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***sköldpaddor*** · 05-06-2020, 12:35 PM

Gunnar Söderberg S53 Wrap-Up Interview

TAMPA, FL --- Just a few seasons ago, the Tampa Bay Barracuda were one win away from a championship. To come that close and go home empty-handed was, in one player’s words, “one of the most devastating things I’ve ever experienced.” The following season, so burdened with expectation and potential, was nothing short of a disappointment, with the team swept in the wildcard round by the Buffalo Stampede. Since then, it has been the general consensus that the Barracuda are rebuilding. Front office changes, including a new GM, and some high-profile trades have made it clear that the organization has decided the status quo wasn’t going to get the job done. Of the team that made the appearance in the final in S50, just half remain in Tampa, with the focus shifting away from existing superstars and towards the future.

It’s a tale as old as organized hockey itself - trying to put together the pieces necessary to win a championship, shifting those pieces, swapping in new ones if the existing layout doesn’t work, and hoping to get that magical perfect combination that can go all the way. It is, as they say, just business. But though it may be business in the grand scheme of things, it can be deeply personal for the players who live through it. For every championship team, there is a team that came so close and fell short; it is nothing new, but ask any player who has lived through it, and you will find a different story for each one, a different story of the aftermath and the road ahead once that final game in a season has been played.

I sat down with Barracuda winger Gunnar Söderberg, who has been with the team since he was called up in S49, to talk about the future of the team and his own experiences in the league so far. This isn’t the first time I’ve interviewed him; I’ve covered Gunnar’s career since he was still playing in Sweden and just on the cusp of making the move to North America. There are changes that are more obvious as soon as he walks into the room. Drafted second overall by the Barracuda in S47, Gunnar has already seen some highs and lows in his time in North America. It’s obvious that playing in Florida has given him plenty of time both in the sun and on the ice. He’s bulkier than he was as a rookie, there’s more muscle on his frame and it’s clear he’s grown into his frame in the past few years; he’s no longer the kid whose presence seemed a little too big for the body he was working with. The sun has also left his skin a couple shades darker and his hair, shorter now, is bleached a couple of shades lighter. He’s traded the ever-present hoodies he always seemed to be wearing in Kelowna for a Barracuda t-shirt and gym shorts, but his coffee order is still the same - some giant frozen thing drizzled with caramel and two straws in it, which he picks up from the counter before making his way over to the table where I’ve already set up.

“Am I late?” he asks, which is the way he’s begun all of our interviews, and as has become custom, I assure him that he is not. We make small talk for a minute or two; the weather is humid (pretty much a given in Florida in May), this coffee shop is his new favorite local place, and he took his dog to get a bath earlier in the day so he’s sorry if he has dog fur on his shirt (he doesn’t that I’ve noticed, but he pretends to brush some off anyway). And then we get down to the tough questions.

I mention that he struggled to produce this season, and when he makes a face at that, I ask him if that’s a sensitive subject.

“No, I mean, I wouldn’t expect you to not ask that, if that’s what you mean. This year was just really hard, I’m not going to lie. I think I wrote a blog post the other day where I went on for like three paragraphs about how hard it is. I’m not trying to make excuses. I know I need to be better.”

He’s spoken to his coaches about that, he assures me, and has gotten some good guidance on where to focus his efforts going forward. But it’s hard to not see this year as a lost opportunity, a season he will look back on with some regrets.

“Yeah, look, I know a lot of guys struggled this year because of the changes that were made to the ice and all that. But you only get so many seasons before things start to go downhill for you physically, and that’s just, you know, how the human body works. Every season that goes by and I have to say ‘next season’ is another season that’s lost to time and I’ll never get that time back.”

He also feels like he’s at his peak right now, and hopes to maintain that while the team rebuilds. I ask him if he has thought about the possibility of looking elsewhere for a chance to chase that elusive championship while he’s in the prime of his career, but he shakes his head before I’ve even finished asking the question.

“No, no. The only way I’m going anywhere else is if management comes to me and says ‘hey Gunnar, look, we have a chance to get this piece that’s going to bring it all together for us, but we have to trade you’. It’s not going to happen just because I’m tired of waiting, if that’s what you’re asking. I love this team, and I’m not just regurgitating the same quote or whatever when I say that I’m really excited to be a part of what’s happening here. I’m completely committed to seeing this through, and that’s what I’ve communicated to the team and management whenever it’s come up.”

There is an earnestness in Gunnar’s voice and in his eyes when he talks about his team, and I don’t doubt his sincerity. I don’t know him personally, but he has always seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve for these interviews, so he’s never especially hard to read.

I ask him if the S50 final loss is still an elephant in the room, or if he feels like it’s still a weight on his shoulders now that some time has passed. Gunnar puts his head forward onto the table with a quiet thunk, at which point I notice that his hair isn’t actually shorter, it’s just pulled back into a knot. He’s grinning when he lifts his head back up, but there’s a little bitterness there too.

“Oh sure, it still sucks. Look, that’s always going to suck. There’s probably not going to be a day of my life I don’t look back on that and wish it had gone differently. I still do that with the one we lost to St. Louis when I played in Kelowna. It never stops leaving a bad taste in your mouth, but it’s also a motivation, because you don’t want it to happen again. It’s not that it sucks any less it’s just that it’s not the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning anymore.”

Which begs the obvious question - what exactly does he focus on when he first gets started in the morning?

“Getting better,” he shrugs. “I mean, getting my head on straight, setting my priorities for the day, making sure my dog gets fed, that kind of thing. Now that it’s the offseason I spend a little more time thinking about stuff that isn’t hockey. It always comes back to hockey at some point in the day, but it doesn’t have to be the very first thing this time of year.”

He’s going home to Sweden again shortly for the summer, but there’s some business to take care of in Tampa first, due to some recent changes in the roster. Olivier Cloutier, who has been Gunnar’s roommate for the past few years, was traded to New Orleans this week, so before Gunnar heads back to Sweden, he has to decide what he’s going to do next year.

“Yeah, I have to figure out my living situation for next year. I mean, I could just live in the apartment on my own, but I really like having a roommate. It’s better for Maxim too because he has two people who can let him out if the other one doesn’t happen to be home. And I’m really getting into cooking and it just sucks to cook meals for one person. If I don’t have a roommate I’m going to turn into one of those people who just posts instagram pictures of my dinner all the time because otherwise nobody will get to see it. I don’t know. I talked to Evans about maybe rooming with him but we’ll see, I’m not sure if he was serious or not.”

He also says it’s important for him to room with somebody with a similar work ethic to his own, because that can carry over onto the ice.

“I definitely think that Olivier has made me a better player and I don’t think that all took place at the arena. It’s just like…an energy that’s important to have in your life, to have people around you who can amplify your own drive to be better. I mean, if I’m at home and it’s just me and I just get up and wake up and drag myself to the arena, sure, I’ll get there. I’m not going to skip practice. But having somebody around who’s going the same place you are and you can kind of encourage each other and maybe even compete a little, it’s motivational like that. So that’s one of the things I definitely look for when I’m thinking about who I want to live with.”

With how hard this year has been, he’s had to look other places for that motivation, too.

“I’ve talked to my mom a lot more this year,” he says, gnawing on the end of one of the straws in his cup. (I have gathered that’s the reason there are two of them - one to chew and one to actually use as a straw is intended to be used). “She always motivates me, because she’s just like, a badass, like if you think about all the stuff she’s been through in her life and everything she’s done. My life goal is to be like half as much of a badass as my mom is.”

Gunnar has mentioned before that his mother is one of his heroes, but I’m curious whether he’s found any new heroes in his time playing in the SHL.

“Oh, is it the shoutout segment of the interview?” he laughs. “Yeah, for sure. Lots of guys I look up to in the league, on and off the ice. Fanto was one of them, he just retired. I know I’ve talked about Jøln before, because he’s been such a good teammate here and also for Sweden at worlds and he gets less of a break from listening to me complain than some of the other guys. Also, Ola Wagstrom, obviously. He’s such an absolute force to be reckoned with here in the league and getting to play on a line with him for Sweden, I always feel like I’m just like…hey, can I just like…get some of that skill via osmosis or whatever?”

So what is it that makes a player worthy of being looked up to, and what qualities does Gunnar himself look to emulate when he tries to set a good example for younger players?

“I mean, obviously there’s a skill level you’re aiming for there. You want to be the kind of player who makes other people want to make their own game better. And you want to be a positive presence off the ice, too. I want the younger guys in the locker room to feel like they can come to me if they have questions or if they’re worried about something or even if they feel like they’re having trouble fitting in. Being a good team goes so much deeper than just the skill level you put on the ice. At the end of the day, you can have the most skilled guys in the league but if they hate each other and can’t communicate, you’re not going to go very far.”

What is it, I ask, that he thinks makes for a good locker room atmosphere?

“Acceptance, first of all.” Gunnar sits up a little, and I can tell we’re back on a topic that’s near to his heart. “I’ve been really outspoken about how we have to get rid of some of the old BS that used to be accepted as just the way things are in sports. Prejudice and all that, even when it’s casual and just things people say when they aren’t thinking about it, we have to get rid of that. I don’t think that kind of stuff has any place in a sport that’s supposed to be about coming together as a team to reach a common goal. How are guys supposed to feel comfortable in a locker room when they’re sitting there wondering ‘damn, did he use that slur because he’s just a good old hockey boy or did he use that slur because he actually feels that way about people like me?’ I spent a lot of time when I was younger wondering if I could actually be honest with my teammates about who I was, or if I was going to have to choose between hockey and being true to myself, and I don’t want anybody else to have to go through that. I’m totally willing to be obnoxious, to take the people rolling their eyes at me, to deal with the people who are going to react badly when they’re told they need to change their behavior, if it means someday nobody has to ever worry that their identity is going to cost them the thing they love most in the world. It’s worth it.”

Gunnar has spoken about this before, and I ask him if that’s still the legacy he wants to leave, if that’s still his priority.

“I have always said that my priority is to leave hockey a little better because I was a part of it, and that hasn’t changed,” he says, setting his now-empty cup to the side and folding his hands in front of him. “We all get just a few years, really, to make our mark on this sport and the people in it. It’s not a lot of time. I want to win championships, and that’s the goal on the ice. But once it’s all over, once I’m past my playing years, I want to look back and believe that it’s all a little better than it would have been if I hadn’t been there. Better for other kids who have the same dreams I did, better for the league because we aren’t losing talent along the way to avoidable situations. You know. All that. I think hockey has made me a better person. It’s made me a harder worker and it’s made me better at thinking and learning and teamwork. I just want to return the favor.”

JSS · 05-06-2020, 04:35 PM

gunnar is my hero

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