Macoun resident, Josh Gustafson, recently played hockey in Sweden with the Ronnangs IK Lobsters at the division three level.
He began his European journey in July of 2014 instructing at hockey camps with the Hockey Ministries International organization, and by late August he was practicing with the Lobsters.
“I actually had a friend who had gone over there couple of years earlier. And so they had a couple roster spots open that they were looking for guys to come in to fill,” he said.
Gustafson usually plays defence but at the beginning of the season he played forward because the team was this at the position.
“They put me up on forward for the first five or six games of the year on the first line and I actually did pretty well,” he said. “I think I had six goals in the first four games … I was doing well on the scoring department.”
After the team brought in some forwards, Gustafson went back to playing defence.
This was the first time that the 25 year-old has ever played hockey in Europe and it took some getting used to playing that style of hockey.
“It`s crazy how different the game is over there for sure. Playing on a wide rink, huge ice surface, and I don’t know how it is in the rest of Europe, but especially in Sweden there were very minimal hitting and minimal contact,” Gustafson said.
In his second game, he said he got into a scrum in front of the net with an opposing player, and after they exchanged a few jabs he was kicked out of the game
“I didn’t know what was going on. I was confused to why they kicked me out because it would be a normal scrum in any normal North American league,” he said.
After the game his teammates were saying ‘nice fight, nice fight’ and then Gustafson figured out he was kicked out for fighting, even though it wasn`t much of a fight.
After that he learned his lesson and tried to avoid those scrums.
Along with the minimal contact he said that it did take him used to playing on the wide rink.
“It took me a while to get used to just how they played in their systems. Even if you wanted to hit, you couldn’t really because the ice is so big and it’s such a wide surface you can’t play the North American game where you run around and are really physical,” he said.
Also playing in Sweden, he said that the language barrier was a struggle at first but as the season went on he was able to pick up phrases of what his teammates and coaches were saying.
“Everyone basically on the team understood English and they can speak it a little bit. But the coach can speak a little bit of English and whenever he would address the team or talk to the team, it was only in Swedish.”
This the highest level of hockey that Gustafson has played.
When he was younger he played on the Estevan midget and bantam AA teams and played four years at Brierchrest College.
Before playing in Sweden, Gustafson played the last couple of seasons in the Big Six Hockey League with the Midale Mustangs.
He also noted that playing hockey at the college level is where he developed as a hockey player the most and it made him ready to play in Sweden.
Other than playing hockey, Gustafson farms and also owns G2 Eavestroughing and Exteriors with his brother.
Gustafson said that the Sweden team asked to play with the team for next season, but he said he is undecided at this point.
