Börje - The Journey of a Legend is a six-part miniseries about the life of Swedish Ice Hockey player Börje Salming produced by Viaplay. It covers his life from a young teenager in the mining town of Salmi until the end of his career in the National Hockey League. The series stars Valter Skarsgard as Borje Salming, Jason Priestley as Toronto Maple Leafs scout (and later General Manager) Gerry McNamara and Hedda Stiernstedt as Margitta Salming, Borje's wife.
Borje Salming was the first European born and trained player to make an impact in the National Hockey League in the 1970s, a league that was overwhelmingly Canadian and unfriendly to outsiders. Yet Salming was quickly embraced by the local fans and earned the respect of his teammates and opponents. He would go on to be recognized as one of the best players of all time, and the first of many players from Sweden to play and star in the NHL. The series covers Salming's struggles with xenophobia (including in his hometown of Salmi), injuries, and the biggest impediment to his success: The legendarily incompetent and outlandish owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Harold Ballard. The series also focuses on his relationship with his older brother Stig and Margitta's attempts at making a life for herself beyond a being hockey wife.
The series was released in November 2023, one year after Borje Salming passed away from ALS complications.
The series provides examples of the following tropes:
- All for Nothing: Despite all of Salming's individual accolades and the obstacles he surmounted, he never won the Stanley Cup
- Arc Number: 35. Borje's father died at the age of 35 in a mining accident. Smoky Lemelin presents Borje with a birthday cake on his 35th birthday with the number 35 on it. Smoky says Borje looked spooked out by it.
- Based on a True Story: The series simplifies some things but is overall quite historically accurate.
- Big Little Brother: Invoked in the physical sense as Borje is taller than his older brother Stig. Also invoked in the sense that Borje is an international hockey icon and his older brother Stig isn't well recognized.
- The Cameo: The series features cameos from Borje's older brother Stig, Gerry McNamara, and some of Salming's teammates with the Toronto Maple Leafs including Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Dave "Tiger" Williams and Jim "Howie" McKenny. The last shot of the series is Borje himself visiting Maple Leaf Gardens for the last time, just a few weeks before he passed away.
- Contrived Coincidence: Invoked. McNamara is in Stockholm on a scouting trip. He has a conversation with a random stranger in a bar who tells him to visit the town of Brynäs to watch a player named Inge Hammerstrom. McNamara goes to the town and watches a game, and decides not only to sign Hammerstrom, but also Salming based on his play. Had that conversation not occurred, who knows how history would've changed.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: When team owner Harold Ballard decides to dismantle a team on the cusp of success, one of his methods is to re-hire coach George "Punch" Imlach. Imlach had been a successful coach in the 1950s and 1960s, but by the time he's brought back in 1979, his methods of berating and screaming at his players only alienates the players and ends the team's status as contenders.
- Eye Scream: Salming suffered an eye injury during a game against the New York Islanders. He lost 50% of his vision in that eye. He refused to wear a visor and didn't wear one until several years later when he suffered injuries from a skate to the face and needed over 200 stitches.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Inge Hammerstrom comes across as this. He came over to Toronto with Salming and is over shadowded by him but helped Salming learn English and was a fairly skilled player in his own right.
- Like a Son to Me: The story is narrated by Toronto Maple Leafs trainer Dan "Smoky" Lemelin who clearly looks at him like the son he never had.
- Made of Iron: In an age when hockey was defined by goonery and toughness, Salming stood out. He was highly skilled held his own when he had to fight, amassed over 1,300 penalty minutes in over 1,100 games in the NHL and the list of injuries he endured was something:Hospital Nurse: One lung puncture, left. Shoulders dislocated two times. Elbows crushed five times, bone fragments remaining. Right hand, four fingers broken. Fractured kneecap, removed a loose bone in surgery. Forehead stitched nine times. Nose broken five times. Eyebrow stitched 26 times. Right eye, sight reduced by 50%. Left eye, slightly damaged after being hit by the blade of a hockey stick. Left ear, earlobe stitched. Mouth, five teeth missing. Chin stitched 15 times. Ribs, 14 loose.
- Moose and Maple Syrup: Inevitably invoked but also averted as Salming played most of his career for the Toronto Maple Leafs. His Swedish team in Brynas plays an amateur game against a Canadian amateur club and he's cursed at and spat upon. Salming's wife also deals with some condescension from other player's wives and struggles to make a life for herself in a foreign country.
- Old Shame: Borje tried cocaine in the 1970s. A decade later he admitted to trying it to a journalist. This results in him being suspended from the league, his family leaving him temporarily and receiving a What the Hell, Hero? phone call from his older brother.
- Parental Substitute: Borje's father died in a mining accident when he was a boy. His step-father was indifferent to him and he finds a fatherly substitute in the Leafs' trainer Smoky Lemelin.
- Stock Footage: The series utilizes stock footage of Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s for several transition shots as well as playing highlights from Salming's career.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Borje himself is on the receiving end of two major ones. One from his older brother Stig when Borje admitted to a journalist in the 1980s that he tried cocaine a few times in the 70s, and this caused a major controversy both in Sweden and in Canada. And a second when team captain Darryl Sittler demands Borje do something about team owner Harold Ballard dismantling the team. In the latter case, Borje replies that as a player, there's nothing he can do about it.
