Swedish Blackhawks find a bit of home for holidays at Chicago restaurant

CHICAGO – As owner of Tre Kronor, a cozy Swedish bistro in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, Larry Anderson doesn’t always have time to watch or listen to Blackhawks games as he tends to his bustling business.

But there is always one game a year that Anderson tunes in for with palpable anxiety.

For Anderson, that night of constant worry comes in December – after he and his restaurant’s staff have worked to fatten up the Hawks’ Swedish players at the restaurant’s Christmas dinner, or Julbord.

“I know it’s probably super self-centered thinking I’m affecting their play,” Anderson said. “But when you see what they eat, I would be in a food coma the next day.”

You might forgive the Swedes for gorging one night, given that the Julbord, which means “Christmas table” in Swedish, is an important tradition that players – such as Niklas Hjalmarsson, Marcus Kruger and David Rundblad – have sought to keep alive as they make a living thousands of miles from their homeland.

“You almost forget how it is to celebrate Christmas back home,” said Hjalmarsson, who has been home once in the last nine years for Christmas. “It’s really nice for us to have this kind of thing here in Chicago. … It brings you closer to home and reminds you a little bit of how it was when you grew up.”

And from the sounds of it, Julbord seems like a pretty good time. It is the Christmas meal of Sweden, which celebrates Christmas on Dec. 24.

“Every restaurant does a Julbord in Stockholm,” Anderson said. “If you were there, whether it was an Asian restaurant or a Tex-Mex restaurant, they would be having their version of Julbord.”

Anderson, whose grandparents are from Sweden, has run Tre Kronor with his wife, Patty Rasmussen, for 23 years, and nearly every night in December leading up to Christmas the restaurant holds a Julbord.

Hjalmarsson had not heard of Tre Kronor until he did an interview there with ABC in 2010. But he has been coming back since for Julbord and brings teammates along, Swedish or otherwise.

“It definitely makes you think, the guys that come overseas, they leave a lot behind – language, their culture,” said captain Jonathan Toews, who has attended multiple Julbords. “We’re used to our lifestyle here in North America, and it’s cool to get that invite and eat some of their food, which was pretty amazing.”

Upon entering Tre Kronor, there’s an immediate feeling of home. The low ceiling, the wood floors, the small dining area, the pictures on the wall, the Hawks memorabilia and a view of the kitchen from the front of the restaurant make you feel as if you are eating in someone’s dining room.

“It’s a really cool place,” Kruger said. “It feels like you’re in their home and everything is home-cooked.”

For Julbord, the waitresses of Tre Kronor are dressed in white robes, and as the evening goes on they will put candles in their hair as part of the celebration of Santa Lucia, a young Christian martyr Swedes honor.

“You’ve been doing it your whole life, and the American way of celebrating Christmas is a little different,” Runblad said. “It’s nice to be able to do the old traditions you grew up with – and I really like the food too.”

Then there is lots of eating – and drinking, singing and toasting.

One of the linchpins of Julbord is aquavit, a grain alcohol similar to vodka.

“It’s pretty strong, and I think you need to be over 50 to think it’s actually good,” Rundblad said.

Hjalmarsson said aquavit is not for novices.

“Yeah, you’ve got to take it easy on that, otherwise it’ll be an early night for you,” he said.

Then there are toasts, and as patrons consume more and more aquavit, the toasts tend to get louder and tables might start to compete to see who can be louder. Then there are songs, which are usually about drinking.

“It’s not like singing ‘Silent Night’ and everybody drinks,” Anderson said. “You’re toasting their version of Santa Claus, Tomte, and basically saying, ‘Hey, old man Santa Claus, life is short and really hard, so let’s get drunk tonight.’ That’s considered a Swedish Christmas toast.”

The Hawks tend to take it easy on the alcohol since they are in season. They might skip drinking the aquavit altogether and have only a beer or two. However, they will not hold back when it comes to the food. There’s so much of it to eat – four tables, to be exact, featuring 50 to 60 items.

“I’ll eat probably three times as much as I usually do in a normal dinner,” Hjalmarsson said.

“The food they can put away . just plates after plates after plates,” Anderson said.

The first table is dedicated to one thing – pickled herring – and many sauces that go with it.

Table 2 has cold fish, such as salmon, oysters and shrimp. Before you hit the dessert table, Table 3 features hot food with meatballs, sausages and two traditional Swedish dishes. One is lutefisk, which is dried cod that had once been soaked in lye. To eat it, you would put pepper and sauce on it, Anderson said.

“It’s not a personal favorite,” Hjalmarsson sad. “I haven’t really tried it in a long time, to be honest with you. It smells kind of – different.”

“It smells like urine,” Anderson said.

The other dish, Jansson’s temptation, is much more palatable. It’s a potato casserole with cream and anchovies baked in. It’s surprisingly delicious.

“It’s also something people would eat if you have a hangover,” Anderson said. “It’s like fries at 2 a.m.”

As the night wears on, more aquavit and beer go down, which leads to more singing in Swedish, usually about drinking, which can lead to more drinking, which leads to more singing. It can be a vicious cycle.

“They were singing songs and doing dances,” Toews said. “I felt like I was in Sweden. I didn’t understand a lick of what was going on. But the one thing I could see is they felt right at home and they enjoyed it.”

That they did. The Swedish Hawks, who are famous among the Swedish community on the North Side, helped spread some holiday cheer throughout Tre Kronor.

When Hjalmarsson, Kruger and Rundblad went there Dec. 4, there was another family nearby whose patriarch was celebrating his 90th birthday. The players took some time to chat and take pictures with the family.

“He’s got no teeth and he’s sitting there and he said this is the best day ever,” Anderson said.

Eventually everyone goes home – then the nerves begin to set in for Anderson. The Hawks always try to attend Julbord two days before a game.

Sometimes, however, they can do it only the evening before a game, like in 2013, Anderson’s nightmare scenario. The Hawks allowed four first-period goals the next night before losing 6-5.

“The whole game the announcers were saying they just look so sluggish out there,” Anderson said. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh, no. Oh, my God.’ ”

This year, the Hawks had Julbord two days before a game, which they won 3-1 over the Jets on Dec. 6.

It made for a happy Julbord all around.