Blanked by Djurgården

Frölunda continues to struggle and the inevitable calls for a coaching change are starting to pop up in the press. Clearly a change is needed. Stephan Lund was capable when he had experienced help, now that he has first year coach Calle Johansson at his side he is not looking so capable. He will not mix up his lines, he is really conservative and does not play the young players enough.

Firing Lund is not enough though, for the good of the organization Mats Adrian has to go. The hockey club has seen attendance drop off and they have made some questionable recruiting decisions leading to the current crisis. The focus of the entire organization is not on hockey but on entertainment. Winning hockey is entertaining enough, that is what the fans pay for. Frölunda needs to bring in some real hockey knowledgeable staff and let them run the show.

Vulgar capitalism

The Swedes have a reputation, in the United States at least, as being sort of Communist. At least that is often the reaction from Americans when you tell them about high taxes here. But Sweden is far from Communist, in fact, if you go to the hockey games in one of the biggest arenas in Sweden you will see some very vulgar capitalism.

The Frölunda team has advertising everywhere. On the ice huge ads are in the face-off circles, on the sideboards, on the players uniforms. There are ads hanging from the rafters, obscuring the championship banners. There are adds on the jumbotron, on the scoreboard, placed on the seats before the game, even pages of the program have pages of just logos, not text, just logos of sponsors. It is a real mess.

Each year it seems to get worse and it is clear that the management is more focused on money than on hockey. Last year we played in the championships, the year before we won it all. Now, we are being threatened with relegation. That would be quite an embarrassment.

Management needs to do something about this as soon as possible. They need to focus on hockey, not on another unnecessary ad.