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GOTHENBURG. The season is over. On the ice, that is.
Eurogoals met Henrik Lundqvist, 33, between the commercial shots and talked about the severe damage to donate money to beggars and that Stanley.
The commercials about that hårschampot've itself become such a hot topic that it is neither something to conceal or unjustifiable journalistic asking about when we hit Lundqvist in a sober environment between recordings on one of Gothenburg's central major hotel.
PR adviser calls me and wonder if we could come earlier than agreed because they are ahead in today's schedule. Henrik Lundqvist is now not only one of the world's best hockey goalies, but also a talented actor.
Have you become such a fox on these films that you put the first shot directly?
- It's about me and the gang in production know each other very well now. It helps when we are running out of time. It runs smoothly.
- Then know Calle (Schulman, creative director) that I do not always sit down in the boat. It is not always a tailwind in the conversation. But in the end we find right along. It has been a fun trip.
Ordinary people wonder anyway: Why continue Henrik Lundqvist making Head & Shoulders commercial?
- A large part of it is how much fun we have together. I get to be with and control. That's right people involved.
You run the right hard on yourself.
- It's the whole thing. One should not take it too seriously. You have to push a little to himself. When it comes to hockey, it becomes the so full focus. Here it becomes more inversely with distance myself in other situations.
In plain language, you do not have this advertising for the money?
- Not to discuss the details of an agreement ... but that does not change my life, not the slightest. I see this as a way to learn something, an experience to which I might be valuable when I finish with hockey.
- Other productions are much more uppstyrda. There I have less to say. But this always end we will agree ... haha.
Henrik Lundqvist's hockey season was close to running out once in early spring to make it real for just over two weeks ago.
Then lost the New York Rangers seventh and decisive Stanley Cup semifinal against Tampa Bay (who then lost the final against Chicago recently).
You have previously told of how exhausted you been physically and mentally at the end of the seasons, how long rest during the summer has been absolutely essential. How do you feel now?
- That I had had the strength to play hockey for two weeks more ...
- I felt the biggest disappointment that we have not succeeded. The whole team felt that way, we thought we had a chance this year. There is so little taken.
Last January, he was struck by a puck on his neck, managed to play one more match before doctors discovered a serious neck injury which kept the goalkeeper out of the game a long time.
- The fact that I got the two-month break so I felt probably fresher when we went into the playoffs than in previous years. But the two months was rather high, to be able to handle the whole situation, not to play. It was something new for me. Furthermore, I realized how much I like everything, really everything, about hockey: the games, the trips, to be with the team, how to get along and everything you go through.
The injury itself, the battle, now with the distance and the new father to a second daughter, how has it affected you?
- It was a strange situation when I would go and wait for my blood vein in the neck could heal. Blood lode had become very weak when I was hit by the puck and the streak was broken so I risked being hit by a stroke and internal bleeding.
- The puck hit me on the neck and around the same time I pressed the back neck so hard that vein broke. Doctors had seen similar injuries in car accidents.
- I got massive headaches in the second game after the injury and that was when we went in and checked me further. "Luckily we saw it in time," said the doctors. Then I got myself a real eye-opener.
How carefully have you checked afterwards?
- In the beginning, I went and x-rayed my neck and brain every two weeks. First four weeks, nothing happened in the healing and that was what they had said, too. But then it got better.
And today, how much you checked?
- We made a new X-ray just before we went to Sweden. Everything looked good. I eat a kind of blood-thinning medication for a little while more.
Do you do anything differently after the injury?
- No, not now, but when the guys had to start shooting high on me so it was a bit uncomfortable. I recoiled to as driving a car again after driving off the road, man hugging the steering wheel a little tighter.
There are certain parallels between you and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He talked about "that damn Champions". Is that that "damn Stanley" for you?
- Yes! It's the one sitting right there, in front of one, says Lundqvist and holding up an invisible dent in front of his face.
- That's why I go to training, that's why I'm trying to get better, win more matches. That's what drives me, for sure. The closer I get, the hungrier I become.
What is missing?
- We have the game, a stable team and many good players. We may have to learn to step on the throat when we have the chance. Many series have gone to seven games for us. To determine past when we have the chance.
When you end up in a situation that you want to make a trade, swap teams to access that Stanley?
- Never! It was incredibly important for me to stay with the New York Rangers. The feelings I have for the organization, the fans and everyone around the team has given me, I would rather give everything over the years I have left to win with the Rangers than trying to do it elsewhere.
- Until the day I retire, I have to believe that we can win. As the NHL looks like it is much more evenly between the teams. Ten, fifteen years ago there were six, seven top teams who could win. So it is not now. Chicago is great, but since it is very open. The belief that we can win have become larger and larger.
We asked readers questions. A perfect here. Kevin Nordfors wonder: Which players would you like to get into the next season if you were Rangers general manager?
Lundqvist is silent for a moment, looking dreamily out the window and a rainy Avenue.
I think Ovechkin is amazing good. Had we been able to get him into an outside edge which he had been able to pull in 25-30 goals in power play so it would have been good. He is terribly efficient in PP.
With both successful hockey career as acclaimed commercials of the baggage is Henrik Lundqvist of the Swedish athletic largest fixed stars behind Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Where are you most recognized on the street?
- It's probably in Sweden, at home in Gothenburg. In New York, it's so incredible people from all over the world, and so great is the hockey everywhere.
The current contract, valid until 2020, giving Lundqvist some 55 million a year in salary from the Rangers.
A stark contrast to the changed everyday picture in our streets.
How do you react to that it will people in Sweden who need to beg to survive?
- The fact that Sweden has changed. It Sweden, I grew up in Sweden and it is today is not the same society.
Henrik Lundqvist stops. Thinking long and weighs the words:
- It is much improved, but there are also pieces that we as a country need to get better at.
What are you thinking then?
- In Sweden, we want to have the perception that everything is working very well here. So it is basically, but then when you return home here so you can see things a little differently.
Gives you a coin to a beggar that you walk by?
- In New York, one sees a lot of beggars and yes, then I usually give a penny. It is a good deed, and I hope that good things happen to people who do good. Silly, but I'm a little superstitious, and then I tell myself that "maybe then we win tomorrow."
I donate even clothing. It need not be much. It is the gesture that matters. A little is better than nothing.
How do you give away clothes?
- We have a contact in New York. Instead of throwing away so it is better to give to people in need.
It sounds like some needy suddenly can get quite upscale clothing ...
- I'm like a hamster. I save all the time lot of stuff that I should have got rid of long ago. But those who are in need of clothing is not much use of my old suits. There are more warmer clothes we donate. There are some in the area where we live that takes care of the clothes which they then gives further. My wife (Therese) are good at it. It is she who said to me when we have to clean up and take hold of those things and make sure you get it right, says Henrik Lundqvist.
- I can be impressed by how much time and money, some people in the US puts on helping others, but that need is also much larger than this.
Thank you to reader Annsofie for sending me this interview!
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