Full Henrik Lundqvist Cafe Magazine Interview

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The knee put an end to World Cup games - but Henrik Lundqvist has otherwise have reason to complain about life. The Café 4 / 2010, we visited him in Manhattan for an exclusive interview about life in New York, the future, pub rounds with Caroline and what really happened when he wrecked his Lamborghini.Henrik Lundqvist makes a soft landing in its highly polished black Maserati. By picking hand on the steering wheel left, he extended his right and also greet the box. I feel like grabbing a fresh Argentine beef, a piece just enough muscle mass murderers.

That he is driving his Maserati today is no accident.

Lamborghini totalkvaddade him just two weeks before our meeting.

Lundqvist smiles a bit shocked, embarrassed, as if the memory still haunts him the pictures, when I crash on the speech.

- I had a fucking lucky. It was only scrap left of the car, "he says and makes a gesture with his arms to emphasize that there really was not much of a car he left behind there on the highway.

Henrik Lundqvist comes directly from morning workout at the MSG Training Center in Tarrytown, a half hour's drive away. It was there, three-lane highway on the Saw Mill River Parkway, which the accident occurred.

According to the newspapers were aquaplaning Lundqvist - "sucked asphalt just get in the car" - and Lamborghini thundered into the guardrail to the right of way.

When Expressen called him up after the crash, he was asked whether he missed his workout was going to.

- No, said Lundqvist, well I got a few minutes late but ran out in the gym.

It is 24 years since the Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Pelle Lindbergh - still regarded by many as the best Swedish NHL keeper of all time - died after running straight into a stone wall with his red Porsche.

Hand on heart, it was actually hydroplaning caused the crash?
- Yes, I did not drive fast at all, "said Lundqvist with a wry smile, as if I may interpret the response as I want.

Lundqvist joking aside: The management of the New York Rangers, had already been in her Swedish nugget that perhaps he should ease a bit on gas. It will not get less nagging now. No new sports car, either, for that matter.

- No, now I Maseratin a while so we'll see. Mom, Dad and Therese (Andersson, Lundqvist's girlfriend for eight years) does not seem so keen that I buy a new Lamborghini. They want me to start driving SUV into training sessions instead ...

Is the car a lot of interest?
- I like cars, but I do absolutely nothing. When I bought the car, I kind entered and knocked on the hood. I go entirely to the look and feel.

Then you came to New York four years ago, you still have gone from a kid Hummer ...
- ... To a Maserati and then a Lamborghini. The thing was that I intended to buy a Ferrari, a silver, but it turned out that the only Ferrari had the inside was a 360 Modena, and it did not feel right. But standing next to a silver Lamborghini. I was a bit hesitant at first, but I got to test drive it and was completely sold.

With Henrik Lundqvist talks about his recent car purchase in the millions, he really sound like if he was in the supermarket on the corner and acted sweets. But he also wrote in a six-year contract in February 2008 giving him nearly 50 million in annual salary and make him the NHL's best paid goalie.

The black sunglasses from Armani, in other words, sit safely on the selected nose when Henrik Lundqvist lighthouses of its one million U.S. dollars smile and look like that artlessly magnetic like any girl friends wish their boyfriends did.

He parked his Italian beauty outside 24 Hour Studio in Manhattan, where he was being photographed for the Café. He gets out and takes a turn around the car to make sure that the car does not obstruct the exit next to the garage.

He has been here before.

- In New York you will not fine. Here whisked the car away immediately, "he explains, and crouched at the height of the rear lights to be one hundred percent sure that his car is okay.

The explanation for his somewhat neurotic behavior is a few years back.

- I parked the car on the street and missed the sidewalk went down a little bit right where I stood. In the morning I looked out the window, and then the car was gone! I watched four times before I realized that the car was really gone. I assumed that it was stolen, but then I called our security guy in the Rangers and it took him half an hour to sniff until it was gone. It had been towed away and had to pick at Pier 71!

So it is just like the Seinfeld episode where Kramer get his car towed away and forced to make a whole day to get it out?
- Yes, but must wait in line for a few hours and be ashamed along with all others who illegally parked ...

When I tell Lundqvist, Swedish supermodel Caroline Winberg at this time photographed in the studio, he is about to boots in to health, but stopped at the last moment of a short cut, middle-aged man with plucked eyebrows, explaining that it did not lend themselves as Caroline, ehum, not fully dressed for the occasion.

Do you know each other and Caroline?
- Yes, we have met a few times. New York is not as big as you might think. We have common friends and run into each other sometimes.

When you are out to turn around?
- Haha, yes, it happens.

When hook you last?
- After the away game against Calgary the day before it became a bit festive. It was the last game of a seven-day roadtrip in Canada, and now we have a few days off, so it suited me.

There are no explicit rules for how you should construct your players outside the rink?
- There is no kindergarten this, but all you do is their own responsibility. But you may of course choose their occasions. It is perhaps not so smart to go out and party head off, two days before the match, but it is clear that we can get some glass even during the season. Personally, I play better if I do stuff in their free time than if I just sit home and stare at the ceiling.

How to handle the New York Rangers bad boy and your buddy, Sean Avery, with the responsibility?
- Haha, well, at least when he is with me ...

Sean Avery was suspended from the game - and had to go to Anger Management to learn to control his temper - after having spoken condescendingly about the actress and former girlfriend Elisha Cuthbert, which he called "my sloppy leftovers" in front of television cameras.

- And in fact I think he was calmer, "said Lundqvist. More relaxed, although he still is ... different.

Crazy, you mean?
- Haha, Sean is ... One of a Kind! It's fun to have slightly different personalities around him. And in addition to the ice we get closer to each other. I get a little more outgoing and he was a bit calmer. It is rare players who are mad are mad on the ice outside, even if it is precisely in this case is not far away.

Sean Avery is very interested in fashion and has particular internship at American Vogue. You also seem the right man for what you take with you?
- Of course I like the clothing fair means, but I'm not so interested that I would practice at Vogue during my vacation!

Can you and Avery out at the mall together?
- Haha ... well it has happened.

How do you practice, you sew up five costumes for every season, or how does it work?
- A bit like that. But I like above all Swedish designers, so I usually buy me some clothes when I'm home during the summer and bring me over here.

You surprised a bit when you got up on stage and played guitar live with Sean Avery opened his sports bar here in New York?
- Yes, I met a guy here in town who lirar, so I played with him a few times and so Sean asked if we wanted to set up.

Do you swear not to make one Mats Wilander and destroy your reputation by recording a song sopig?
- No risk. I play just because it's fun, and because it is a great way to relax away hockey. I'm actually with Jay Weinberg, son of Max Weinberg, who is the drummer in the E Street Band, in a studio here for a couple weeks ago. Jay was a stand-in for his dad at the Springsteen's concerts at the Stadium this summer. He is ridiculously good, and so he brings the singer from his band.
And you tore off some old-Jimi Hendrix solos with the front teeth?
- Haha, no, I'm terribly bad at solos. I'm too slow.

How long have you been playing guitar?
- Me and Joel (Henry's twin brother, forward in Frölunda) started sometime in middle school, but we stopped taking lessons when the family moved from Åre in Bastad.

And how do harmonica making?
- It was like ... Is it that my mom gossiping? Haha, yes, it rolls on.

Are you on very live concerts?
- Yes, some. Some of the guys in the club's organization is very interested in music, so they usually come with tips. I was on Springsteen at Madison Square Garden yesterday. Quite okay, but I've seen him better!

The question is whether Henrik Lundqvist self ever been better. The home game against the expected top team the Boston Bruins a week before our meeting, he prickfri except on a rare excursion out of goal area, which after treatment and doubts puck a little misunderstanding with one of the slopes are about to conclude with a devastating baklängesmål.

- We have a game system where I will not go out and stop some pucks, but sometimes I have to, and the game with the puck is really something I need to improve.

Has it resulted in a magnificent painting?
- Yes, I have actually given away a few goals, including one time when I was trying to score in the open cage, but added the middle of the gap on an opponent so he could make the case instead. It was not so damn successful.

How many goals have you done in your career?
- None. If you do not count the ones I did before I became a goalie, but that's a few years ago.

With just over minutes left in the match against Rangers with Boston leading 1-0. Guests pick out their goalie Tim Thomas - last year's winner of the Vezina Trophy, the price of the NHL's best goalie - and park Slovak Zdeno Chara giant hill in the lap of Lundqvist. After a sweaty rescue of a control with 47 seconds left, the game does the whole audience up and shouting:

- Hen-rich! Hen-rich! Hen-rich!

Swede success of the season's first zero and is assigned as the match star. He takes no cut out on the ice and sending up the club in the audience the sea.

It should, he might not have done.

The escalator on the way out, I am witness to a small drama when a Hispanic woman in her 40s blamed a middle-aged Indian man to have gone to her little son in a desperate attempt to catch Lundqvist's stick.

I continue out, and my eyes get stuck on a large plate depicting Billboard Henrik Lundqvist, goalkeeper of the full livery, with the text: "The King plays here."

I continue out, and my eyes get stuck on a large plate depicting Billboard Henrik Lundqvist, goalkeeper of the full livery, with the text: "The King plays here."

"King" may be a hackneyed epithet of athletes, but Henrik Lundqvist is the rare well. He has "ruled" a long time now. In order to find any real adversity in his career the band have to go back until he was 18 years old.

He would make his first season in the top division with Frölunda. After Lundqvist been torn and the whole pre-season recruits Club NHL deserving American Pat Jablonski at the last moment and Lundqvist consigned to the Farm Team Mölndal.

I got pretty sick of hockey and did not like at all, it was fun, so I went back to juniorlaget and play with friends there and beat back the urge.

How close was it that you ended up with hockey?
- The game is played primarily for fun, so when you lose your passion, it is difficult to motivate themselves. But deep down I probably knew the whole time that I wanted to continue. I could not quit without first fighting and give hockey a real chance.

After a couple of seasons hat was Lundqvist's undisputed first choice at Frölunda goalie record in 2002-2005. He contributed very much to Frölunda national championships in 2003 and received its definitive breakthrough season 2004/2005, when it swarmed with NHL pros in the top division due to play in the NHL lockout.

Despite qualifying opponents as brothers Hossa, Milan Gaborik, Henrik Zetterberg and Peter Forsberg sat Lundqvist no less than four hard to beat a record in finals on the way to the SM-title: greatest number of zeros (six), fewest goals against per game average (1:05 pieces), best save percentage (0.962 percent) and maintained at zero (172 minutes and 29 seconds).


After the season, voted player of the year presented him to the league's most valuable player, and he combed also home the award for best goalkeeper and best player in all categories.

- Last year in Frölunda was like a dream. At the same time, I felt ready for new challenges, so the move to Rangers was natural. But the first few months were tough, and I questioned the whole thing when I was sitting there alone at the hotel in Tarrytown, not knowing if I would have to remain in New York, or sent to the Farm Team. But as soon as it began to roll on, I felt that this was what I wanted, and then I thought no longer about what I left behind me. Henrik Lundqvist's NHL debut was against arch rival New Jersey Devils den 8 October 2005. The loss was after an extension, but Lundqvist accounted for a stable operation, but renewed confidence in the return four days later, which Rangers won.

The Swede acclimatise to the small ice surface, and the high pace faster than anyone dared hope for and already on October 17, just over a week after his debut, he held its first zero.

Had you been warned about the reckless home crowd here in New York?
- I had been here and seen a match before I came here. I was 19 years old and that was the last regular season game of the season. Then they booed out three or four of their players, so I knew the crowd was tough. When things go well they lift up one, and they expect to always do their best. I think it is linked with the spirit of this town. There are not many who can slide around in New York, you have to wear if one is to survive here, and the audience expects the players in their team do the same. It's a tough climate.

So there was no question of 'watch and learn "first year?
- Hardly. I knew that my start was important, not the audience first and foremost, but for my existence in the team and the league. The first home games were really good, so I got the crowd on my side. It enabled me to relax a bit and did not have to focus so much on everything around.

I saw you play in the fall during your rookie season, at home against the Philadelphia Flyers, and with ten minutes left and led 2-0 but you are standing ovation by the audience. How did you manage to avoid being affected by hubris?
- I came here when I was 23 years, after almost five years in the top division, the final years as first goalkeeper. I had got used to play with the press and taught me deal with things outside of both having and adversity. While it is important to have people around who can take down one of the world, family, girlfriend and brother. They are right on the fast stuff, haha! I also know that I can be written down as quickly. You may try to put somewhere in the middle. Someone said to me when were 17, 18 that "you are never as good as it says in the newspapers, but never as bad".

Do you read the newspapers the day after the match?
- Is it me, I read, it goes bad let me be.

Have you been booed in Madison Square Garden at some point?
- Not booed, but it has happened to people a bit sarcastically applauded when I took a long shot loose after releasing four, five pucks. It may be taken.

Before the debut season was over Henrik Lundqvist had won no fewer than 30 matches - a record for rookies - and also recorded for the fourth-highest save percentage and fifth lowest number of goals against average in the league.

He was selected for the All-Star team of rookies and was nominated sensational, as one of three players, at the cost of the league's best goalie.

In addition, he was very much involved in the Three crown-awaited Olympic gold in Turin in 2006. Many of us will always remember his sick rescue club with the shaft of Olli Jokinen alleged acknowledgment of the match last trembling seconds.

Self-ranked Lundqvist another rescue at number one, against Farjestad.

- It was the last match of finalserien 2005th I do not know if the rescue was so special, but I remember it clearly. We turned the game after that, decided in the next attack and then was a long, tough season over. An incredibly nice feeling.

Today you are established in the Rangers. Not all NHL pros who awarded with his own blog on their club website.
Lundqvist looks slightly terrified of me.
- Damn, that is ... Honestly, the page should probably be closed ...

Your last post is dated 8 October! 2008!
- Eh, I'm too ...

... Lazy? Absent-minded?
- Yes, you found two good descriptions there. I am not a computer man, simply. I got Facebook last summer and has been logged three times and have maybe 30 friends. When I was home this summer, I promised everyone that now I'll start using Facebook. I've logged in twice since then. I check my email and read Swedish news, it's really the only thing I do on the computer. Giving on a blog was doomed to fail.

What keeps you in touch with your friends?

- I'm terribly bad at it. I have always been. I like that where I am, where I live, and then I am so evident in the fact that I do not think of anything else. It was the same when I moved to Gothenburg from Bastad. Then it was Gothenburg in force. The really old friends I keep in touch with, but it is still difficult. It creates a new life with new routines where you are, and when I moved to New York, it was also a completely different time zone. It is in itself a poor excuse.

You are born in the sign of the fish. Fish's positive qualities are said to be: kind, honest, reliable, receptive, intuitive, sensual, artistic, inspirational, spiritual, sentimental, intellectual, charming, deep, elegant, dramatic and flirtatious.
- It 's like all the positive characteristics you can have!

Negative characteristics are: sloppy, absent-minded, easily led, secretive, hypersensitive, impatient and evasive.
- Haha, some pieces is really good, I must admit. They are not completely way off. We are banging up against the ninth avenue and find a small restaurant that serves organic food. Lundqvist's only requirement is pasta. Pasta and oatmeal are major constituents of his everyday diet.

When you are running as much as we need to ensure that eat between practices and games, otherwise you do not feel.

Laws on your own?
- What?

Oatmeal porridge?
- Yes, actually, but it is also the only thing I do to food at home.

Boil porridge - or microwaved it?
- I used to actually cook, but lately it has become the microwave. It becomes less disk.

The choice now seems to fettucine with fresh basil and green pesto. Mineral water to it, thanks.

A waitress with red-and vitrutig kerchief on her head and smiles blush easy recognition when she received Lundqvist's order. We beat ourselves down on either window bar stool at the counter and observed the Monday slum people in New York life in the street outside.

- I remember my first year here. Every time I drove the car to match and saw the Manhattan skyline in front of me, I thought that now I'll go and play the game in Madison Square Garden. Then I thought it was, well, maybe not ridiculous, but great fun that I have reached here. Now I have taken it to an everyday level. You become a bit jaded.

And so have you moved to Manhattan.
- Yes, but every time I drive in from the training I think about how lucky I had just stuck here.

Rather than in Buffalo or Pittsburgh?
- I had probably had a totally different life.

With wife and children?
- Probably. It'll be so easy, if only for the girlfriend's sake. Here in New York there is so much to do for Therese all the time, even when I'm not at home. It is a completely different pace than in most other cities and it suits us. We have it good we have it and do not feel that it is time for the family for a while yet. But I may just have to see what it does up close now that my brother has taken that step.

Can you imagine starting a family here in New York?
- Yes, I think I am. In all cases the first five years. Since when is school and stuff you might want to move home, but it works right here with it.

It sounds as if you plan to stay here for a while?
- I have five years left on my current contract, and hope I will stay here another five years. Why not? I feel incredibly good and can not see myself changing the law. Although it is difficult to sit here and say what you think of it in five years, it feels as if I still want to play here my whole career.
Although it most likely means that you will not get to be about winning the Stanley Cup?
- I want to win! Win the games, play well, win the Stanley Cup. It's what drives me, and we may just sue and have a little float, I think we have a chance to go the whole way.

Would you sign a year for, say, Edmonton Oilers, with half the salary if it guaranteed you a Stanley Cup win?
- Halve the salary as well ... Did you have to put it? Eh, if it was the end of my career, I would do it, absolutely.

Is money so important?
- It was not so long career over here. Tell them that you can hold on for 10, 15 years, while it is normal to work in maybe 40th So it is clear that money is important.

Lundqvist takes note and we head down to the photo studio. Wearing a white shirt, light blue lammullströja, tight dark blue corduroy pants and high indigo canvasdojor he would hardly need to be styled. Barely makeup either, it turns out.

Usually see hockey with a few pros on your neck like a cross between Freddie Kreuger and ... Borje Salming. But forced to make up artist, almost a bit disappointed, to say everything that needs to be fixed on Lundqvist is a paltry small scar on the left temple.

- I have my mask on, he will excuse himself, as if he would like to have excluded some teeth and a broken nasal bone to boast.

But there's no risk. Lundqvist has still not been implicated in a single råkurr since he came over to the NHL.

- It has happened that I patched to the people, but I have never thrown the gloves.

Located at old fashioned goalie fights a time gone?
- No, but it occurs less frequently. We go around the course and not tackling each other as outfield players do, so we must not quite the same adrenaline surcharge.

But let us say that Toronto's giant Swedish Jonas 'Monster' Gustavsson would skate against you?
- Gustavsson, haha! I do not think we'll be fighting between compatriots. Then I'll prefer a Canadian.
What are you thinking when you see old black and white images of "Honken" Holmqvist without a helmet, with staring eyes, poised to save yet another resounding nature shots with boiler bacon?
- Yes, my God ... I do not get how he dared to stand without a mask! It was probably at that time claim that goalkeepers are a bit mad was born. It is in itself not compare the shots we get at us today with the future, but it does not matter, even a loose shot in the face of Satan do painful. Even with the mask on.

Do you even know you gun-shy?
- Jaaa, I remember when I was in Russia with junior and broke his jaw. I got a slap shot on one side of the mask and went to the jawbone on the other. The rest of that week, I stood on his heels a bit, I can say. I have pain somewhere after every match and every practice.

After a short deliberation, decide and make up artist Lundqvist common to tredagarsstubbet not need trimming. Frillan works fine with it. A little foundation under the eyes, the nose and the forehead is all it takes.

Inside the test cell, however, to encounter problems as soon as possible. It turns out that Henry's so-called "hockey butt will not fit in a single pair of pants that stylist borrowed to shoot.

- Did not I size 52? he asks, a little thoughtfully while he vainly tries to peddle a few gray suit pants over your thighs.

I note a bit of a joke, and quite seriously, that his knees are bent inward just like when he is in goal. He looks in the mirror as he stands in just underwear and tan MEASURED. I do not care to question him about the solformade tattoo between shoulder blades.

It all ends with the photographer decides to shoot a half-length to begin, so it works fine with Lundqvist's corduroy pants.

It is as if someone pressed a button when he is in front of the camera. He acts almost as expertly as the ice and supplies pose after pose: natural, happy, serious, dangerous, troubled, absent ...

So he is not no beginner model. Besides, he plåtats a couple of times before for Café, he appeared in both the U.S. Mens Health and GQ, he was also the Swedish clothing chain Brother's face at Christmas.

In a pause I asked him what he likes to get plates.

- It's pretty fun, you may feel in a different sector and meet some other people than you're used to.

Do you care about what you look like?
- The very appearance's impossible to do much about, it is what it is, but I care about clothes and style and how I look. The only time I go outside the door without looking me in the mirror first is when I go to workout in the morning. I am optimistic time, and likes to sleep, so I often come away at the last minute. Shall we go away to the match away directly after training, it can see some fun out, with costume hair and sprawling in all directions.

Offers you not even your poor bruised hands to a manicure at times?
- Nanana, I go to the hairdresser and cut her hair when needed. It is the only one.

A moment later the photographer stands in front of Lundqvist computer screen. He comments on a fold of his white shirt rolled up. A sensual picture of Caroline flickers past.

- Poor you, "said Lundqvist to the photographer. Another tough day at work!

After two intense hours in the photo studio, it's time to roll home. We slip into Maseratin - which is still there, neatly parked at the curb solid yellow line - and head off towards the 52nd street.

We turn into a parking garage and get out. The guard was asking him to park the car.

- Number ... 48th Or, not 48, but ... Oh, you can check it out, "said Lundqvist, smiling a bit embarrassed.

After a year in the house, Henrik Lundqvist not learned the number of its own parking.

Before we leave the car, he fishes out a bunch of wrinkled white shirts from the back seat, and we turn to the dry cleaners around the corner. When we get out on the sidewalk, he takes a few steps out into the street and pointing straight up in the sky.

- Where is my apartment, where the lights in the living room. And above the terrace overlooking the whole town will be my absolute favorite place in New York.

Parade Apartments Located in Hell's Kitchen and he bought it for over a year ago. At the top of the house, with huge terrace and two floors.

- By Swedish standards, the very expensive, "he says. But it was an okay price to be in midtown Manhattan.

In recent months the floor, however, was uninhabitable because Therese Lundqvist and implement a comprehensive renovation.

- We blow out all over the floor and a lot on the upper floor and terrace. It's a hell of projects. It took nine months just to get the drawings approved! And they discover that you did something that is not in the drawings must be done about the whole process. Therese works as an interior designer so she has been in almost everything. She has been meeting with the architect today to be informed if we can move in a few days, or two weeks ... It changes all the time, but it's apparently how it works here in New York.

Speaking of New York: What was it like to be involved in David's show?
- Oh, it was not so much. We were there, drove the "Top Ten" list, and carried the Madonna in a pair of hockey sticks.

Madonna Be Cool?
- We talked a bit and she was pretty funny actually. Or ... it was more so that she joked around with us.

Would not one's own talk show for you?
- Hmmm ... I think it's fun with radio and television. Perhaps because it is so far from what I do now, although it basically is all about entertainment in both cases.

When we are outside the giant glass-enclosed lobby of the skyscraper, a large black dog racing against Lundqvist, a curly-haired blonde in tow.

Lundqvist lit up when he gets two paws dirty in the chest. The dog is his, Nova, and the blonde is his girlfriend Therese.

Suddenly you hear a ringing tone. Lundqvist fish off her black iPhone and apologize.

- I have to take this.

After just a few sentences, he begins to tan high. He hangs up and shakes his head.

- There is a guy in the club who helped me to get tickets to the Broadway show Rock of Ages tomorrow, but I had forgotten that I'm going to Madison Square Garden and do stuff with the fans the same time. So we're gonna go on Wednesday instead, but then it is no idea so now he wants to know what to do. I drive around with him, haha. But he may resist.

This luxury apartment, one million in weekly earnings and a guy who book Broadway tickets to you ... Do you think that this dream life may actually run out tomorrow - as when you collided with the car?
- Well, you do not think so. But I realize you I have been lucky. I live the life I always dreamed of. Things can happen with one yourself, or someone in the family, and given what happened in this city eight years ago with the World Trade Center, you will realize that it applies to take the opportunity to enjoy even of his career while it lasts. The older guys on the team reminds us often that is a little young for it. For when his career is over is over, and it goes fast. I have started to feel it yourself, suddenly you are 27 years ... You have to take this opportunity to live while you can!



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