Mattias Norstrom gets a taste of coaching

Reporting from Vancouver — 

Mattias Norstrom, a King for nearly 11 seasons and their captain from 2001-02 until they traded him to Dallas three years ago, always said he had no interest in becoming a coach after his playing days ended.

But here he is at the Olympics, standing behind Sweden’s bench as an assistant to Bengt Gustafsson.

Reminded of his vow, he laughed. “I still a little bit stand by that,” he said Friday, “though that’s hard to say when I’m standing here today.”

As classy and respected off the ice as he was steady and team-oriented on it, he retired after the 2007-08 season and took his family home to Stockholm to live a normal life, using his fingers to sketch quotation marks around the word normal as he uttered it. He and two friends started a business that deals with insuring and planning for Swedish artists and athletes, but he severed his ties to hockey.

Then Gustafsson called last summer to sound him out about returning to the sport. “I said I had no plans of getting back, and we left it at that. He called me a week later and said, ‘Have you had time to think it through?’ ” Norstrom said.

The second time, Gustafsson made an intriguing proposal.

Norstrom wouldn’t have to diagram plays, though he has done some scouting of Sweden’s opponents. Gustafsson primarily wanted him to use his knowledge of North America, NHL referees and media routines to help make Sweden’s Olympians comfortable here. Norstrom had played with nearly everyone on the roster so they wouldn’t have to get used to him while they were getting used to so much else in the short lead-up to the Games.

“We’ve got Bengt running the forwards. We’ve got Tommy Albelin from the Devils running the defense. He’s not turning to me for the coaching experience,” Norstrom said. “When he laid it out that that would be more my role I said it was too good to turn down.

“First of all, this Olympics could be the last one we see NHL players in. Also I thought I shouldn’t turn hockey down completely without even trying it. Now, it’s a unique opportunity to do it at the Olympics. At least I’m going to get the flavor for it and see how it is on the other side of the fence.

“And I don’t feel anyone can wait five or six years and say, ‘Well, back in the day I played in the NHL this happened,’ because the league changes almost every year. New faces. And new approaches. I felt if I was going to get back into it I had to do it while it was still fresh, while I’m up to date with the game, because it changes.”

He’s enjoying being around hockey again, though he said doing his job wholeheartedly instead of as a part-time venture has forced him to watch much more video than he ever wanted to. And he’s not sure whether he will stay involved in hockey beyond this three-week commitment.

“I always appreciated a lot the chance to play in the NHL but now from the outside it’s different,” he said. “Now you see what a big deal it is for people that have regular jobs, for friends and now co-workers.

“They say, ‘If I could be behind the bench for one Olympic game or play one NHL game I would be set for life.’ Then you realize what a big deal it is to be able to do, day in and day out, what I did for 14 years.”

He spent most of those years in Los Angeles, and his daughters, 8-year-old Linnae and 5-year-old Emma, were born in Torrance. He has many good memories of people and places in the area, and one sincere regret.

“Looking back,” he said, “I just wish we could have been more successful.”

Ducks-Kings roundup

There were no current Kings or Ducks in Friday’s first two games -- Sweden versus Belarus and the Czech Republic versus Latvia -- but there were a few former Ducks and Kings at Canada Hockey Place on Friday afternoon.

Not far from where Norstrom stood behind Sweden’s bench, former King Dave Lewis served as an assistant coach for Belarus. Samuel Pahlsson, who set up Sweden’s third goal in its 4-2 victory over Belarus on Friday, played on the Ducks’ 2007 Stanley Cup team, and Belarus captain Ruslan Salei is a former Ducks defenseman who plays for Colorado and recently returned to the ice after back surgery.