including goals (148), assists (620) and points (768). He played in 1,229 NHL games, regular season and playoffs included, and had his No. 21 jersey retired in 2006 and put it up in the rafters.
Known as The King, he was a great Maple Leaf in an era when the team wasn’t very good. God, it was hard. He once slashed her face open with a skate blade and the wound required 300 stitches. His face looked like a streetcar map of downtown Toronto.
Ron MacLean, the CBC sports anchor best known as host of Hockey Night in Canadaremember how enamored Canadians were with Salming when he landed in the NHL.
“The league was so homogenous and he was mysterious,” MacLean said. “Everything about him blew us away. His big slap, his elegant skating … he had not only taken over our sport but dominated it.”
MacLean won’t forget the nights of November 11 and 12, when Salming returned home to Toronto for the last time.
“These two nights were magical,” MacLean said. “Seeing the love in his eyes that he gave his captain, Darryl Sittler, said it all.”