KARLSTAD, Sweden — There are times when Anna Ek watches her son’s face used as a punching bag and wonders what her precious boy, Minnesota Wild center Joel Eriksson Ek, could possibly have done to make that person so mad.
“He’s such a nice guy,” Anna said. “He has so many friends. He’s the first person that will help you.”
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Inside Joel’s childhood home late this summer, Anna sounded like the Swedish version of Helen Seinfeld when Jerry had to explain to his mom, “I know this may be hard for you to understand, but I’m sure there are many people who don’t like me.”
Helen’s reaction: “Jerry don’t say that! You’re a wonderful, wonderful boy. Everybody likes you. It’s impossible not to like you. Impossible!”
Wild fans have certainly learned by now, though, that the reality is that many people just don’t share their appreciation for Eriksson Ek. They’ll give the king of the goalmouth scrum a huge ovation when he takes the ice for Thursday’s 2023-24 season opener. The opposing Florida Panthers will be less enthusiastic over his presence.
Nobody in this organization’s history — and remember, Nino Niederreiter played here — has been involved in more post-whistle mayhem. Defenders want to rip his head off, yet it never looks like he says a darn word. He just looks at them with a blank stare, triggering eruptions of fury.
“I can’t stand playing against Eriksson Ek,” Washington Capitals defenseman Rasmus Sandin said. “In August, we went to Norway to play in Mats Zuccarello’s charity game. I had never really met him before and, to be honest, didn’t want to. But we hung out a bit, and he’s awesome. But on the ice, it’s just like, ‘Come on, like, stop!’”
What does that mean, exactly?
“He’s just always there,” Sandin said, laughing. “Like always. Offensive zone. Defensive zone. He’s always at the net, getting in the way, pushing, shoving, near the goalie. And he’s so strong.”
Marc-Andre Fleury also used to hate playing against his now-Wild teammate and said that Sandin pegged exactly why.
“I’ve seen him a bunch in front. The defense gets mad, and he kinda looks like nothing, but then you get to him and he’s just so sturdy,” Fleury said. “That’s why he gets into so many scrums, I think.”
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The Wild’s perennial fitness champ is always buzzing around your personal space and can’t be swatted away, kind of like a gnat, teammate Jonas Brodin said.
Like Eriksson Ek, Brodin hails from Karlstad. In fact, Eriksson Ek just bought his first house on the same lake Brodin lives on, Vänern, the biggest lake in Sweden. They skate, train and hang out together in the summer.
When it comes to the skating, Brodin has a strategy.
“I always pick the same color jersey as him so we’re on the same team,” Brodin said. “Trust me, the way he is in games, that’s the way he is in the summer. Nobody wants to play against him, even in that setting. He’s just so strong and he battles all the time.
“I have more people ask me about Eriksson Ek than anybody because they all hate him … until they meet him.”
Brodin used John Klingberg as an example. Klingberg used to battle Eriksson Ek all the time when he played for the Dallas Stars. Last March, the Wild acquired Klingberg from the Anaheim Ducks.
“Klingberg got here and thought Ek was going to be this f—ing asshole,” Brodin said. “He hated Ek. I mean, hated. And then he came here and was almost upset that he started loving him.”
Clas Eriksson, Joel’s dad, was strong as an ox when he played professionally in Sweden. Like his son, he played for Färjestad, whose current barn, Löfbergs Arena, is a two-minute drive and five-minute bike ride from their home.
The former forward won three championships as a player and two as a coach there. He thinks it’s that blank stare that ticks combatants off most. You’re in a heated battle, and your opponent gives you this dumbfounded look when you know he’s really not dumbfounded.
“It would make you explode,” Clas said, laughing, with his son looking at him with an innocent smile. “Maybe the worst thing is to have someone that’s bothering you not showing any emotion. In the end, they’re just tired of him. He plays with a Swedish style, I would say.”
The frowns he provokes are all the more ironic because Eriksson Ek’s home of Karlstad actually has a logo of a smiling sun. Clas and Joel said it’s a tribute to a former waitress at the restaurant in town.
“She was always happy, always smiling, so it became a saying: ‘The sun is always shining in Karlstad,’” Joel said.
“Everybody thinks it’s because we are usually one of the towns with the most sunshine in Sweden, because we have the big lake here, but it really is because of a waitress,” Clas added. “It’s kind of right that Joel is from here.”
That’s because Joel actually is a big smiler. Like his mom said, there are few nicer players, especially to fans who stop him around the Twin Cities. After practices, Eriksson Ek often opens the door to the ice in front of the stands and leans down for 20 to 30 minutes signing autographs and taking pictures with fans.
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Karlstad is a gorgeous small city a three-hour train ride from Stockholm right through Sweden’s wilderness. Trees, and paper mills, are everywhere. In fact, Clas manages one.
On the side, Clas still runs the several pros through their summer workouts and skates. Hockey is massive in Karlstad, especially because Färjestad has long been one of the SHL’s premier franchises. Wild first-round pick Liam Ohgren currently plays there, “and for a town of 98,000, there’s a lot of pride here that Minnesota has three of our guys: Joel, Brodes and JoJo (Marcus Johansson),” Clas said.
All know Eriksson Ek, 26, has developed impressively since the days some felt the Wild erred by taking him in the first round over Brock Boeser.
He’s first over the boards in any big situation, and while his bread and butter is being a responsible, hard-nosed defensive center, he has scored 68 goals over the past three seasons and in 2022-23 had a career-high with 61 points in 78 games.
But what was he like as a kid?
“Restless,” Clas said.
“Always active,” Anna said.
“Chubbier,” kidded Olle, his 24-year-old brother and 2017 Anaheim fifth-round draft pick, who is off to a 2-1 start as a goalie for MoDo in the SHL.
Growing up, Joel and Olle did everything together, especially shooting pucks in their now-refurbished garage.
As Joel gave The Athletic a tour of his parents’ home, where Olle still lives in the offseason and Joel lived until his first year with the Wild, he pointed out every nook and cranny that used to have evidence of pucks tattooed on walls.
“There was a hole here and here and here, everywhere in the walls, the doors, everywhere,” Eriksson Ek said, proudly. “We played for hours. Lots of fights.”
That makes sense because goalies hate Eriksson Ek, and Olle would play goal.
“It used to get competitive with me and Joel, and usually one of us would start crying and that’s how all the games ended,” Olle said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t come in until our parents made us. Joel was a lot like he is now. Competitive and didn’t like to lose.”
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Eriksson Ek also spent plenty of time outside. Biking, running … digging.
“In the woods, he loved to dig a hole and then shovel the dirt back in,” Clas said.
“Bury his brother,” Anna said, jokingly, at least we think.
“I don’t remember that, but there’s a big chance that’s true,” Olle said.
In winter, it was building castles in the snow.
“We’d build small cabins and hide in there,” Joel said. “It got a little cold.”
“He had lots of friends, and they loved to play street hockey or Bandy,” Anna said.
“He could wear out three friends in a day because no one could keep up with him,” Clas said. “He always had something going on. Same thing now.”
Mostly, Eriksson Ek’s passion was going to the rink with his dad.
Johansson, in his second stint with the Wild, is seven years older than Eriksson Ek. He remembers the happy-go-lucky kid coming into Färjestad’s locker room after games.
“After every game, he’d come in the locker room with a bag of candy and a Coke, and he’d be smiling and loving hockey,” Johansson said. “I even remember seeing him play at that age. He was playing, I think, with kids that were two years older than him, and he was so good. Same type of player as he is now. Ekker might be a little more skilled now, but same mindset and same work ethic.”
Eriksson Ek looked up to players like Johansson, now his linemate. He remembers watching how they conducted themselves — and that even after games they’d take five minutes to play mini sticks with him.
Brodin, 30, who lives in the same Minneapolis building as Eriksson Ek, is four years older. He said it’s funny how the age difference doesn’t seem like much now but back then Eriksson Ek seemed “so young.”
“I remember him running around the rink nonstop and he was always in our locker room playing,” Brodin said.
The first time they ever really talked was at the airport when they were heading to a summer development camp in Minnesota. They were connecting in Paris and had a great conversation at the gate there. Then Brodin boarded the plane and realized Eriksson Ek hadn’t.
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“It turned out there was something wrong with his visa,” Brodin said, laughing. “But he was the same guy then as he is now. I’m with him a lot and we have a lot of common friends, so we go for dinners a lot in the summer and he’s just a funny guy outside the room, down to earth.
“The only thing I don’t do is go for his long, long walks. He loves his walks. He goes for like three-hour walks. I guess, hikes, you could call them.”
Eriksson Ek’s childhood home is a short walk to the river, one that he used to — and still — swims in. And the arena he used to play hockey in is also where he skates on a daily basis in the summer.
His dad’s picture is all around the arena, even though he played at the arena that previously stood in the same place. As he gave a tour of the rink, Eriksson Ek proudly posed with one of the photos and showed off a sauna that fans can rent out during games.
“They buy tickets and watch the game from inside the sauna,” Eriksson Ek said, laughing.
Eriksson Ek can’t ever see himself not living in Karlstad.
In fact, after living in a condo that was initially set up years ago by his mother, he can’t wait to move into his new house next summer. It’s the first big purchase of his career.
“I’m not really a big spender,” he said.
The home won’t be ready to move into until November, so his mom will set it up with furniture and decorate it.
“I’m not very big into art or furniture, so she helped me out,” Eriksson Ek said.
That will mean paintings of chimpanzees, as well. Neither Joel nor Anna can explain it, but she’s fallen in love with the works of a Swedish artist named Bobo Wallmansson, who signs all his paintings “Bobow.” On the walls of Eriksson Ek’s childhood home and his condo are all sorts of framed chimps.
It’s just become part of home.
“I’ll never leave here,” Eriksson Ek said. “First of all, everything is 15 minutes away, max. You have your family here. That’s probably the first thing why you go back. And you have all your friends. But this is where you grow up. This is where you have all your roots. Everything is just easy. Everything is close. You know all the people. It’s the perfect place to quiet your mind and rest your body.
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“I like to go out in the nature, take walks. There’s lots of water. The biggest thing is it’s just so easy to do anything. Like America, you need a car to go somewhere. Here in Sweden or wherever in Europe, it’s more common to walk or bike. It’s calm. It’s easy. Everything is close.”
Because of the time difference, Eriksson Ek’s parents watch their son’s games in the morning. Neither is allowed to lift their phone, so they don’t know the result.
“Brodes’ father, I think, has watched every single game live for 10 years,” Clas said. “I don’t know when he sleeps.”
As a former coach, Clas is proud of the way Joel has matured as a hockey player.
“He’s a steady learner,” said Clas said.
Joel admitted it took him time.
“The hockey’s the easy part. It’s everything else,” he said, before pointing to his small childhood bedroom. “When I came to Minnesota, I was still living in that room. The hardest change isn’t on the ice. It’s trying to get used to all the stuff around the ice. You have to find an apartment, find a car. Where do you go grocery store shopping? What do I buy? It’s not the same brands, same food, we’re used to in Sweden. That’s an adjustment.
“For me, I like to know what I’m doing and I like having routines. I mean, I was scared. But then you get used to it, and now, seven or eight years in Minnesota, I feel like it goes just so fast. Sometimes I can’t believe I get to do it.”
And years later, as hard as he is to play against, Eriksson Ek is one of the most respected Swedish NHLers, especially among his countrymen.
“I love that he has an edge to him,” Nashville Predators forward Filip Forsberg said. “Like when he first came in, he was trying to play with some of the bigger boys. He was trying to find his role. He wasn’t sure what kind of spot he wanted to be, and now he’s found that edge and plays a physical, hard game. He’s a great two-way player, like the perfect guy that can move up and down a lineup, probably more on the defensive side but still can produce. I like his game a lot. It’s hard to play against him. He doesn’t make it easy on anyone.”
Clas and Anna taught both their boys the importance of hard work, eating well, sleeping well, getting good grades and taking pride in being good people and teammates.
“What sets Joel apart is his work ethic,” Olle said. “He’s a really smart hockey player. He knows what he needs to get better at and really knows how to put in the work to get better at it. He’s not the flashiest guy, but he’s the hardest-working guy.”
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In November, Clas and Anna cannot wait to travel to Stockholm to watch their son play NHL games in their own country, with the Wild facing the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs. It’ll be a proud moment for two parents who raised a very likable boy who just so happens to be disliked by almost everybody he plays against.
“It’s gonna be amazing,” Eriksson Ek said. “Just to play in Sweden and maybe get a chance to play in front of family and friends that maybe can’t make it over in the winter or is way too far to travel, like my grandparents, it’s going to be special for sure. It’s hard to describe.
“I can’t wait to show my teammates Sweden. You want to show them the best parts of the country.”
Eriksson Ek stared off into the distance on this sunny afternoon in Karlstad.
“Us Swedes, we talk well about Sweden, so maybe we have to show them it’s actually this nice,” Eriksson Ek said, smiling.
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(Top photo of linesman Brad Kovachik separating Ottawa Senators left wing Brady Tkachuk and Joel Eriksson Ek: David Berding / USA Today)