GOTHENBURG, Sweden – Stian Solberg wasn't meant to play hockey.

His father, Christian, competed in alpine sports growing up, mostly skiing; his mother, Helene, was a short-distance sprinter, competing in the 60- and 100-metre tracks. Neither played professionally, and they've since become entrepreneurs.

The plan for their son was to play soccer. It's Norway's most popular sport, three spots in front of hockey, which also lags behind cross-country skiing and the biathlon in popularity within the northernmost Scandinavian nation.

And that's how this journey started. They enrolled Stian in the local academy at a young age and, by some strange twist of fate, wound up hockey parents in barely a year's time.

“He was very young, and he was playing soccer. That was his first sport,” Christian told EP