Tässä vielä pitkä ja syväluotaava juttu muutaman vuoden takaa. Käännös englanniksi, koska google kääntää edelleen ruotsia paljon paremmin englantiin kuin suomeen.
Jutusta käy selväksi, että Armalis on ollut aika aktiivinen puhumaan seksuaalisen suuntautumiseen/seksuaalivähemmistöihin liittyvien ihmisoikeuksien puolesta. Siitä puhutaan jutun lopussa. Vaikka näin, niin epäilemättä monen palstalaisen pettymykseksi mies itse on jutun perusteella hetero.
Jutussa myös mainitaan, että vielä 15-vuotiaana Armaliksella ei olisi ollut Ruotsin kansalaisuutta. Päätelläänkö tuosta muotoilusta, että nykyään on?
Mutta tässä tämä juttu: (alkuperäinen SHL:n sivuilta
Möt människan: Mantas Armalis)
He was born in Lithuania, grew up south of Stockholm, a model, hockey player and an ambassador for SHL Pride Week. In this week's Meet the Man, we meet Skellefteå's goalkeeper Mantas Armalis, who talks about the choices in life and career.
Manta's parents Vidas and Dalia come from Plunge, a town in western Lithuania with just under 20,000 inhabitants. From Plunge to Frihamnen in Stockholm it is about 500 kilometers, so the couple hardly needed a map and compass to find their way to Sweden, but a map and compass were nevertheless crucial to the move.
"They were good orienteers and in order to develop they chose to move from Lithuania to Haninge when I was one year old. The Nordic countries were world leaders in orienteering and they had the best opportunities to develop in Sweden. Then it was kind of like they stayed here even after their active careers," says Mantas.
Hockey was the salvation
Father Vidas can boast of a World Championship gold in the H35 class, and it was probably no one on SoIK Hellas' board who raised an eyebrow when the club's two prominent Lithuanian orienteers entered their firstborn in the rolls.
"It was probably inevitable that I would do orienteering," Mantas laughs, "but I never thought it was particularly fun." Hockey was almost a salvation from orienteering, haha.
That hockey had been introduced to Mantas is thanks to his then neighbor from Norra Söderby in Haninge, Kristoffer Dahlstedt (who played one game in Hockeyallsvenskan for Hammarby).
"He was three years older than me and always used to put me in the goal when he was going to shoot shots out on the street. I was about five or six years old but didn't mind standing in goal, on the contrary.
But when it came to organized ice hockey, Mantas doubled.
"I was a goalkeeper in the first team and an outfield player in the second team and doubled up at matches, training sessions and cups. That was how it went on up to U15," he says.
{! A}
Benefited greatly from doubling
We are all the sum of our experiences, including Mantas Armalis. From orienteering, he had a fitness that few ice hockey goalies can match, and from his many years as an outfield player, he had a sharp skating and a security in the game with the puck.
"I can't see anything negative about playing both out and in the goal, quite the opposite.
"If it was just as fun for my mother who got to drive me to twice as many practices and matches, that's another matter," he adds with a laugh.
"To be honest, I was pretty careless"
Everything has an end, and so does the driving. If it hadn't been cut earlier, the umbilical cord was permanently cut when Mantas was 16 years old and entered the hockey high school in Mora. From Skogås to Mora it is about 330 kilometers.
"It was special to move away from home so early. The first year I lived in a corridor at a campsite with a bunch of other players who went to Mora's hockey gymnasium," says Mantas.
"It was fun, but I was honestly pretty careless with sleep, diet and those things. After a couple of years, I realized that I had to stay at a more professional level if I was going to get anywhere.
From J20 training in Mora to modeling in Milan
When Mantas finished high school, he got a job in a clothing store in Mora. One evening, the store had invited representatives from different suppliers. There was a little party, get-together and product shows.
"When the evening was over, the supplier from Filippa K had approached my boss and said: 'Your salesperson looks like he can work as a model'.
It turned out that the salesman himself had worked as a model. This led to Mantas getting a modeling contract with the Stockholm group and almost immediately being booked for his first modeling job.
"They flew me down to Milan for a job," says Mantas. It was a pretty big contrast to everyday life in Mora, haha.
There weren't many modeling assignments, and even though Mantas thought it was a fun thing and also gave him enough pocket money to be able to continue investing in hockey, there was a catch.
"I'm actually too big to be a model, at least a haute couture model. They even thought so down in Milan when I came down to do my first modeling job," Mantas laughs.
"Hockey was number one"
Pursuing two parallel careers is a delicate challenge. Just ask Mark "Mark in da Park" Owuya. The former Djurgården goalkeeper received a lot of attention when he participated as a rapper in the TV show Idol in 2006 – at the same time as the then 17-year-old Mark impressed in Djurgården's J20 team and played in the U18 World Cup for Sweden.
"Yes, there are similarities between us in that way," Mantas admits. And I can understand that it's interesting for the media to write about, it's not all hockey players who rap or model, haha. The only thing I've experienced as negative over the years is that I sometimes got the label "the model who plays hockey" and maybe not been judged completely as a hockey player.
"The modeling industry is largely a genetic lottery, if you don't have
it from birth, you basically can't get in," Mantas continues. I felt that I slipped in there on a banana peel, at the same time as I had worked really hard all my life to become good at ice hockey. Modeling was great fun, and not many people get the chance to do it, but even though I only played at J20 level at the time, there was never any doubt that it was hockey that was number one.
A Lithuanian hockey mecca
Even though Mantas "only" played in Mora's J20 team at that time, he had actually played in the World Cup. As a 15-year-old, he was not allowed to participate in the tryouts for the TV puck, as he did not have Swedish citizenship at the time. Then Manta's father Vidas contacted the Lithuanian Ice Hockey Association and told him that there was a goalie in Haninge who was keen to represent Lithuania. Through the U18 World Cup and the JWC, Mantas quickly advanced to the national team and made his debut in the 2011 World Cup (the World Cup is divided into divisions, and Lithuania then played in Division 1, which since then has been divided into two divisions, 1 A and 1 B, where Lithuania in 2020 will play in 1 B).
"It's a very uneven level on the national team," Mantas says sincerely. Many of the players are still used to being producing players with key roles in their club teams, so we have an offensively weighted team. It's a bit so-and-so with working from home sometimes...
The power of tradition is great, and so also in Lithuania. Not only do basically all male names end in vowels and -s (Mantas, Vidas, Darius, Dainius etc). All the hockey players (well, almost all, anyway) also come from the small town of Elektrènai.
"Haha, yes, I actually don't know why that's the case," says Mantas, "but for many years the only hockey rink in Lithuania was in Elektrènai, and that has probably played a big role.
Lithuania is a basketball-loving country, but in little Elektrènai it's hockey for all the money. Energija Elektrènai has won the domestic title every year there has been a title to play for since 2003 (the team has also participated in the Latvian and Belarusian league systems in parallel). And it is from Elektrènai, with about 12,000 inhabitants, NHL professionals Dainius Zubrus and Darius Kasparaitis come.
{! B}
Speaking of the power of tradition. Goaltender Jon Lee Olsen recently became the first openly gay hockey player at the elite level, and in Sweden and the SHL we are still waiting for the one who will pave the way.
"There is a stigma around hockey, that it should be macho and tough. And it's tough physically and to the extent that we are all exposed to high performance demands, but there is no longer any macho culture or intolerance. It is in the past.
Hope someone breaks the barrier
"It may sound cliché, but it's about breaking barriers," says Mantas. I hope that soon, preferably yesterday, someone dares to take the step and come out.
It is with pathos that Mantas talks about LGBTQ issues. He is one of SHL's ambassadors for SHL Pride Week, and participated last week at the QX gala as an award winner.
"It was a great honour for me, and that I, together with Christopher Mastomäki and Johan Alcén, was able to present an award at the QX Gala, I think was an important symbolic act. Hockey may have been a little behind when it comes to LGBTQ issues, but now there is a strong will from the league and the federation to do something about it, and it was noticeable that the gay community appreciated that we were there.
{! C}
"The way the climate is today, I don't think there would be any problem whatsoever for an SHL player to come out as gay. I've talked to a lot of people, both players and people around the teams I've played in, and everyone testifies that it's a huge difference now compared to ten years ago.
"I think the problem is rather in younger ages," Mantas speculates. I know myself that I said things on the ice hockey rink that I regretted afterwards, and you don't have the same filter at the age of 15 as when you are an adult. SHL's investment in Pride Week gives us the chance to create a discussion and perhaps also influence the climate in hockey in general.
We are in the middle of the premiere of SHL Pride Week, which culminates in a Pride round on Saturday where Mantas and his Skellefteå meet Örebro. In other words, it will be a match in the match between Mantas and his award-winning colleague Christopher Mastomäki. Who wins the game may be important in the short term, but even more important is that hockey wins the game against intolerance in the long run. If you can play, you can play.