FanPost

Viktor Fasth, is he the true Cinderella story?

Maybe not, but this is a guy who has had a long and different journey.


Viktor Fasth, who is he? That was probably the words you were told by the common man on the streets of any random Swedish town if you mentioned the name before the spring of 2010. Those of us who follow the SEL closely and has an eye on the lower divisions probably answered, "He's that new goalie talent in Växjö Lakers who is said to be pretty good. The few who really knew ...Yeah, those smiles are probably really big today.

The truth is that not many, even very few of those truly interested in hockey did know much about Viktor less than four years ago. I, and many of us who follow Swedish hockey thoroughly knew the fall of 2007 nothing more than that the second division team Lakers (Promoted to play in SEL 2011 / 12) had acquired a 25 year old goalkeeper who had done well in the third division.
At the season of 07/08 Viktor Fasth showed that the Lakers had not wasted their money with the statistics 2:25 GAA, SVS 92.6% in 30 games.

But, just as we previously did not know who Fasth was, we also didn´t know that he erlier on had problems with injuries. Problems that once again showed up and he was out more than a season before they found out what was wrong and could fix it. The result of that was that he played only nine games 08/09 and came back late in the season of 09/10 which was why he, now as 27 years old, was relatively unknown to most.


Then, all of a sudden, people started talking about Växjö's incredibly talented goalkeeper, where did he come from? I had not seen him play at that time, but when it happened, he would show that the talk about his exellence was in no way exaggerated. It was the last game of 09/10 season, AIK (Stockholm)- Växjö Lakers. If AIK won, they would be promoted to the SEL. The Lakers had already lost the chanse of promotion and were to continue play in the second division, it was a game of very little importance to them. The game became a fight between AIK and Viktor Fasth were the Stockholm-team ran over Växjö totally, they were playing in one zone throughout the whole game and hammered the poor Lakers-goalie, but Fasth turned them down every time. Until the last minute, when AIK finally was able to score and become a SEL team. The fans of AIK went crazy of joy and celebrated the win of course, but what I applauded and the thing that truelly impressed me was the tremendous performance of Viktor Fasth. It would later turn out that I was not alone in being impressed. Not long after that the GM of AIK signed Fasth and mentioned just that game as what finally made him decide to sign Viktor.

 

The season 2010/11 is about to start, Victor is now 28 years old and rookie in the SEL. Anyone who knows anything about hockey believes his new team AIK will end up last in the series because they have a weak squad, mainly in defense.They would have been absolutely right about that, if it were not for ... that's right, Viktor Fasth! He gave his team a chance to win every time he played. Not only did AIK reach the playoffs mainly because of him, he was also the single largest reason AIK knocked out reigning champions HV71 with 4-0 in the quarter finals.Unfortunately AIK lost 0-4 in the semifinals to the soon to be champions Färjestad, but still, Fasth played GAA 1.78, SVS 94.5% in the playoffs.

No wonder he won "Honken trophy." Best goalie of the Year and "The Golden Puck" MVP of the Year.
Soon to Be 29 y.o. He make his debut in Team Sweden and the journey continues 

Country bashing will not be tolerated in the FanPosts, and neither will excessive spamming. Feel free to promote your own work, or even challenge one of this blog's articles. If you enjoyed it, post more!

Trending Discussions