by VANCOUVER — Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin are looking forward to their Hockey Hall of Fame weekend, celebrating their 17-season career with friends and family, and perhaps embarrassing fellow contender and former Vancouver Canucks teammate Roberto Luongo when he Defense in the Legends Classic plays game.
However, the soft-spoken twins aren’t looking forward to making speeches at Monday’s induction ceremony.
“We don’t really like being in the spotlight, but you have to endure it for a few minutes,” Henrik said on Wednesday.
Daniel added: “That’s the one thing we might both be a little bit nervous about, the speech. But you try to enjoy them and you just go there because you also want to say thank you to all the people who have been with us over the years.”
The Sedins and Luongo, who played for parts of eight seasons in Vancouver as the No. 1 goaltender for the Canucks, were voted June 28 for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, highlighting a group, too who also include Daniel Alfredsson, Riikka Sallinen and the late Herb Carnegie.
When asked if they’d sought speechwriting advice from former teammate Kevin Bieksa, who hilariously introduced the Sedins at their jersey retirement ceremony in 2020 at Rogers Arena and is now a television analyst on “Hockey Night in Canada.” works, Daniel said, “We wish we had his confidence to be up there.”
Instead, the Sedins will rely on each other just as they have in Sweden and throughout their NHL career.
It hasn’t escaped the Sedins that none of this would have been likely if then-Vancouver chief executive Brian Burke hadn’t found a way to draft them #2 (Daniel, who wore 22 as a result) and #3 (Henrik). , who carried 33) in the 1999 NHL Draft.
“It’s something you think about, not every day, but often,” Daniel said. “A lot of things went well and we had the chance to be in the same team and I think we wanted to make the best of it and we’re proud of that.”
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The Sedins ended up on the most rosters of all time for the Canucks.
Henrik is their all-time leader in assists (830), points (1,070), games played (1,330), and power play points (369). He won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player and the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leading scorer in 2009-10 when he had 112 points (29 goals, 83 assists) in 82 games.
Daniel has a Canucks-record 393 goals and is second to his brother in assists (648), points (1,041), games played (1,306) and power play points (367). He won the Art Ross Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award (presented annually to the NHL’s Outstanding Player, as voted by members of the NHL Players’ Association) in 2010-11 with 104 points (41 goals, 63 assists). .
The Sedins were notoriously competitive with each other, whether playing card games on team flights or pushing each other during offseason practice, but it was their mutual support that allowed them to overcome early career hiccups under pressure from Vancouver fans and media.
“We absolutely felt the pressure,” said Henrik. “It was difficult to get onto the rink many days.”
They leaned on each other to get through.
“We went through everything together,” Daniel said. “You know someone else has been through exactly the same thing as you and to be able to talk to someone about these issues – or good things – on a daily basis, I think that’s tremendous for anyone. But having your brother with you obviously makes it easier. Whenever you had to vent or talk about things that happened, I find that enormous.
It also comes in handy when writing speeches for the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“We made our own speeches,” Daniel said. “But we also want to make sure we’re not saying the same thing and thanking the right people, so there’s going to be a split in that department.”
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