Gold, gold, gold…
13 pcs. of its kind, it has to. But if you think that ishockeylegenden Todd Bjorkstrand is full, you can think about.
After having led the Herning Blue Fox for seven Danish championships as a player and as the most scoring player of all time – and six titles as a coach chasing, he is now the 14. national title.
Not on Danish ice – the times is definitely the past after his shocking firing in Herning in march 2017. A breach that cast long shadows over the most winning club.
Now is he in the second season as the head coach of the Stavanger Oilers in the Norwegian GET-League. And it goes swimmingly.
Norway’s premier ice hockey club tops the league after 24 matches with 17 points, down to no. 2, Storhamar. Last season had to Oilers see themselves beaten in the semifinals by just Storhamar.
“We are good so far. But although we have got a ønskestart, I do not take anything for granted. Everyone knows that there is a big difference in grundserien and the playoffs,” says Todd Bjorkstrand to B. T.
He has come to a team, which since 2010 has won seven Norwegian championships.
“We have the optimal facilities and a unique setup. The whole thing is very professional. Moreover, Stavanger is a nice and lovely city,” he says.
“We have five importspillere (all from north America, ed.), a broad team and a strong førstekæde with David Morley, Dan Kissel and Mathias Trettenes, which has produced well. It is difficult to compare the Danish and the Norwegian league, but the top in Norway a probably a slightly better.”
As goalkeeping coach and assistant coach Todd Bjorkstrand his former goalkeeper in the Herning Blue Fox, Lubos Pisar.
Todd Bjorkstrand came to denmark in 1988 and was the star in the central jutland city in 26 seasons. No one has had more influence on the Danish ice hockey than the 57-year-old american from Minneapolis.
In 1994, considered he to change his nationality in order to be able to play on the Danish WORLD cup team. He was in two official and two unofficial venskabslandskampe and scored in all of them, but relented at the last moment and withdrew his application. As the proud and patriotic american he is.
It was a bomb that was thrown, when the Herning Blue Fox’ management fired Todd Bjorkstrand in 2017. As the ground gave ‘disagreements about the philosophies related to the performance of the sporting management and the handling of the communication with the players and the volunteers’.
“In essence, it is a question of different views on the spillerkultur, management, and understanding of, the need to promote a club’s overall interests,” as president Claus F. Sørensen put it.
Todd Bjorkstrands superambitiøse, controversial and a little square style had suddenly become too hard diet.
His two sons, NHL player Oliver Bjorkstrand from Columbus Blue Jackets and Patrick Bjorkstrand from the austrian Villacher, expressed great anger over the treatment of his father and wrote both on Twitter, that they have lost the respect of the players and the characters in the Blue Fox’ organization.
today, says Todd Bjorkstrand to B. T.:
“I have not been in Denmark for two years. What happened then, is not something I want to talk about. My time in Denmark is over. I’ve moved on.”
