Fredrik Norren cannot be called the best foreign goalkeeper in KHL history. Mikko Koskinen, Juha Metsola, Jakub Kovarzh, Harri Syateri and others will easily bring competition to the former Ak Bars goalkeeper for this title. But it is useless to deny that a native of a small town in the west of Finland proved himself to be a real professional in just one season as part of the Kazan club and became one of the main characters of the championship. The playoffs allowed Ak Bars to win the first Gagarin Cup in club history.

Few people remember, but Norren played half that playoff with serious damage. It was released during the later legendary series against Avant-garde. While Ak Bars players were training one on one, striker Dmitry Obukhov accidentally seriously injured his goalkeeper. The offensive player started beating Fredrik, making a deceptive move and taking the puck behind him, then the goalkeeper turned the unprotected side into the waffle flying at high speed towards the puck. Of course, Norrena did this unconsciously – she just wanted to save her target from a target. However, the result of this accident was a terrible fracture of the ring finger.

“The finger was between the shaft of the stick and the disc, almost straightening out. Nail tears due to open fracture, severe hematoma. A very difficult fracture, I suddenly thought the season was over for me. I played with the injections for several weeks, having to freeze my finger three times per match because otherwise it was impossible to hold the stick. They made pancakes – not so special, slightly cut so that you can hold the glove with three fingers. “I’ve played with fractures before, although it wasn’t that serious, so I knew what to do.” – The goalkeeper shared the details of “Ak Bars”.

Despite the fact that Norrena had dealt with broken fingers before, this did not save her from the very serious consequences of this injury – an infection soon began in the damaged area, from which Fredrik could lose his finger. The situation can only be corrected with an urgent operation, which the goalkeeper accepts without hesitation – hockey to hockey, but in such cases there are no other options.

“There was a risk of cutting the finger – a serious infection passed and it’s dangerous. I don’t know what would have happened without that surgery, but I wanted to hold my finger. In general, the inflammation went away, there was no threat, but the fracture has not yet healed. But it did not hurt that much anymore, nine days later already “I was on the ice and played in the final. After the season in Finland, I had to do another surgery, the doctors had to take some cells from the femur to transplant into my finger, I couldn’t move it for the first two months. But now everything is fine, nothing to worry about.”– said the hero of this text.

Surgical intervention did not prevent Norrena from continuing to fight for the Ak Bars in the playoffs: 9 days after the operation, Fin played in the final against Lokomotiv and was one of the main reasons why Kazan managed to win the main KHL trophy.

At the same time, Fredrik did not see a single gram of Obukhov’s guilt in what had happened:

“It wasn’t his fault! It’s my fault for opening my hand and turning it the other way to throw it. Obukhov did a good trick and beat me. He’s generally a good player, he’s scored important goals in this playoff and overall the whole fourth ring was nice.

Norrena had a great season and could confidently continue her career in the KHL – there was no doubt that Ak Bars would extend the “golden” goalkeeper. There were also rumors that CSKA had a significant interest in the Finnish goalkeeper. But Fredrik decided to leave Russia because of his family: his child had serious health problems, and besides, none of the relatives of the hockey player spoke Russian, which certainly made it difficult to integrate into a new society. The Gagarin Cup winner spent the next 5 seasons in Sweden and Finland, after which he ended his playing career and is currently the goalkeeping coach in the Finnish TPS.