Sweden’s Lova Blom is projected to be her nation’s subsequent celebrity – for each girls’s hockey, and hockey usually. Having simply turned 16 years outdated on Jul. 15, Blom might be making her SDHL (Svenska damhockeyligan) debut this coming 2019-20 season for Djurgårdens IF.
The 5-foot-7, 140-pound heart ought to have a direct affect for each her hockey membership and for the league. Whereas it’s far too early to inform how Djurgårdens will assemble their ahead strains, it may make for a really lethal mixture to have Blom on a line with high-scoring Canadian Jennifer Wakefield and captain Andrea Dalen. The trio would simply make for probably the most potent offensive forces that the league has ever seen.
When she was 14 years outdated, Lova Blom was already enjoying towards grown girls twice her age and averaging a aim per sport (Picture Credit score: Mats Bekkevold).
Wakefield and Dalen individually already are elite scorers. Puting the 2 of them onto the starboard and port sides of Blom is a quite stirring possibility to contemplate, and the numbers that they might generate.
Regardless of who she is finally teamed-up with, Blom could be very excited for her first go-round for Djurgårdens.
“I’m wanting ahead to it very a lot,” she advised THW. “I do know it’s going to be very powerful and a giant problem, but it surely’s the challenges that I like. It’s a really nice staff – each on the ice and off the ice. I believe it’s going to be an incredible season, but in addition a tough one. However like I stated, I’m wanting ahead to it.”
Lova Blom is wanting ahead to her first SDHL season and suiting up for Djurgårdens IF (Picture Credit score: Mats Bekkevold).
Blom spoke at size with THW, and dicussed the place she is at in her profession. She welcomes the chance to succeed in expectations and exceed them, and he or she seems to emulate her personal “hockey heroes” as effectively.
Blom’s Worldwide Success for Sweden
Blom has already competed for Sweden at two totally different IIHF Ladies’s U18 World Championships. Born in the summertime of 2003, she can have two extra alternatives to partake on this specific match.
In 10 video games at U18 competitors, Blom has scored a single aim. She helped Sweden to a most sudden silver medal victory on the 2018 tourney in Dmitrov, Russia, enjoying in all 5 of Sweden’s video games. Blom and the Swedes even pushed the gold medal-winning USA to extra time of their first sport of the prelims.
At 5-foot-7 and close to the 140-pound mark, Lova Blom has splendid dimension for the middle place (Picture Credit score: Mats Bekkevold).
She adopted that up with a formidable exhibiting the very subsequent yr.
Blom’s lone U18 aim to this point was a crucial one throughout 2019’s occasion in Obihiro, Japan. Dealing with the potential for a sixth place end, she put residence the game-winning aim towards Switzerland’s Saskia Maurer to make sure a 2-1 victory for the Swedes.
“It’s an honor to signify my nation,” Blom acknowledged with a substantial quantity of pleasure in her voice. “It has been a aim since I began play, so which means the whole lot. My favourite second to date was when the Swedish U18 staff was in Russia, and we stood on the blue line and heard the Swedish nationwide track. It was an unbelievable feeling!”
Right here Is What Is Most Spectacular About Blom
Imagine it or not, Lova Blom doesn’t play most of her aggressive video games towards ladies or girls. A substantial quantity of her hockey expertise has been battling alongside and towards U16 boys. Blom performed seasons of 12 and 11 video games in 2017-18 and 2018-19 respectively for Nyköpings HF’s male U16 squad.
In each seasons she was higher than a point-per-game participant.
At simply 14 years of age, she scored 5 targets and 9 assists for 14 factors in 2017-18, and completed as one of many top-10 scorers on the staff. Blom adopted that up with six targets, 12 assists and 18 factors in 11 contests throughout 2018-19 to be seventh.
Lova Blom’s pace and her hockey intelligence are obviously heads above the remainder (Picture Credit score: Mats Bekkevold).
In lots of cases, she actually skated circles across the boys, and that isn’t to sound cheeky or over-the-top. Blom is a really proficient participant, and he or she thinks the sport in a means that’s well-advanced for somebody so younger. Fact be advised, her hockey sense is probably going past that of many professional gamers.
“I believe my pace and my play intelligence are my strengths,” Blom defined. “I’ll all the time say that my brother is my position mannequin. He all the time fights and by no means provides up.”
Blom expanded additional:
“Once we had been youthful he helped me with the coaching. Each morning on the weekends, he did further practices with me. However two nice hockey gamers that I’ve all the time been wanting as much as is Maria Rooth and “Foppa”, Peter Forsberg.
A giant brother, and two of the higher gamers that hockey has ever seen? Definitely splendid heroes for Blom to have. Rooth is a Three-time NCAA champion, and an Olympic silver and bronze medalist. Forsberg is a Hockey Corridor of Famer, a 2-time Stanley Cup champion, and 2-time Olympic gold and World Championship gold medalist.
Blom Is Solely Going to Get Higher and Higher
Additionally at 14 years outdated, Blom performed for Hammarby IF in Sweden’s second-tier league – Division 1 – for the 2017-18 season. Her efficiency was fairly staggering. Enjoying in lower than half of the season’s video games, Blom nonetheless completed seventh on the staff in scoring with 12 targets in 12 video games and eight assists as effectively.
A lot of her teammates and her competitors had been twice her age. Think about if Blom had been with the staff for your entire season. She probably would have been Hammerby’s high scorer and would have ran roughshod over the Division-I stats columns.
Lova Blom helped Sweden win a silver medal on the 2018 IIHF Ladies’s U18 World Championship in Russia (Picture Credit score: Mats Bekkevold).
It’s performances resembling these which have followers so excited to see Blom play within the SDHL, and for a lot of seasons to return. Although she is so extremely regarded, she possesses the humility to be a greater individual than she is a hockey participant – and he or she is a hell of a hockey participant already.
When requested in regards to the speculations and sentiments about her expertise, Blom smiled and responded:
“It’s very enjoyable to listen to that. I actually hope that sooner or later I will be an necessary and an excellent participant. That’s my aim, and I’ll work laborious to get there. You will need to work collectively as a staff and have enjoyable. Additionally I’ve realized to work laborious to succeed in my aim.”
Hockey apart, Blom can also be only a typical 16-year-old woman.
“My favourite animal is a canine,” she advised us as a enjoyable truth about herself. “Since I used to be little I’ve all the time beloved canine. It feels just like the canine can perceive us. The canine are like a human, and that’s why I like (them) a lot.”
