2015 MEMORIAL WINNER PROFILE
LINGMERTH SKATED AFTER HIS OWN HOCKEY DREAMS EVERY WINTER UNTIL HE WAS 15. IT’S WHAT YOU DO IN THE NORDEN, AS NATIVES CALL THE NORDIC LANDS OF SWEDEN, NORWAY AND FINLAND. Below: David Lingmerth’s first love was ice hockey, not golf, and he was quite good at the
DAVID LINGMERTH PHOTOS (2)
sport, too.
“I got hockey pants,” Lingmerth says. “I slept in those hockey pants that night. They never came off. They were black and they were so cool, I thought.” Fast-forward three years and it was time for his first real game against a real opponent and his first road trip. It was going to be a special day, no matter what. The chance to play a team of strangers instead of another dreary intrasquad practice game made it an incredibly thrilling voyage into the unknown. Lingmerth doesn’t recall exactly where the game was played, but it wasn’t far from home, which, for him and his young teammates, was Tranas, a picture-postcard town of 14,000-plus about three hours south-southwest of Stockholm nestled near the serene shores of Lake Sommen. It had the feel of an old “Cheers” episode because, as the show’s theme song repeats, it’s “where everybody knows your name.” This game, therefore, was also Lingmerth’s first time representing Tranas. That made it a whole different kind of exciting.
The game itself? It wasn’t exciting at all. Lingmerth’s team won, 21-2, and he scored eight goals. Wait, eight goals? Yes, he says somewhat sheepishly. “It wasn’t impressive,” he says. “Everybody is on different ability levels at that age.” Imagine if he’d kept up that pace. Eight goals a game over 82 regular-season National Hockey League games, let’s see… “Yeah, I should have kept that up,” he says, laughing. He might have become Sweden’s Wayne Gretzky. Or the next Magnus Svensson, a Tranas legend who skated on Sweden’s gold-medal team in the 1994 Winter Olympics. Or another Niklas Hjalmarsson, who grew up about 30 minutes away from Lingmerth’s town and played on some junior hockey and soccer teams against David. Hjalmarsson is a defenseman for the Chicago Blackhawks and, Lingmerth says with a touch of admiration, “He’s won three Stanley Cups.” Lingmerth skated after his own hockey dreams every winter until he was 15. It’s what you do in The Norden, as natives call the Nordic lands of Sweden, Norway and Finland. Fifteen percent of Sweden lies within the Arctic Circle, and the other 85 percent is simply on a different block in the same neighborhood. Life is about embracing the cold and ice. Especially since it’s not an option. Tranas is beautiful in the summer, Lingmerth says. And in the winter? “It is beautiful then, too, when it’s lighted,” he says. “We have a few hours of daylight in the south but most of Sweden is so
96
THE MEMORIAL
MEM16_LINGMERTH_PROFILE_7.indd 96
5/3/16 9:26 PM