Peter Forsberg

Sportskool Hockey coach Peter Forsberg

Hockey

Peter Forsberg Bio

Few goals in the history of hockey have been more celebrated.

Peter Forsberg put his first stamp - literally - on hockey in the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, with a backhander past Canadian goalie Corey Hirsch. The 20-year-old's shootout goal - later immortalized on a Swedish postage stamp - gave the hockey-crazed country a gold medal and the world a taste of what it would soon see in the NHL: the best player on the planet.

Forsberg came over to the North America the next season, and the center has been the NHL's most dynamic and constant scoring force since. He won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 1994-95 with the Quebec Nordiques. The next season he had 86 assists and 106 points as the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup.

Forsberg's managed to keep playing like a superstar while fighting two unlikely enemies: the league and his own body. As NHL scoring started eroding in the late 1990s, he still piled up points through the clutching and grabbing. He had 97 points in 1998-99, and led the league with 106 in 2002-03.

But he has rarely been healthy since his first two seasons. In one eight-year stretch he missed 237 games, the equivalent of almost three seasons. He missed the entire 2001-02 regular season after he had his spleen removed the previous spring. In typical Forsberg fashion, he came back for the playoffs led the NHL with 18 assists and 27 points in 20 games. In 2002-03, led the league with 106 points and won was named NHL MVP.

  • Born July 20, 1973 in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden
  • Has won two Stanley Cups (1995-96, 2000-01) and two gold medals (1994, 2006)
  • Currently plays for the Philadelphia Flyers, the team that originally drafted him sixth overall in 1991
  • In 2002-03, he led the league with 106 points and was named NHL MVP.
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