Farjestad Karlstad's Norwegian defenceman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen played in the CHL, SHL and World Championships this past season. He was captain of his teams in all three, but didn't manage to get to the playoffs in any of them. He hopes to improve on that next season.
by Karolina Antosova
The end of the season was quite hard for Farjestad Karlstad captain Ole-Kristian Tollefsen. The Norwegian defenceman with 163 NHL games under his belt wasn’t able to help his team reach the Swedish Hockey League playoffs.
“It was tough,” the 31-year-old captain sighed. “I was injured, so I missed a couple of games at the end of the season with Farjestad.”
Fortunately for Team Norway, Tollefsen was able to recover from his injury and play for his country at the IIHF World Championship in the Czech Republic, “So especially for me it was a long journey before the Worlds started. Lots of working out.”
Tollefsen hails from Oslo and Karlstad, located just 220 km east of the Norwegian capital, is a popular destination for Norwegian players. Four Norwegians played on the Swedish-based Farjestad club last season and two of those – Tollefsen and forward Martin Roymark – were selected to play for Team Norway. Two other Farjestad defencemen played in the tournament – Anssi Salmela of Finland and Jesper B. Jensen of Denmark.
He now plays close to home, but Tollefsen actually went overseas at age 18 to play junior hockey for the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League. He was eventually drafted by the Columbus Blue Jackets and broke into the NHL at age 21, first with Columbus and then the Philadelphia Flyers.
Farjestad acquired Tollefsen in 2012 and the Norwegian has been the captain ever since, leading the team to the SHL Finals in 2014. This year was his seventh time representing Norway at the Worlds and the fourth time as captain. He's also played in two Olympics and was captain last year in Sochi. But, as he says, captaining a club team and a national team isn’t quite the same. “It’s little bit different because in Farjestad you are with the guys every day, you are the first guy who talks about some stuff with management. In the national team it’s just me and the boys. Just being captain of the team is something you are proud of.”
His most successful World Championship was leading Norway into the quarter-finals in 2012, his first time as captain. This year, however, the Norwegians finished sixth place in Group B in Ostrava, and were on the outside looking in when the quarter-finals came. The same happened to him in the SHL, where just a year after going to the finals Farjestad finished the regular season in seventh, meaning they'd have to win a play-in series to qualify for the quarters. It didn’t happen, as they lost to Brynas IF 2 games to 1.
“Actually it was a really big disappointment for everyone,” Tollefsen said about his team's SHL campaign. “We didn’t make the playoffs after two seasons of success. Right now it’s more like we are hungry for next year.”
Next year is only a few months away. Up first for Tollefsen and his team will be the Champions Hockey League, where Farjestad plays in Group 5 against HC Davos of Switzerland and HC Pardubice of the Czech Republic. The four-game Group Stage will be played in late August and early September, before the start of the SHL season. As was the case in the domestic league, Farjestad didn't have much success in the international club competition, ending up third in their four-team group. Tollefsen hopes for better next season.
“No doubt we want to win,” The Farjestad captain says about the CHL. “Our organisation is one of the CHL founders, so it’s more important for Farjestad to have some success. I think it’s nice for us to start like that and be in touch with different styles of hockey during the season.”
And so, with two major competitions with his club team coming up in 2015–16 and possibly another World Championship at the end, Tollefsen hopes to have more success than this year. Actually, he hopes for a lot more.
“We really hope that we can get at least one title,” he finished with a smile.