It is empty and desolate in the catacombs of the Santagiulia Arena and Italy have just finished their last training session of the day late in the evening.
“Do you want to talk to me? ‘freak’?” asks the team’s press contact.
Even though it’s Olympic time, the Italian national ice hockey team isn’t usually crowded with journalists – but there is one player who, with the exception of a report in SVT last year, has been forced to turn down interview requests he received ahead of the Winter Games.
He is Swedish and his name is Mikael Frycklund.
That’s what he likes best didn’t want to anticipate events just in case their hopes for the Olympics were dashed at the last moment. But now he’s here – selected, injury-free and ready to play in the world’s biggest national team tournament.
– Hockey life plays. It’s fun and I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity. That this happened. “It was absolutely nothing I planned, it just happened by chance,” he says, adding:
– Sometimes you have a little flow in life.
Frycklund played most of his career with Västerås IK in the Hockey Allsvenskan and also spent a few SHL seasons in Linköping. However, three years ago he wanted to try something new, moved to the Italian city of Bruneck in South Tyrol and is now in his third season with the club HC Pustertal, which plays in the Austrian ICEHL league.
It would turn out to be much more than just a change of club.
– When the club found out that my grandfather was Italian, they told me that there was an opportunity to get a passport – and that I had a chance to get into the national team.
After what he Describing it as a “tremendous process” of paperwork and certificates, he finally received Italian citizenship just in time for last year’s B World Cup in Romania, from where Italy made entry into the actual World Cup, which will be decided this spring.
Since the summer of 2024, the national team has been coached by none other than Jukka Jalonen – Finland’s most successful national team captain of all time with three World Cup gold medals and one Olympic gold medal – and the 63-year-old is impressed by his Swedish player.
– We don’t have that many centers, but he is good in this position. He is strong, can hold the puck and is confident with it, Jalonen tells DN and continues:
– He was good for us. He was good last season too, but then he broke his leg in the second World Cup game in May. He was away for three or four months, but he’s in good shape now.
After a long rehabilitation process, Mikael Frycklund now feels like himself again and the longer he has played for his new home country, the stronger these feelings have become. He says there are 11 others on the national team, mostly Canadians, who have made a similar transition.
– Many have a grandmother or grandfather from here. So it’s not that far away. Maybe someone (a bit more distant), but most people understand Italian. It’s not that they aren’t completely Italian.
I am so incredibly grateful to my Italian family in Bergamo. I would never have been able to do this without her
It starts on Wednesday his Olympic dream comes true – and as if by chance, Tre Kronor stands for the resistance. In the sold-out Santagiulia Arena with around 11,000 spectators we can expect an Italy that will play for its pride and honor more than anything else.
– We have to fight. There will be a lot of defensive play. But it will be incredibly fun to get to know the best from Sweden.
Will there be any Swedish psychics against the stars of Tre Kronor?
“Yeah, now it’s time to get under their skin and talk shit,” Frycklund says with a smile.
– No, but they are so good that you have to try to disturb them as much as possible. Man, it’s going to be tough and we’re going to have to work incredibly hard.
Facts. Tre Kronor’s Olympic schedule
February 11th: Sweden–Italy (October 21).
February 13th: Finland – Sweden (12.10).
February 14th: Sweden-Slovakia (12.10).
February 17th: Round of 16.
February 18: Quarterfinals.
February 20: Semifinals.
February 21st: Bronze match.
February 22nd: Final.
His grandfather left Frycklund hopes the rest of his Italian family, who live in Bergamo, will come to Milan and support him during the Olympics.
– I am so incredibly grateful to my Italian family in Bergamo. I would never have been able to do this without her.
Otherwise, at least his Swedish family shows up to…well, cheer for who?
– They’ll cheer me on, I think. We’ll see. I hope they cheer me on.
As a youth, he attended high school and played at VIK alongside Vegas star William Karlsson, whose hopes of playing for Tre Kronor in the Olympics were dashed when he was injured last fall.
Maybe you didn’t think that your Olympic dream would come true faster than it did for him?
Mikael Frycklund laughs.
– No, I don’t think anyone thought that. It’s a lot of fun to experience something like that.
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Tre Kronor team captain Gabriel Landeskog thought his career was over
