Legendary NHL defenceman Börje Salming, who was a fixture on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ blue line for 16 years, has died. He was 71 years old.
The Maple Leafs announced Salming’s death Thursday afternoon.
“Börje was a pioneer of the game and an icon with an unbreakable spirit and unquestioned toughness,” President and Alternate Governor Brendan Shanahan said in a statement. “He helped open the door for Europeans in the NHL and defined himself through his play on the ice and through his contributions to the community.
“Börje joined the Maple Leafs 50 years ago and will forever be a part of our hockey family. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife, Pia, his children Theresa, Anders, Rasmus, Bianca, Lisa and Sara, and brother Stieg.”
Salming was diagnosed with the progressive nervous system disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, earlier this year. He had been receiving treatment in his native Sweden.
A pioneering European star from the northern Swedish town of Kiruna, Salming played 1,099 games with the Leafs and ranks fourth among the team’s career scoring leaders with 768 points.
Former Toronto Maple Leafs players and members of the Hockey Hall of Fame, Darryl Sittler, left, Borje Salming, middle and Mats Sundin, right, take part in a pregame ceremony in Toronto, on Nov. 11. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)
In 1997, he was voted one of the 100 greatest players in NHL history by a panel that included former players, coaches, executives and media members.
Salming’s number 21 hangs in the rafters at Scotiabank Arena, after it was retired in 2016 alongside other Leafs greats like Dave Keon, Johnny Bower and Doug Gilmour. He was also the fourth former Maple Leaf to be immortalized with a statue in the team’s Legends Row in Maple Leafs Square, alongside icons like Bower, Darryl Sittler and Ted Kennedy.
Emotional final tributes in Toronto
His importance to the Maple Leafs and the city of Toronto was clear during emotional tributes and standing ovations earlier this month, as he attended games in Toronto for the last time.
Salming, with his family and former teammates by his side, received roars of applause from appreciative crowds at two separate games. In an especially poignant moment before a game between the Leafs and the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins, fellow former Leaf Sittler tearfully raised Salming’s arm to ensure he could wave to the crowd of thousands.
Sittler told CBC News that he knew those games might be the last time he ever got to see his teammate and friend.
“It was a magical moment. People who watched that, and the people who participated in it, they’ll remember that for the rest of their lives,” he said.
Borje Salming gets emotional standing ovation at NHL Hall of Fame Game
The long-time Maple Leafs’ defenceman received a warm welcome from the Toronto crowd as he battles ALS.
Robbed of his speech and some mobility, Salming shook hands with every member of the Maple Leafs as he slowly departed the ice at his final appearance with the team, before a second game against the Vancouver Canucks.
Former teammate and NHL great Lanny McDonald told CBC News that it was “a gift” for Salming’s family to be able to see just how much he was looked up to when he was celebrated in Toronto this month.
“It was such an honour for him to be able to have his family understand how much everyone loved and respected him,” McDonald said.
“More than anything he was such a great teammate, both on and off the ice.”
Salming was the fourth former Maple Leaf to be immortalized with a statue in the team’s Legends Row in Maple Leafs Square. (Michael Wilson/CBC)
Salming’s strong two-way play made him one of hockey’s elite defencemen. He was also one of the most popular players in team history.
“Wearing the Toronto Maple Leaf sweater for 16 seasons was a great honour,” Salming said in part in a statement made upon the announcement of his statue in 2014.
“I always look back on my time in Toronto with fondness and enjoy the chance to visit every chance I get.”
A trailblazer
Former Maple Leafs captain and countryman Mats Sundin previously said that every Swede respects Salming and holds him in high esteem for his wealth of accomplishments.
“For us — Swedish hockey players — he is the man who showed us the right way; he is a trailblazer,” Sundin said.
Though European players are now commonplace in the NHL and among the league’s biggest stars, that wasn’t always the case. Starting back in 1973, Salming helped open doors to North American hockey for his countrymen — who hockey fans once looked down upon with the childish nickname “chicken Swedes” — thanks to stereotypes that they couldn’t keep up with the physicality of the North American game.
‘He would do anything for you’: Leafs legend Lanny McDonald on Börje Salming
Toronto Maple Leafs legend Lanny McDonald paid tribute to his late teammate Börje Salming as ‘one of the greatest to ever play the game.’ McDonald said he was grateful to be with Salming and his family recently at an emotional Hockey Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Toronto.
Salming helped annihilate that stereotype by not just surviving but thriving in the NHL, earning the nickname “King.” In 16 seasons with the team before a final season in the league with the Detroit Red Wings, Salming accumulated a team-record 620 assists, alongside 148 goals.
“When Borje came [to the NHL], he was a target. The game was different back then,” Sittler said. In the shower after games, it was obvious how much abuse Salming took, he said, from the numbers of welts and scars all over his body.
“The next night he’d just go back out and do it again,” Sittler said.
“He had a love and a passion for the game like no other.”
Salming was also named to the league’s first all-star team once and five times on the second all-star team, which was similarly a team record. He came just shy of enough votes for the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenceman in 1980.
In a statement Thursday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman called Salming the first Swedish star to play in the league, and as “physically and mentally tough as he was skillfully gifted.
“He blazed the trail that many of the greatest players in NHL history followed while shattering all of the stereotypes about European players that had been prevalent in a League populated almost entirely by North Americans before his arrival in 1973,” Bettman said.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.
The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.
The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.
Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.
The final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.
EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.
Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.
The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.
Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.
TAKEAWAYS
Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.
Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.
KEY MOMENT
New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.
KEY RETURN?
Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.
OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN
The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.
The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.
UP NEXT
Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.
Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw for 291 yards and three touchdowns, and Kareem Hunt pounded into the end zone from two yards out in overtime to give the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs a 30-24 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night.
DeAndre Hopkins had two touchdown receptions for the Chiefs (8-0), who drove through the rain for two fourth-quarter scores to take a 24-17 lead with 4:17 left. But then Kansas City watched as Baker Mayfield led the Bucs the other way in the final minute, hitting Ryan Miller in the end zone with 27 seconds to go in regulation time.
Tampa Bay (4-5) elected to kick the extra point and force overtime, rather than go for a two-point conversion and the win. And it cost the Buccaneers when Mayfield called tails and the coin flip was heads. Mahomes and the Chiefs took the ball, he was 5-for-5 passing on their drive in overtime, and Hunt finished his 106-yard rushing day with the deciding TD plunge.
Travis Kelce had 14 catches for 100 yards with girlfriend Taylor Swift watching from a suite, and Hopkins finished with eight catches for 86 yards as the Chiefs ran their winning streak to 14 dating to last season. They became the sixth Super Bowl champion to start 8-0 the following season.
Mayfield finished with 200 yards and two TDs passing for the Bucs, who have lost four of their last five.
It was a memorable first half for two players who had been waiting to play in Arrowhead Stadium.
The Bucs’ Rachaad White grew up about 10 minutes away in a tough part of Kansas City, but his family could never afford a ticket for him to see a game. He wound up on a circuitous path through Division II Nebraska-Kearney and a California junior college to Arizona State, where he eventually became of a third-round pick of Tampa Bay in the 2022 draft.
Two year later, White finally got into Arrowhead — and the end zone. He punctuated his seven-yard scoring run in the second quarter, which gave the Bucs a 7-3 lead, by nearly tossing the football into the second deck.
Then it was Hopkins’ turn in his first home game since arriving in Kansas City from a trade with the Titans.
The three-time All-Pro, who already had caught four passes, reeled in a third-down heave from Mahomes amid triple coverage for a 35-yard gain inside the Tampa Bay five-yard line. Three plays later, Mahomes found him in the back of the end zone, and Hopkins celebrated his first TD with the Chiefs with a dance from “Remember the Titans.”
Tampa Bay tried to seize control with consecutive scoring drives to start the second half. The first ended with a TD pass to Cade Otton, the latest tight end to shred the Chiefs, and Chase McLaughlin’s 47-yard field goal gave the Bucs a 17-10 lead.
The Chiefs answered in the fourth quarter. Mahomes marched them through the rain 70 yards for a tying touchdown pass, which he delivered to Samaje Perine while landing awkwardly and tweaking his left ankle, and then threw a laser to Hopkins on third-and-goal from the Buccaneers’ five-yard line to give Kansas City the lead.
Tampa Bay promptly went three-and-out, but its defence got the ball right back, and this time Mayfield calmly led his team down field. His capped the drive with a touchdown throw to Miller — his first career TD catch — with 27 seconds to go, and Tampa Bay elected to play for overtime.
UP NEXT
Buccaneers: Host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
