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    Finding Myself Through Borje Salming

    Finding Myself Through Borje Salming
    by Drew Pelto, aka *censored*

    In 1991 and 1992 Pro Set football and hockey products, the Dallas-based company put in a semi-educational subset. First called Think About It, then Play Smart (or Jouez La Bonne Carte in the French version), the cards had words directly from players talking about avoiding drugs and violence, staying in school, and just doing the right thing in any aspect of life. One card that always resonated with me was Esera Tuaolo's card, talking about being proud of one's heritage.


    Funny enough, my dad grew up as a big Packers fan in Michigan's Upper Peninsula

    I’m not Samoan, but I am a second-generation American. My paternal grandfather was born in Tervola, Finland in 1902. When he was three years old, his father came to the United States, eventually bringing my great-grandmother and four of their five children over four years later (the oldest boy chose to remain in Finland, living with relatives). My paternal grandmother was born in the United States to Finnish immigrant parents from Kannus and Ylivieska. My mom's side of the family is pretty mixed-- various parts English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and German-- and mostly had been on this side of the pond for well over 200 years by the time I was born. I have always thought of myself more as a Finnish-American than anything. My dad and his sister never learned to speak Finnish, and I can do little more than introduce myself, count to ten, sing a couple songs, and curse a lot. None of us have been back to Finland. But many of our family traditions and memories are distinctly Finnish. My dad attends a Finnish Lutheran church and I can eat the hell out of some sienipirakka, lihamojakka, nisu, pannukakku, leipjuusto, and wash it down with a pot of coffee. The Finns are the world's biggest coffee drinkers, after all. And don’t get me started on the miracle that is sauna.

    I've had an interest in genealogy since middle school after finding a book my mom had that traced a couple generations back on both sides of the family. In other notes and documents, she had her side going back hundreds of years in some areas, but my father's was only complete to his grandparents. He didn't know the name of the oldest son who stayed in Finland, or anyone from before about 1872. With the advent of internet genealogy research when I was in high school, it made it easier to dig further back and compare notes with other relatives. But with the language barrier, I still wasn't able to get too far until Facebook entered the picture. I had another Pelto add me one day randomly as she added every Pelto she could find. So I did the same. Remembering that our name had been shortened from Peltoperä, I started adding them too. Eventually I found a distant cousin who was able to fill in portions as far back as I had on my mom's side-- with a line going back to the 1500s throughout Tervola, Rovaniemi, Kemijärvi, and Sodankylä. throughout the area known as Lapland. Another relative on my dad's mom's side got me that line going back just as far, even mailing me printed copies of everything from Finland. I found that oldest brother’s descendants as well, now living in Rovaniemi.

    After a while, I set my research aside as life got busier. Over the next few years, I changed jobs and moved, getting into my current location in the Dallas area and my current job of photo editor for Panini. One day while pulling photos for a hockey set, I came across Borje Salming. As a long-time hockey fan, I was certainly familiar with the man who paved the way for Europeans-- especially Swedes and Finns-- to the NHL. Now as a loyal Finn, of course I wasn't a huge fan of him being a Swede, but I did recognize his impact on the game. Often while I'm finding photos of players, I might look up a few facts on them so I checked out his Wikipedia page.

    And that's where I first saw the term Sámi.


    The flag of the only indigenous people of Europe

    Now I'm sure you all have gotten stuck going down the rabbit hole on Wikipedia before. You find something, it leads to something else, then something else, then something else, and after an hour your initial search on African violets has led to you reading about Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett. The same sort of thing happened to me here. The Sámi, whom I had never heard of before, are the people once referred to as Lapps-- now viewed as a derogatory term coming from references to their clothing being patches, or rags from their multi-colored designs. They once inhabited much of northern Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Finland-- hence the term Lapland. Seeing as a quarter of my family came from this area, it of course made me wonder if I was part Sámi too. My interest in my family background had been rekindled, but in a much stronger sense. No longer was I trying to just put in names and dates and just hunt around, knowing a lot of generalities and filling in specifics. Now I was trying to find out who I really am.

    I picked up a book on researching Sámi ancestry by researcher who discovered that her previously-thought Finnish background was actually more Sámi than Finn. In a list of names with likely Sámi connections were three from my own family tree-- Peltoniemi, Tervo, and Laiti. My evidence grew stronger.


    On the left, my grandfather, approximately age 33, with three of his brothers

    I followed by contacting another eminent researcher and archivist of Finnish and Sámi background, Kent Randell, the Scholar and Resource Representative of the Sámi Siida of North America. I told him about my background and got a lengthy response that largely confirmed what I had thought: “It is accepted that everybody north of a line that is drawn from Pudasjärvi to Oulu had a lot of Saami ancestry... Anybody with Tervola, Kemijärvi, Rovaniemi ancestry has a lot of Saami ancestry!”

    I have filled in even more gaps over the past few months. I'm not just Finnish: I have Finnish, Swedish, Scottish, German, and Sámi background all where I previously thought I was 100% Finn. And a chunk of our Swedish background is from medieval Umeĺ, a heavily Sámi area at that time.

    I also have read more about Salming, who has been a pioneer of floorball, a sport related to hockey that I play as a goalie. I even wore 21 as a defenseman in my first season-- Borje's number and position. Last year I switched to goalie and 11, and now to 52 to honor the
    Guovdageaidnu Uprising. Salming endured a lot of criticism that he somehow wasn't truly Swedish, partially because of his Sámi heritage and and partially because he was a rougher player than most Swedes of the 1970s. Fans and players with a rival team in Sweden referred to him as Lappjävel: a rag-wearing S.O.B.


    Salming opened the door from Europe to the NHL

    Salming turned that criticism around and used it as his ticket to the NHL. Ejected after angrily running over a referee in an exhibition game against the Barrie Flyers, Toronto scout Gerry McNamara (who was traveling to look at Inge Hammarström) immediately ran down to the locker room to offer Salming a contract. His move and ultimate success in the NHL were originally viewed as a problem in Sweden: while it opened to NHL's doors to European players, it meant that Sweden suddenly was losing many of its best players, resulting in them moving from a potential powerhouse in every Winter Olympics to now wondering if they could have enough quality players to put out a rigidly-enforced amateur team. This resulted in the country not icing a team in the 1976 Winter Games. Swedish Elite League teams banned Hammarström and Salming from using their facilities in the off-season. Salming was allowed to play for them at the Canada Cup, but very reluctantly. By 1989 the Swedish hockey bigwigs had gotten over it. Salming, viewed for a long time as a troublemaker, party animal, and far from a model citizen, was allowed to play for them at the 1989 World Championships and finished his career with three final seasons in the Swedish Elite League, capping off a 26-year professional and semi-professional career. His play reaffirmed that the Swedish model actually was working in the hockey world and is viewed as a significant moment in the country's hockey history. Salming even appeared in the 1992 Olympics as Sweden’s second-leading scorer and the top-scoring defenseman among any country at age 40. Today, more than forty years after Salming's move to the NHL, the Swedish National Team is still an international powerhouse: despite their fears of losing their top talent, the Tre Kronor have medalled in 48 of 90 World Championships, World Juniors, and Olympics since the fears that resulted in their sudden 1976 exit.

    It has been said about baseball's Alex Rodriguez, a Dominican-American, that he often felt that he was never fully accepted by either the Dominican or American community. With a mixed background, to prove himself as a “real” American he had to be more American than the Americans; but to be a “real” Dominican, he had to be more Dominican than the Dominicans. It would not surprise me at all if Salming felt the same pressure, having to be more Swedish than the Swedes to be fully accepted by them with a Swedish mother and a Sámi father.

    Similarly, American floorball players in this area seem to be looked down upon by the majority of elite players who are from Finland. We have rarely been given a true opportunity to succeed unless we kowtowed to what they wanted. Our club has a member of the USA Men's National Team and two members of the USA Men’s Under-19 Team playing on it and we still are often viewed and treated as a second-class organization by those around us. Like Salming, I have been personally called angry, thuggish, violent, and viewed as a far lesser player. I do play an edgy game at times, but many others who do the same get excused. Despite my Finnish heritage, I'm not Finnish enough in their eyes. Maybe it’s because I don’t speak the language; maybe it’s because I haven’t yet been to the country despite it being significant in my background; maybe it’s because I’m only half Finnish; maybe it’s because my family is from the Northern areas where it’s likely that I’m part Sámi, and therefore not fully Finn on that side of the family. I don’t know. All I know is that like Borje Salming, it made me want to go at them harder and get better until my team beat them. Discrimination, no matter what the reason for it, became an element of encouragement rather than frustration, and we finally outdid their team and won Texas' two biggest tournaments last year as well as a local summer league. When I took a break from the sport for a few months, my former team beat them again in their own fall league and placed higher at the US National Championships.


    Champions at last! The author is front and center with a 4-1 record, 2 shutouts, and a 0.61 GAA

    Swedes have gone from viewing Salming as the enemy, to seeing him as a national hero and a great advocate for Sámi rights. Fans in Toronto called him “The King” three decades before New Yorkers gave it to fellow countryman Henrik Lundqvist. Canadians gave him a five-minute ovation in the 1976 Canada Cup in Toronto even though he was representing his home country against theirs. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996 and the Leafs honored his number in the rafters ten years later.


    Borje Salming has been a great inspiration to hockey players both Canadian and Swedish as well as all around the world. He has inspired innovators in the area of sporting goods and even new sports via floorball. He has become a cultural ambassador and author of two autobiographies and a grilling cookbook. And personally, he has inspired me to learn more about myself and my background, to always fight for what I believe in, and to never forget who I am.

    About the Author: Andrew M. Pelto (Finnish: Antero Harinpoika Palosaari Laiti Peltoperä; Northern Sámi: Andiijá Hárribárdni Bealdunjárga Dollasuolu Laiti; Surrealism: Tim) is a goalie with the 2015 Southwest US Floorball Champion Lone Star Lions. He primarily collects sports autographs, enjoys exploring all things historical and sporting, and lives in Texas with his wife and two cats of undocumented ancestry. He might punch you if you pronounce it “SAW-na.”
    Last edited by *censored*; 02-15-2016 at 12:15 AM.

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