Reporting on the Maple Leafs in Sweden, Randomly Meeting the Bassist from 'Europe' and Getting a Row of Seats to Myself for just $30!

Seeing the Maple Leafs (particularly the Swedish players) get the rock star treatment and experiencing great food and transit!

Hello, from Toronto where I’ve enjoyed my first day of recovery since returning from Stockholm, Sweden on Monday. I didn’t know what to expect when travelling to a country for the first time, but I’m a huge fan of Stockholm, Sweden. I wish I had more than six days to experience it.

I really only had one day (Thursday the 16th) when the Maple Leafs were off and I tried to do everything I wanted to do from a tourist’s perspective. I walked around the old town (Gamla stan) and just walked aimlessly as I went into shops and got lost. Because of the coffee culture of the town, I found myself taking numerous breaks inside just to warm up. But I did manage to get to the Nobel Prize museum. Thanks to the awesome tip from the Toronto Star’s Kevin McGran, admission. for journalists is free!

Nobel Prize Museum in the Old Town

Collection of photos from the Old Town

The strangest public washroom, but most useful.

When I walked into Caffe Nero to take a break, I didn’t expect to find myself using a toilet with arm stirrups on it. But when in Sweden…

All toilets should have this. It was so comfortable. The Swedes know what they are doing. Easy to get up, too.

Let’s talk candy

Sweden has a lot of unique candy, but for some reason, they are obsessed with black licorice. I never liked black licorice before but I tired to see if these Raspberry/black licorice skulls would make me change my mind. I bought a small bag in the old town and tossed the immediately. Just gross.

I think my favourite candy while on the trip was Kex.

It was nearly identical to Coffee Crisp, but without the chocolate coating surrounding the wafers.

The food

After having some delicious pizza on the first night of the trip, I decided to try out some burger joints.

I really enjoyed Max Burgers, a fast-food burger joint that is equally, if not more popular than McDonald’s in the Nordic countries.

@davidalter35If you are ever in #stockholm #sweden🇸🇪 , you mus try Max #Burgers. Easily a 9/10. #foodtiktok #foryou #foryourpage

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Outside of Avicii Arena, was a place called Bordernas. It is co-owned by New York Rangers forward Mika Zibanejad. It was good but it was incredibly greasy.

@davidalter35Trying Mika Zibanejad’s #burger joint in #Stockholm, #sweden . It’s good but very messy. #food #foodie #foryou #foryoupage

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Other burger joints that didn’t get the TikTok treatment that were also good include:

Harvest Home, a local pub where Swedish journalist Per Bjurman took us out for a gathering one night.

On the last night of the trip, I couldn’t find a place to watch the Detroit Lions game but found a pub and tethered to my laptop at a place called O’Leary’s Pub. They were cool with it.

SWEDISH MEATBALLS

A group of us gathered the night before the Leafs’ second game to celebrate Kevin’s 60th birthday. We checked out ‘Meatballs for the People’

The four of us split two chef specials, which was an assortment of 12 different meats each. We made sure at least one of the were reindeer meat. It was very gamey.

My favourites were the duck and the 70/30 ratio of beef/pork, which is apparently what a traditional Swedish meatball consists of.

Randomly hanging out with the bassist from Europe

After dinner, Kevin took us out to Bröderna Olssons Garlic & Shots. He bought us a beer that was full of garlic. Despite its taste, I managed to finish it.

After ordering this, a random man approached us and started a conversation with us. He began to explain to us that he is the co-owner of the bar. I asked him about the rock basses that were hanging from the ceiling, to which he explained he is the bassist in the band ‘Europe’, best known for their hit song ‘Final Countdown’.

I immediately googled him to make sure he wasn’t full of BS and sure enough, there he was…John Leven.

Me, being the random, asked him if he made a fortune on the sale of the rights to the song. As a big wrestling fan, I remembered that wrestler Bryan Danielson wasn’t able Final Countdown until shortly after lead singer Joey Tempest sold a portion of the rights to his songs to an entity known as Primary Wave.

“How the f*ck do you know that?!” he replied.

It turns out that because Tempest has the songwriting credits, Leven didn’t receive any proceeds as a result.

The Leafs in Sweden

Seeing the Maple Leafs in Sweden was certainly a unique experience. The venue where they played had such a high ceiling that the sound would die immediately when things were really quiet.

On the first day when William Nylander held court with the Swedish media, it was quite the scene.

I met a fan from Switzerland who is a big fan of both the Maple Leafs (because of Mats Sundin) and Denis Malgin. He wore a #62 Malgin jersey to the first Leafs game in Stockholm.

Being interviews by Swedish media

I woke up Thursday morning to a DM asking if I was free to do an interview for Kanal75. The journalist, Sebastian Harryson, was awesome and was nice enough to take perhaps the best photo of me in recent memory.

How I got a row of empty seats on my flight home for $30