Bulldogs farmhand speaks out

Magnus Nygren was one of the 17 players the Montreal Canadiens sent down to the Hamilton Bulldogs on Sunday. And it seems the Swedish defenseman wasn’t all that fond of the hammer when he was here last year.

Nygren, played 16 games for the Bulldogs last season before getting injured and requesting to return to Sweden. He wound up playing for Farjestads in the Swedish league. During his time in Sweden, a blog site from the Swedish press quoted him as saying a number of derogatory things about the city of Hamilton and the Bulldogs.

Translated from Swedish, Nygren was quoted as saying Hamilton is “Canada’s most criminal city”, which is inaccurate, and that “they shoot people for $100-dollars” which is also inaccurate.

He said the Bulldogs “don’t have many fans”, and that the players “are more interested in dating than playing hockey”, which we cannot verify. Nygren denies saying anything about Hamilton in an interview and blames the Swedish media. Bulldogs Head Coach Sylvain Lefevbre is willing to forgive and forget: I know that he was disappointed when he left last year. He was home sick. But this year’s a new season. For me, the one thing that I told Magnus is that we start from a clean slate. There’s no grudges. Anything that was said was probably taken out of context or it was lost in translation. I don’t know but for me it’s not important. The important factor is that he is here now and that we want to make him a better hockey player and we want him to move on to the NHL.”

Nygren says he’s happy to be in Hamilton now and is looking forward to the season. Luckily for Nygren, the Bulldogs have headed to St. John’s, Newfoundland for a few days.