Music: {allcanada} Sedins lean on each other to handle Hockey Hall of Fame spotlight

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

{allcanada} Sedins lean on each other to handle Hockey Hall of Fame spotlight

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VANCOUVER -- Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin are looking forward to their Hockey Hall of Fame weekend, to celebrating their 17-season careers with friends and family, and maybe embarrassing fellow inductee and former Vancouver Canucks teammate Roberto Luongo when he plays defense in the Legends Classic Game.

The soft-spoken twins are not, however, looking forward to delivering speeches at the induction celebration Monday.

"We don't really like to be in the spotlight, but you've got to take it for a few minutes," Henrik said Wednesday.

Daniel added, "That's the one thing we both are maybe a little bit nervous about, the speech. But you try to enjoy it and just go up there because you want to also thank all the people that have been with us throughout all these years."

The Sedins and Luongo, who played with them as the Canucks' No. 1 goalie for parts of eight seasons in Vancouver, were elected June 28 for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, highlighting a group that also includes Daniel Alfredsson, Riikka Sallinen and the late Herb Carnegie.

Asked if they'd solicited any speech writing advice from former teammate Kevin Bieksa, who hilariously introduced the Sedins at their jersey retirement ceremony at Rogers Arena in 2020 and now works as a television analyst on "Hockey Night in Canada," Daniel said, "We wish we had his confidence about being up there."

Instead, the Sedins will rely on each other, just as they did growing up in Sweden and throughout their NHL careers.

It's not lost on the Sedins that none of this would have been likely if then-Vancouver general manager Brian Burke hadn't found a way to draft them No. 2 (Daniel, who wore 22 as a result) and No. 3 (Henrik, who wore 33) in the 1999 NHL Draft.

"That's something you think about, not on a daily basis, but often," Daniel said. "A lot of things have gone the right way and we got a chance to be on the same team and I think we wanted to make the most out of it, and that's I think what we're proud of."

The Sedins finished atop most of the Canucks' all-time lists.

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 scored a Canucks-record 393 goals and is second behind 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 (given annually to the most outstanding player in the NHL as voted by members of the NHL Players' Association) in 2010-11, when he had 104 points (41 goals, 63 assists).

The Sedins were notoriously competitive with each other, whether it was playing card games on team flights or pushing each other during offseason training, but it was their support for each other that allowed them to overcome early career struggles amid pressure from fans and media in Vancouver.

"We felt the pressure, absolutely," Henrik said. "It was tough coming to the rink a lot of days."

They leaned on each other to get through it.

"We went through everything together," Daniel said. "You know someone else went through the exact same thing that that you did and to be able to talk to someone daily about those issues -- or good things -- I think that's huge for anyone. But to have your brother there, obviously makes it easier. Whenever you had to vent, or talk about things that happened, I think that's huge."

It also comes in handy when writing speeches for the Hockey Hall of Fame.

"We have done our own speeches," Daniel said. "But we also want to make sure that we don't say the same thing and we thank the right people, so there will be some splitting up in that department."

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