Örebro's Daniel Muzito-Bagenda is the only dark-skinned player in SHL right now. Although he is not the first. In an interview with SVT Sport, Muzito Bagenda says he would like to see the union do more to get more people with an immigrant background to play ice hockey.

One of the attempts made over the past five years is that the union sends out approximately 300,000 letters to toddler parents annually. The letters come in seven different languages ​​and will attract children and young people to start playing ice hockey.

- Above all, we have doubled the number of children on the girl side and it is also a form of integration. On the source side, it has increased, but not doubled, says Ericson.

Exactly how many with other backgrounds started playing ice hockey since the letters began to be sent, there are no statistics.

He sees the great challenge in the fact that ice hockey is small outside Europe and that as a newcomer to Sweden you may not have a relationship with ice hockey.

- You may not even know that hockey is a sport. The threshold for hockey is higher when compared to football and the back. But we have many activities to lower the thresholds and make it easier for girls and people with different ethnic backgrounds. The issue is high on the agenda and we say that with a straight back, says Pär Ericson.

- We have a vision of becoming Sweden's most engaging sport and to be that we need to become available to more people and help the associations to lower the thresholds.

Another attempt that has been made is that the union has been with and financed loan equipment in order to have the opportunity to try out hockey.

- We are not satisfied with our population, which is relatively homogeneous. There are players at high and low levels who have different backgrounds and the skin color itself is unattractive. What is relevant is the ethnic background.

Another aspect that Daniel Muzito-Bagenda emphasizes in the interview with SVT is the socio-economic aspect. That ice hockey is simply too expensive for everyone to have the opportunity.

- There is a perception that hockey is expensive. If you compare with downhill skiing and riding it is cheap, but clearly more expensive if you compare with football. We have invested a number of millions every year to enable the associations to buy loan equipment. Another example is that we have set up an investigation to review the cost picture and make suggestions on how we can enable more people to play without costing it so much.

Something to address at the 2021 Confederation

CLIP: He is SHL's only dark-skinned player: "Tragic in some way"

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