Height: 6-0
Weight: 180
Shoot: L
Born: 5 May 1951, Grums Sweden
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Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)
| year | team | |||||||||||
| 1975-76 | Winnipeg | |||||||||||
| 1976-77 | Winnipeg | |||||||||||
| 1977-78 | Winnipeg | |||||||||||
| 1978-79 | Winnipeg | |||||||||||
| Totals: |
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Excerpts from Zander Hollander's Guide to Pro Hockey, 1978-79 (by Reyn Davis)
Nicknamed "The Wisp" be his teammates ... A hard-shooting right-winger who started slowly last season ... Considered the fastest of all Jets in the straightaway ... A former mechanic in the Swedish Army ... Funny fellow who does a good impression of a rooster ... Scored the key goal of the season last year, scoring in overtime in New England to beat the Whalers who were fighting for first place with the Jets ... His career has survived a broken wrist, nose and cheekbone, and torn knee ligaments ... Played 124 games in the 1976-77 season for what must be a record. |
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Lindstrom Looks Forward to NHL • by Reyn Davis • The Winnipeg Free Press • October 11, 1979
Willy Lindstrom was once a fireman. His truck was 30 years old and the steering wheel was so wide he could barely reach across. "I used to love driving that old sucker," said Lindstrom, grinning broadly, a pinch of snuff under his lip. Lindstrom can vividly recall those three years in the Swedish army, playing the role of a fire chief. "We had a fire once," he said. "A bush caught on fire." One of Willy's friends hated the army, so much he walked around with a stiff leg, feigning injury. "For three months, where ever he went, he walked with that stiff leg. The officers would get mad and send him to the doctors and the doctors would say there's nothing wrong with him. But he kept limping. Finally, they told him to get out of the army. He started jumping up and down. But he kept his leg stiff. You had to give him credit. The last we saw of him he was running down the street carrying a suitcase and laughing his head off." Lindstrom, now 28, is entering his fifth season with the Jets and he's excited about playing in the National Hockey League. "You can't go higher in hockey," he said. "It's the best league, And it's going to be fun playing against somebody else for a change." The Jets will play each of their 20 opponents four times in an 80-game schedule. A year ago, the Jets played 80 games against five opponents. An old friend and teammate has given Willy advice about playing in the NHL. "Ulfie (Nilsson) says it's going to be a lot cleaner," said Lindstrom. "He says they keep their sticks down but they hit more and check a lot more. He says you have to do things more quickly because you won't have the same amount of room to move." Willy and his wife, Britt, own a little farm in Sweden that someday may be their home, though their roots are growing deeper in Canada. Britt has been thinking about buying a little clothing store on Osborne Street while Willy thinks he would eventually like to have a garage of his own, specializing in the repair and maintenance of foreign-made cars. Willy is gifted with a great sense of humor, nutured by a frivilous nature. He does a great mimic of a rooster's crow and he loves a good practical joke. He is a powerful skater. When they were teammates he was at least as fast as Anders Hedberg on the straightaways, though the Swedish Express could start faster and cut sharper. Good in the clutch, he has made a career out of scoring key goals for the Jets. He scored goals in Houston that signalled the end of the Aeros' dominance of the WHA. In New England he beat the Whalers when they were thinking they were great. And in Quebec the Nordiques feared him. He was a terror in the playoffs last spring, scoring 10 goals and earning five assists in 10 games as the Jets marched to their third Avco Cup. Precious little has been said about the fact, but Willy Lindstrom has consistently been the delicate difference between winning and losing since that day he arrived in Winnipeg in the summer of '75. |
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