The Toronto Maple Leafs are honouring former star Börje Salming with a patch on the team’s jerseys.
The team announced Salming’s passing on Thursday. He was 71 years old.
In a tweet Friday afternoon, the team shared photos of the patch, a blue maple leaf reading “Börje” with a yellow crown on top.
The colours are a tribute to Sweden — where Salming was from. The crown is a nod to Salming’s longtime nickname “The King.”
In a statement Thursday, Toronto Maple Leafs president and alternate governor Brendan Shanahan said Salming was a “pioneer of the game and an icon with an unbreakable spirit and unquestioned toughness.”
“He helped open the door for Europeans in the NHL and defined himself through his play on the ice and through his contributions to the community,” Shanahan said.
Salming signed with the Leafs as a free agent ahead of the 1973-74 season and spent 16 seasons with the team.
The native of Kiruna, Sweden, went on to play 1,099 regular-season games with the Leafs, establishing team records for assists (620) and goals (148), points (768) and playoff points (49) by a defenceman.
Salming spent one season with the Detroit Red Wings. He retired after the 1989-90 hockey season.
He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996. Salming was also named to the National Hockey League’s 100 Greatest Players list.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Salming was a “superior all-around defenseman and the first Swedish star ever to play in the league.”
“Borje Salming was as physically and mentally tough as he was skillfully gifted,” Bettman said in a statement Thursday.
“He blazed the trail that many of the greatest players in NHL history followed while shattering all of the stereotypes about European players that had been prevalent in a League populated almost entirely by North Americans before his arrival in 1973.”
Salming announced his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis in August.
– with files from The Canadian Press
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