photo: © International Ice Hockey Federation / Andre Ringuette
In the early 2000s, no team had ever won the Olympic gold and the Ice Hockey World Championship in the same year. It sounds unfathomable at first, but it should be remembered that between 1920 and 1968, the Olympic hockey tournament doubled as the Ice Hockey World Championship for that year.
However, between 1972 and 2006, there were seven years when the Olympics and the Worlds were held within a few months, and no team had ever won both tournaments in the first six occasions. Not even the Soviet Union had done it in Sapporo and Prague in 1972 or in Innsbruck and Katowice in 1976 when they had their chance.
Then came the Swedes in 2006. Tre Kronor beat Finland in the Olympic final in Turin and the followed it up by going all the way in Riga where they downed Czechia in the final.
“The margin of error is so slim, and you need to have some luck on your side. It was an incredible year, or spring, for us. And when the guys from Detroit came, the atmosphere in the group got even better,” says Bengt-Ake Gustafsson, who coached the winning teams, and held the acceptance speech when the 2006 Team Sweden received the 2025 Milestone Award in Stockholm.
Of the eight players on both teams – Mika Hannula, Ronnie Sundin, Jörgen Jönsson, Kenny Jönsson, Stefan Liv and the “Detroit guys” Niklas Kronwall, Mikael Samuelsson, Henrik Zetterberg – the last five were present at the ceremony. Stefan Liv, who perished in the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash in 2011, was represented by his widow Anna.
“It’s hard to really understand the importance of such things when you’re playing in the tournament. You’re just happy about having gone all the way. The Worlds and the Olympics are short tournaments, and you have to be at your best during those two weeks,” Zetterberg said.
“And the fact that our team, the Detroit Red Wings, got ousted early from the playoffs in the NHL opened the door for us to play in the Ice Hockey World Championship. The timing was great.”
The Olympic tournament was short, and the players wanted to focus on the games, says Gustafsson.
“In one of the early meetings some of them asked me if I was a ‘video guy’. I said I wasn’t, and they were happy to hear it because they had got tired of watching video in North America. So, we kept our video meetings short and only brought up the most important things,” he says with a laugh.
For some of the players, 2006 came at the beginning of their careers. Newly minted IIHF Hall of Famer Henrik Lundqvist turned 24 a week after the Olympic tournament, Kronwall had turned 25 a month before it. Zetterberg was 25, all three of them were on their way to other wins and accolades.
For Zetterberg and Kronwall, the double paved the way to the Triple Gold Club when they won the Stanley Cup two years later.
“I’m not sure if I even knew what it was when I got into the Triple Gold Club. Again, it’s all about timing, you have to be on a good team at the right time,” he says.
The fact that they’d made history didn’t really dawn on them right away. Even today, while they know, intellectually, that they did it, it’s not always easy to feel it.
“It’s difficult to see yourself in such a context, it’s hard to understand that I was there. But of course, it’s great to get this recognition,” said Kronwall, who led team Sweden in scoring at the 2006 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, with two goals and ten points.
“Events like this are also important because they turn the spotlight on people like [the Johan Bollue Award winner] Jim Aldred who has done important work in Portugal. That’s how we grow the game.”
Kenny Jonsson, however, had returned home a year earlier arguably in his prime, as a 30-year-old with ten NHL seasons under his belt. Not only had he returned to Sweden, but he had also signed with his hometown team Rogle that played in the second-tier league.
But Jonsson was so good that coach Gustafsson still wanted him on his Tre Kronor.
“What I remember from that time is the feeling I had. I remember I started every day by listening to a song by Marie Fredriksson and as I was humming it, it pushed me to be better today than yesterday."
The 1985 Swedish solo single by one half of Roxette became Jonsson's motivational tool.
The name of the song?
“It translates to ‘My best day’,” Jonsson said.
However, between 1972 and 2006, there were seven years when the Olympics and the Worlds were held within a few months, and no team had ever won both tournaments in the first six occasions. Not even the Soviet Union had done it in Sapporo and Prague in 1972 or in Innsbruck and Katowice in 1976 when they had their chance.
Then came the Swedes in 2006. Tre Kronor beat Finland in the Olympic final in Turin and the followed it up by going all the way in Riga where they downed Czechia in the final.
“The margin of error is so slim, and you need to have some luck on your side. It was an incredible year, or spring, for us. And when the guys from Detroit came, the atmosphere in the group got even better,” says Bengt-Ake Gustafsson, who coached the winning teams, and held the acceptance speech when the 2006 Team Sweden received the 2025 Milestone Award in Stockholm.
Of the eight players on both teams – Mika Hannula, Ronnie Sundin, Jörgen Jönsson, Kenny Jönsson, Stefan Liv and the “Detroit guys” Niklas Kronwall, Mikael Samuelsson, Henrik Zetterberg – the last five were present at the ceremony. Stefan Liv, who perished in the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash in 2011, was represented by his widow Anna.
“It’s hard to really understand the importance of such things when you’re playing in the tournament. You’re just happy about having gone all the way. The Worlds and the Olympics are short tournaments, and you have to be at your best during those two weeks,” Zetterberg said.
“And the fact that our team, the Detroit Red Wings, got ousted early from the playoffs in the NHL opened the door for us to play in the Ice Hockey World Championship. The timing was great.”
The Olympic tournament was short, and the players wanted to focus on the games, says Gustafsson.
“In one of the early meetings some of them asked me if I was a ‘video guy’. I said I wasn’t, and they were happy to hear it because they had got tired of watching video in North America. So, we kept our video meetings short and only brought up the most important things,” he says with a laugh.
For some of the players, 2006 came at the beginning of their careers. Newly minted IIHF Hall of Famer Henrik Lundqvist turned 24 a week after the Olympic tournament, Kronwall had turned 25 a month before it. Zetterberg was 25, all three of them were on their way to other wins and accolades.
For Zetterberg and Kronwall, the double paved the way to the Triple Gold Club when they won the Stanley Cup two years later.
“I’m not sure if I even knew what it was when I got into the Triple Gold Club. Again, it’s all about timing, you have to be on a good team at the right time,” he says.
The fact that they’d made history didn’t really dawn on them right away. Even today, while they know, intellectually, that they did it, it’s not always easy to feel it.
“It’s difficult to see yourself in such a context, it’s hard to understand that I was there. But of course, it’s great to get this recognition,” said Kronwall, who led team Sweden in scoring at the 2006 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, with two goals and ten points.
“Events like this are also important because they turn the spotlight on people like [the Johan Bollue Award winner] Jim Aldred who has done important work in Portugal. That’s how we grow the game.”
Kenny Jonsson, however, had returned home a year earlier arguably in his prime, as a 30-year-old with ten NHL seasons under his belt. Not only had he returned to Sweden, but he had also signed with his hometown team Rogle that played in the second-tier league.
But Jonsson was so good that coach Gustafsson still wanted him on his Tre Kronor.
“What I remember from that time is the feeling I had. I remember I started every day by listening to a song by Marie Fredriksson and as I was humming it, it pushed me to be better today than yesterday."
The 1985 Swedish solo single by one half of Roxette became Jonsson's motivational tool.
The name of the song?
“It translates to ‘My best day’,” Jonsson said.