Joakim Nordström terminated his KHL agreement with the Moscow TsSKA in March.
Joakim Nordström represented Sweden at the Beijing Winter Olympics. AOP
When the Beijing Winter Olympics ended in February, Russia launched a senseless war of aggression in Ukraine a few days later.
Joakim Nordström, 30, had already had time to return to the club team in Moscow at this point. Nordström played with the Russian army in the Moscow TsSKA.
– The day the war broke out, we had a regular medical examination after the Olympics. Everything was new. We didn’t meet between the team and we played the next day without meeting anyone. We hadn’t heard anything from the club, and we had no drills, Nordström repeated Express in an interview.
Then everything turned white for Nordström when he saw the news.
In the match, behind the TsSKA’s exchange, there was a poster on the wall that read “Putin – our president.” It shocked me.
– We weren’t aware of that. It was heavy, there was a lump in my stomach. But we couldn’t really do anything, Nordström said.
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Nordström immediately decided to terminate its contract with TsSKA Lucas Wallmarkin with.
SVT reported earlier that the termination of the contracts cost players SEK 13 million, or about € 1.25 million.
– It had to be done for moral reasons. The TsSKA clearly supported the war and it was not in line with my values. I by no means wanted to support it, Nordström said and continued:
– I lost a lot of money. But in Ukraine, so many others had worse than I did. And looking at my career, I would have regretted it if I had missed it. It was an easy decision for me.
Two more Swedes remained in TsSKA’s ranks when the goalkeeper Adam Reideborn as well as a defender Klas Dählbeck played for the end of the season in the Moscow club and won the KHL championship.
KHL posted on Twitter a picture of the duo with medals around their necks. The image caused a stir and was heavily criticized. Nordström himself did not follow the playoffs at all and does not value the championship.
One thing is for sure.
– By no means will I return to Russia.
In addition to KHL, Nordström has played in the NHL during his career, where he won the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackwahks in the 2014-2015 season. On the Swedish national team, he celebrated World Cup gold in the spring of 2017.
In the NHL, he has played a total of 444 regular season games with power points of 32 + 43 = 75.