- Salming’s four children unveiled the Salming 1,148 watch at the Hockey Hall of Fame on Thursday
- Every sale sends $170 to the NHL Alumni Association and its charities
- Read below for the design details and Glenn Healy’s take on Salming’s legacy
Borje Salming’s kids finished what their dad started.
Daughters Teresa and Bianca and sons Anders and Rasmus met NHL Alumni Association president Glenn Healy at the Hockey Hall of Fame on Thursday to unveil the Salming 1,148, a watch named for the number of NHL games their father played. They did it a few steps from his Hall plaque, Mike Zeisberger of NHL.com reported.
Anders Salming talked about how far back the idea goes for his father.
“This watch was a labor of love for my dad. He was already playing around with different designs for it before he got sick.”
The design is stuffed with Borje references. Only 1,148 were made. A tiny CN Tower serves as the second hand, his signature sits on the back, and his No. 21 sits beside a King’s crown, a nod to Sweden and to the nickname he wore in Toronto.
Salming first sketched ideas on a blank sheet of paper in 2018, working with his friend Mats Kullenberg, now the CEO of Salming Watches.
He was still tinkering with it when he announced his ALS diagnosis in 2022. Salming died that November at 71, and Kullenberg and the four children promised to finish the job.
Take a look back at the night Toronto brought him home for one last ovation, less than two weeks before he passed:
Watch No. 001 went to Healy, who gave it away on the spot, donating it to the Hall for a new case honoring Salming and the Borje Salming Courage Award. Nicklas Lidstrom, Jari Kurri and Mats Sundin have taken that award since the alumni association created it in 2023.
Healy was asked what Salming meant to the Europeans who came after him.
“When Borje came over, there were very few Europeans playing in the National Hockey League. He was a pioneer. He played with courage.”
Then came the numbers. When Sundin entered the league, 10 Swedes were playing in the NHL. Last season, 92 of them started the year.
Pricing sits around $12,000 Canadian, with $170 from every sale going to the alumni association and its charitable network. Salming Watches has already fielded roughly 2,200 inquiries.
Numbers 001 through 100 are set aside for NHL players. Darryl Sittler, Salming’s old teammate, got No. 27 to match the number he wore in his own Hall of Fame career.
His résumé still holds up: 787 points in 1,148 games, 16 seasons in Toronto and a final year in Detroit. Salming was the first Europe-born and trained player to reach 1,000 NHL games, in January 1988, and the first European inducted into the Hall, in 1996.
Thursday’s unveiling brought Anders back to his father.
“Dad would have been so proud to see his vision come to fruition. Just like we still are of him.”
