At home with Henrik Lundqvist - "hockey gives me anxiety"
Henrik Lundqvist's new business plans has given us the opportunity to travel to New York and ask King Henry all the questions we always dreamed of, but never dared: The about his underwear.
By Niklas NIGHT AND DAY 13:09 / 20 / February / 2015
Underklädesbranschen exerts a peculiar attraction for prominent Swedish athletes: Salming Underwear was founded in 1991, by his own admission inspired by the core values that characterized legend Borje Salming: Naturalness, activity, courage and authenticity. Björn Borg brand launched in conjunction with Wimbledon in 2006, with the motto sporty, stylish, sexy and comfortable. To these athletes to join the ranks now Henrik Lundqvist, and to the delight of minimalist, it is not about a bet with his own name in large print across the rib, but a low voice cooperation with Swedish Bread and Boxer, where the idea is to fronta campaign to then participate in activities through the boardrooms.
How did this collaboration?
- I started using the products and Alex felt [Palmgren, one of the brand's two founders] previously, although it took a while before I realized that it was he who was behind the brand. It came up when we discussed a little different projects for a couple of years ago. Time passed, we began to think, and it was during last summer that we really decided to do something together, and talked about how it would look. For me personally, it was a couple of stuff that recorded: I thought they had found a nice feeling in the products and the entire brand, the people themselves are comfortable to be with and to work with, which means a lot of long-term nature. At the beginning, I will be more visible, so to speak, only to fall back a bit and become more like one of the guys in the gang. As we prepare to enter the US market, it feels good that I have a presence there.
How did you know each other?
- Through a teammate, actually. Alex was with Mike Nylander's wife's sister. We were in New York for the first time. Then we have kept in touch when I have been in Sweden in the summer. We have seen in Bastad a lot.
Can you tell us a little about your own relationship with underwear?
- I've always been a boxer guy. Well, what can you say about it? It is something you wear every day. It matters. Fit and feel is important. The brand has never been important to me when it comes to fashion - it also applies to suits and shirts. Sure, it can be nice sometimes to put on a really expensive suit and feel that you bullat it up a little extra, but at the same time can be a cheap suit feels as good as it sits on.
You may have enough logos on you at work?
- Some so. You want to be as clean as possible when taking off his uniform.
Underklädestrenden has been pretty maximalist in recent years: In addition to the large, visible logotypresåren we have had wallpaper patterns à la Frank Dandy and Happy Socks. How did the ideas passed around it?
- It has never really been for me, if I'll be honest.
What qualities do you have that makes you think that other men would want to wear the same underwear for you?
- What ...?
Henry, who is a man of many talents and that, if there is any justice in the world, has been spared from inferiority complex after a long and successful career, are hopefully aware of the correct answer to this question. A sense of diplomacy and humility, was cultivated both in the Jämtland social utopia areas and during a decade in the firing line for American sports journalism, forcing him but a moment's reflection. Eventually forced King's envoy to throw himself on the grenade and point out the obvious.
Try and successful, for example.
- Hmmm ... I work very hard at what I do. At the same time, I want to feel good, take care of myself whether I'm working or traveling. It feels like the typical Swedish man in general are very good at it, especially if you compare it with the American man. They do not indulge himself good clothes and a sleek style. I feel very Swedish in that way, and believe and hope that others will appreciate the same things qualities with the brand as I do.
Deffade you extra for campaign images, or died on existing shape?
- It was where it became. We photographed in August, so it was summer shape. There is another difference from, say, Calvin Klein, running with muscle mountain: I'm not built like an underwear model. I'm a pretty normal built Swedish man.
Possibly in a little better shape anyway.
- I would have been much more uncomfortable if it had been a brand with a different image. You feel as if it's about feeling good, be relaxed. This is the feeling we are trying to find in the images: A little morning routine, time which attempts to collect energy, thoughtfulness.
Can you tell me about your involvement in the brand forward?
- We will run a campaign, with me, but then I again have a role in the background. Participate and enjoy the product development. I see it as a fun project, with goa guys. It will be fun to be with on the trip.
If you stand in the cage with your Bread & Boxers? Play all in underwear? It strikes me that I have an abysmal gap of knowledge about what hockey players have protections.
- There are not many running with underwear, no. It is normal underwear that apply.
There is a conspiracy theory that it is John McEnroe, who you hang out with private, which have persuaded you to invest in underwear in order to messing with Bjorn Borg.
- We really have not discussed underwear, and I McEnroe. I'll send him a charge.
Not even you harboring a deep lack of interest in hockey learn to fail to recognize Henrik Lundqvist, and for you we can reveal that the guy who figures in the shampoo brand Head & Shoulders (formerly Clearasil) TV spots thus is hockey goalie everyday. In a mock interview situation, he has played a fictional version of himself, with an exaggerated vanity that regardless of query formulation can not help but bringing the substance of the beloved hair care product. In later versions, he has taught the correct hårkast to Sofi Fahrman. The whole thing has been implemented with self-distance and apparent good humor. Even for someone with a fully Internet-based accountability in the lundqvistska private economy, it seems obvious that Henry is not in dire need of money. The conclusion herons that he simply sets up because he thinks it's funny.
- I do. I think it's fun. That's why I keep running with Head & Shoulders. I like the gang I work with and the productions we do. There are a few days a year, we sit down and find the stuff. I have always had a creative side, ever since I was little, whether it was all about music or about creating stuff. I'm interested in; I want to learn new things. Once the hockey running out, I know, and then I want to find a passion for something else. Right now I'm all doors open.
Would you be willing to do anything in front of the camera as well, perhaps as an actor, if the right person rang with the right offer?
- Media are interesting. Radio I think is fun. It becomes a kind of adrenaline rush, you will deliver in any way and create something while it is something that is far beyond the focus I have on hockey. Hockey is anxiety and performance based. To do things in front of the camera is a more stimulating feeling. Relaxing. It is the same with music: you need to concentrate, but it is also very relaxing. But I do not know what I will do the media in terms of the future.
There was a discussion in the office that you would get help to determine, and it's about what the glove is not the glove is actually called. There were many bids: Impact, overcast ...
- Mule? I've never heard before. I usually say shock. Other words that appear are the club, club glove. It's really the. To the extent that I judge as to make it blow.
1998 a black period for the New York Rangers, to the chagrin not only for the home crowd, but also for many Swedes who remember the team that the Swedish friendliest of all time in the NHL, in whose formation we have seen names like Markus Naslund, Niklas Sundstrom, Michael Nylander, Ulf Samuelsson, Anders Hedberg, Ulf Sterner, Jan Erixon ... Seven years of bad luck started: Between 1998 and 2004 went not to the playoffs only once, a slump that one must go back to the beginning of the 60th century to find a counterpart to. 2005 broke the lock-out, and the following year made his debut Henrik Lundqvist in the cage. With him, the wind turned, and with the exception of the 2010 season, the team has moved on to the playoffs every year since then. Never, it was closer than this year, when it stretched all the way to the final, where they died fell against the Los Angeles Kings 4-1 in matches, and thus got to see the Stanley Cup disappear out of reach.
- It was an awesome trip. Very emotions is what happens when you go through such an endgame. Very high up, some down. Just when it runs out, it's a big disappointment, but when you had time to get some distance from it begins to appreciate the big picture, the way in which we managed to turn the season, both as a team and personal standpoint. Each series we managed to win - against Philadelphia in the seventh and decisive, against Pittsburgh in the seventh and decisive - there is so much work behind. Each stage you finish gives an incredible satisfaction. There is so much adrenaline, so much stress, and when you win, so ... and moreover we won many of the key matches on home soil. Those moments are ... that's what you live for, a little, at least when it comes to hockey. It's really fun. But we got a little short. We needed a little extra buoyancy in the final series, but we did not.
Will the sense of loss stranger considering that all of Rangers outdid themselves? Would it have been easier to accept defeat if there had been tangible factors point to which you then can actively work with?
- I think it is easier to accept defeat when you feel that you left everything you had out on the ice, that from preparation to your gaming performance to small details have been on top ... do you know that you could have done more stings loss is not as bad . The worst thing is the other way around when you worked hard for long, but when everything is settled, you feel that for some reason you do not receive your maximum potential. Then come the questions: Why did not this or that? As it was, I think everyone felt that we simply were not enough. LA was really good, the puck bounced their way more than our ... We'd stop shots in each overtime, out in Los Angeles. Every match we had a neutral position where we hit the post. We could have won those games. Now we did not do it. Instead we had more fluency in the previous rounds. It's up and down with the puck bounce making.
How fun is it to play hockey and why?
- Hockey has been a part of my life since I was seven. That's what drives me the most and that gave me the most passion to do something in life. Now I have family, and it makes life a different meaning: to come home to the wife and daughter are amazing awesome, but what drives me is that I am a competitive person, and what I find on the hockey pitch I can find nowhere else. It's fun. It's really fun, to live with this constant performance anxiety that still somewhere is motivating and pushing you to try to reach a level where you have never been before.
How do you deal with anxiety?
- I think all athletes feel some form of anxiety ...
Do you go home and bathe in money?
- No, it comes to trying to turn everything into a good feeling. There is so much mentally, how you handle pressure, both coming from yourself and from your surroundings. There is everything for you to be able to perform. When all goes well, then, life is wonderful. You are thinking not so much, just go out and play. At the same time, I'm very intense as a man, so when it does not go well I become introverted and grumpy and short. So I always have been. It might have been a little better with the years, but ... it goes against, then I'm not the world's most fun to be around.
It goes well not do to come home and hang lip dad?
- It's a challenge, absolutely. My daughter understood not know what I'm going through. My wife knows it exactly, and she knows just how she should handle the situation both for profit and loss. On the other hand, it may just be very liberating, that my daughter does not care: If it gone awry or if it's been fantastic for me on the ice, it is completely irrelevant to her. It gives me perspective on life, and it's nice and helps to remove the constant focus on hockey. Relaxing.
When you became the first goalkeeper in the Rangers so was Kevin Weekes, who you replaced, 30 years old, and you were 23. Today, you are 32. Have you started to look over the shoulder of all 23-year olds who are waiting to take your place?
- It's what you do. There will be people all the time and will even take place, and must never be complacent and think that you can rely on past achievements. We must continue to evolve and get better. Every year, young guys, you see their hunger, their eagerness to try to get where I am. I have respect for it, absolutely. I take nothing for granted, even if I have a contract for many years. It is here and now in force, and it does not matter what I accomplished during the nine years that have passed. I deliver is not raised voices directly. You have to push yourself all the time.
How much time do you have left?
- Eight-nine years is the goal. You have to have a goal.
Remaining in the Rangers?
- Yes. I want to be in New York. I have had the chance to play in the same club throughout my career, and that's where I want to stay. I've signed seven years, then I am 39. Would it be the way it is a dream. I do not see it as an impossibility to hold above 40, there are those who do. But who knows? There is a lot to sue, much can happen. Firstly, you need to be able to play at a high level and be able to bring something, and you have to be injury-free. You must have passion remains: Do you drop it, it will be difficult. Right now I feel just as much hunger to want to get better as I did when I was younger, and it feels good; I have not been measured on the road.
How is it that you are so clever?
- All trains hard, and everyone has good technique. I think there is a lot about attitude. People can probably think that I have many side interests, but when it comes to hockey naggar I do not seriousness of the edge somewhere and let me not be distracted. I am extremely careful with my preparations, and it takes quite a lot of mental energy. I have not changed it, not even after we had children. I do not compromise with hockey. It is stressful, and at the end of each season, I am completely exhausted and they need months to recover.
The average NHL career is short. Very short, even. Less than half of those who start to play in the NHL skaters on the ice more than a hundred times. Goalkeeper careers are, statistically speaking, slightly shorter than outfielders. Henry has made 574 appearances for the New York Rangers during his nine seasons, and is therefore considered to be a veteran.
- I believe that the development of the sport that I have seen during my nine years in the NHL is less than it was during the ten years before my debut. I came up in Frölunda in the early 2000s, and when you talked to the older guys that were new at the beginning of the 90s sounded like they were talking about a different sport. It was a different mentality, younger helped himself to more ... although I can feel younger today take for more than we did when I was new. But maybe everyone knows?
Do not goalkeepers been meatier lately?
- Size-wise, a lot has happened, yes. Many guys are bigger and longer, and cover more. And has good technique, in addition. That part has progressed a lot. The goalkeepers have become much better than they were 15-20 years ago. It is important to keep up.
Do you receive any practical use for your goalie skills in everyday life?
- I can not say that I'm better on someone else to rescue falling coffee cups. I think I'm very good at focusing, even if only on one thing at a time. I can totally get caught up in anything.
You are aware of the phenomenon of credit card roulette?
- Oh yes. There tend to be 50/50 between profit and loss for me. I have not won too much. It is often the one who proposes to play that usually lose. Maybe it's karma related: They hope to get away, but go there. It can be exciting to see who will go there; schadenfreude is the only true joy sometimes.
As a goalkeeper you are reasonably well protected against circular discs of vulcanized rubber, just to even work largely consists in being hit by them for up to 170 km / h. Not even behind these generous protection is however completely safe.
- I broke his jaw once when I was playing in Russia. I got a puck on one side of the face, who pushed to the jaw so that something broke on the opposite side. It's probably the hardest. On workout. I thought there was something wrong with your teeth first, because they did not fit as long as I clenched. It felt like they were a mess. "There is something wrong with my teeth," I said to a guy in the booth, and he looked after and could not see other than that they sat where they were going. Afterwards, I could not gape at a few weeks. This was in Omsk, and I was not so eager to go to the hospital there, so I went with it there a few days before I could go home and get it fixed. It was fortunately such a fine crack that I did not have to unscrew. There were a couple of tough days.
Henke hit club record with the highest number of wins for a goaltender in the New York Rangers rattled teammates together into a specially designed Gibson Guitar - Custom painted in team colors.
Are you, dear reader, for new lair? What a coincidence - Henrik sell: How does 189 square meters on the 42nd floor of a nice scratch on West 52nd Street, with the roof at leisure and nice view over the Hudson River? The patio at one hundred square meters has a bar, jacuzzi and a beautiful floor in the Brazilian ipe. Inside waiting six rooms, two sleeping. The price is well perhaps it would deter the economically minded,: 6,495,000 dollars, which gives over 47 million of writing moment's exchange rate. A fee of 17 929 SEK will be monthly. On the other hand, can it all be seen as an investment: Property values in the area have climbed steadily - Henrik himself bought for $ 3.9 million just a few years ago, and is thus about to do a good business.
- We have not sold yet, but we are quite far in the planning. We're moving, but we have not moved yet.
Where is it heading?
- We will stay in Manhattan, just move a little further south.
Have you imagined an American upbringing for her daughter?
- Yes, it will probably be so. We'll see when I'm done every load is going, if it becomes home or elsewhere. We're thinking about it. It may emerge.
What was wrong with the apartment?
- We needed more space.
My wife is in the eighth month. Do you have any toddlers tips for the newly crowned the father?
- Congratulations! Yes, you have to be flexible and willing to change. Things were in a certain way before they had children, and it is changing. Everything takes longer, from getting out the door to sit down and eat. One is accustomed to everything flaps, but children go on their own schedule. Be adaptable.
I just need to make a few hundred of these interviews have been to, and do not eat anything before I can start watching a car in tvåmiljonersklassen. Do you have any recommendations?
- Yes ... I like to try different stuff. I've driven very Italian, Maserati and Lamborghini. Now I have sold a few pieces. Right now it's the Bentley SuperSport is the favorite.
How are the family cars, they here?
- Bentley's not a super family car maybe. Then you get to take their Range Rover. Panameran works. New XE90 set, or something. One must have some options. There is a constant tug of war with my wife where I want to have fun, she is the more comfortable.
But you can put the car seat?
- Yes, yes. It goes into both Maserati and Bentley. It's more the gasket that cause problems. In the beginning I was more reluctant, but now I have got to realize that comfort is the most important. One must fold down when the family will, but many times I drive myself to workout, and then you can just run the car you feel like.
When will the book I'm Henry?
- You never know. I do not know if there is any book. Not right now, anyway.
Is there any publishers who have not heard of and thought it would be a good idea?
- I do not know if I'm interesting enough to write a book about.
Do you know for every year that passes the millionaire from Manhattan connects a stronger stranglehold on the ordinary guy from Åre?
- I will definitely remember where I come from. When leaving Sweden becomes more patriotic. When I lived at home I did not think much of it, but in the first year abroad begin to romanticize the image of the homeland, pulling up all that is good with Sweden in various contexts, is promoting Sweden - it is right funny how it works.
What do you emphasize?
- It can range from corporate to music. Nature. Being able to trust people.
"50% income tax, guys!"
- Well, that question will always up. We pay much tax in New York too, but in Sweden it feels like you get the more for what you pay, with health, education and welfare.
This is by no means a unique observation, but when one image googling you as it is very pictures of Henrik Lunqvist in costume and get in the keeper's uniform. Had it been harder for you to be as well documented fashionista if you had been a less competent goalkeeper?
- I'm a hockey player. It has been my life since I was six years old, and that is how I relate to myself, nothing else, whether I'm doing different projects on the side or not. Hockey is my passion in life. Since I have lots hobbies that I like to develop, but I find it hard to see myself without hockey part. It's who I am, and that's something I spend an incredible amount, time, effort and energy.
In the line of fire 2005-2014
Shot against Henrik Lundqvist 16 069th
Saves 14 791st
Save Percentage: 92.1%.
Salary Negotiator
First contract with the Rangers (two-year) from 2005 to 2007, average annual income: 1.879 million dollars.
Other contract with the Rangers (one-year) from 2007 to 2008, average annual income: 4.25 million dollars.
Third contract with the Rangers (seåxrigt) from 2008 to 2014, average annual income: 6.875 million dollars.
Fourth contract with the Rangers (seven-year) from 2014 to 2021, average annual earnings: 8.5 million dollars.
Click here to purchase the Tiger of Sweden leather jacket that Henrik is wearing above from Nordstrom (full price)
Click here to purchase the jacket while it's on sale at Gilt.com!
http://www.kingmagazine.se/artiklar/lasning/20150220/hemma-hos-henrik-lundqvist-hockeyn-ger-mig-angest
