Icelandic Transport Joins League [1/2]

[bluesfan55 103]

Iceland isn’t really a hockey nation. I can tell you that first hand. Us Icelanders are crazy about football. Cut an Icelander open and he’s either bleed the colors of his local team or blue, white, and red. We take football very seriously. Hell, the government even built domed pitches so we can play indoors during the harsh winters. Naturally, I took to footy first. I was born on February 24, 2001, in Reykjavik, to Sigurd Bjarnason and Maria Birkirsdottir. My father was a footballer, who’d played in England for Wolverhampton and Leeds before retiring in 2000 to manage his local team, Válur. And that’s where I got my start at football. You’d think that my dad would give me a lot of leeway due to me being the son of the first team’s manager. That wasn’t the case. He worked hard to get to the Prem, and he wanted me to do the same. It wore on me. After 7 years of playing for Válur’s youth team, at the age of 9, I informed my dad that I wanted to stop. He asked me why, and I told him that I’d found a new love: hockey. When I was 7, my mom had given me NHL 2K8 for the XBOX 360, and I fell in love with the game due to it. I asked my mom if I could get some equipment, and she got me some skates, a stick, and gloves. There aren’t many rinks in Iceland, but thankfully for us, there was a rink, Skautahöllin Laugardal, a couple blocks from where I lived. I would go skating there a couple days a week, working on my shot and passing the puck. My dad saw that I had talent when I took him to the rink to show him my skills, and he allowed me to stop football to take up hockey instead. I eventually caught the notice of Skelleftea in Sweden after impressing for my local youth team, Björninn, scoring 100 points (75 goals) in 50 games. After one game at the age of 14 where I scored a hat trick, one of Skelleftea’s coaches came up to my family. “Your son is very talented, Mr. Bjarnason,” I heard the coach say. “He can come play for us in Sweden. He’s ready for our top youth team, which offers way higher competition than the league in Iceland. If you move, we’ll offer housing for your family as well, so you don’t need to worry about buying a house.” My father agreed to it on the spot. On the ride home, he said, “Son, you’re going to Sweden.” I wasn’t sure how to react. I knew that Sweden had a great league, but I was going to miss my friends back in Reykjavik. “Alright, dad,” I replied. “Hopefully I’ll do well enough to make the main team.”. We moved to Sweden the next day, and I immediately began meeting my teammates and making my mark on the ice. When I turned 16, after my first season with Skelleftea’s best youth team (where I scored 72 points in 60 games), I was promoted to the first team. It was a huge honor, as this was a club that had produced players like Adam Larsson and Oskar Lindberg. My teammates included team legend Joakim Lindstrom (no relation to the current Hurricane) and former Sharks prospect Mantas Armalis. I performed fairly well in my season with Skelleftea. We made the playoffs, and I scored 40 points (27 goals) in the regular season, with 5 points in 14 playoff games. We lost to Vaxjo in the second round. After the playoffs, I learned about the VHL. After hearing about other Scandinavians who had succeeded in the league, I realized that the VHL was a better destination for me than the NHL was. As such, I decided to leave for the VHL after the season, with Ottawa just signing me up. I’m really excited to play for the Lynx and hopefully win a cup this season, as it would mean a lot to step into a team and start winning immediately. North American hockey is going to be a learning experience, but I’m really looking forward to playing for Ottawa and learning more about the game. 

 

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[leafssteen 50]

Review: This almost felt like a bio to me but was interesting to hear about his life. I would recommend trying to space out your paragraphs in the future to provide better flow for your media spot. Overall it was a well written article, good job!