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Ex-WHL player Albin Blomqvist tells of depression, despair following repeated concussions

Neate Sager

Axel Blomqvist is a name with some currency among hockey fans; he's a hulking 6-foot-6 Swedish winger who signed a free-agent deal with the Winnipeg Jets before going on to have a 24-goal season in the WHL split between Lethbridge and Victoria. Albin Blomqvist is much less well-known, but as a young person, that doesn't mean he should be disregarded.

It's not uncommon in major junior hockey for a team to sometimes draft a player with the ancillary motive of building a rapport with his family that it hopes will pay off when his perhaps more promising younger brother comes of draft age. Albin Blomqvist preceded his brother in Lethbridge by a season. The 6-foot-3, 202-pound defenceman, played what amounted to one full season for the Hurricanes spread out across two years due to myriad ailments, including a brain injury that ultimately forced him out of hockey. Now 21, unable to play the game that was the basket he put all his hopes and dreams in, he has written a very candid, poignant piece for hockeysverige.se about how he felt like he was pushed aside once he was no longer able to play. Credit goes to The Hockey News' Ryan Kennedy (@THNRyanKennedy) for the find and Swedish-to-English translation.

As a defenceman with good size, the type that most teams believe they need a few of, Blomqvist was expected to be physical and fight. As an 18-year-old. As he put it:

I was just a determined teenager who was willing to do just about anything to get to where I always wanted to reach. I fought on the ice because people expected me to fight. I angered people on the ice for that was what was expected of me as a player. I would play simple and nothing else, because I did not have the right skills to play in other ways. (hockeysverige.se; Google translate)

Of course, that had the quintessential dark side that most people acknowledge but don't like to talk about at parties, to paraphrase the Jack Nicholson character in a Few Good Men. Blomqvist, to be clear, is not blaming everyone else for his issues. He had agency in choosing his path. At the same time, talk about someone who was shunted aside.

Here's Kennedy:

The fall-out of Blomqvist’s concussions reveals the saddest details. The youngster began to drink out of despair and lost 30 pounds in a month. Part of his anger now stems from the fact that he suffered alone.
“Not a single person in the hockey bubble stretched out his hand and asked me if anything was wrong,” he wrote. “The only people around me were focused on how and when this player would take to the ice again. The leaders in question are too cowardly to care about their players as people. I gave them all they wanted of me on the ice. But it cost me my dream.”

Blomqvist is clearly disappointed with the establishment in his letter and claims that he often saw injured players — including those with head injuries — tossed right back out on the ice for another shift. He writes that he no longer trusts the hockey world, but still loves to cheer on his four brothers, all of whom still play. And of course he fears for their safety.

Would Blomqvist ever have made it to the NHL? Probably not, but thanks to injuries throughout his teen years, perhaps we never got an accurate picture of what he could have been. It’s always sad when a player so young has to hang up his skates for the final time and clearly Blomqvist is working through that pain. Hockey has tried to improve how it handles concussions and other serious injuries, but according to Blomqvist, there’s a long way to go. (Post-to-Post

Most people go through a period of disillusionment in their early 20s where they do question these outside forces that shape our existence. That's a theme that courses through this, too. At the same time, though, as much as the Western, Quebec and Ontario leagues are businesses and as much as Big Sports can be an ugly business, one shouldn't lose sight of the toll on the players who produce a lot of the value, interchangeable though they might seem. Most major junior players will say their days in the OHL, QMJHL and WHL were unforgettable, but there's still room to acknowledge a better job could be done at supporting those who are no longer able to play, as well as reducing a culture of fear. Blomqvist was speaking for himself, but what he says probably resonates with many among the major junior players who do not get a foothold in the NHL.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.