Amanda Bäckebo started with animals. Then telling time. Then short phrases.

Sitting in her first grade class in Leksand, Sweden, Bäckebo learned English with ease. But, every now and then, she still has difficulty pronouncing some words. She had to learn technical terms for specific stretches and exercises. She pronounces “jacket” as “yacket,” and laughs it off when her teammates “give her the gears,” redshirt junior Lindsay Eastwood said. As Bäckebo’s English became more fluent, her Syracuse teammates called her one of the funniest players in their locker room.

Bäckebo moved to the U.S. to play collegiate hockey, leaving almost all of her childhood friends more than 3,700 miles behind. Bäckebo also changed positions and adjusted to cultural changes to become a serviceable forward for Syracuse (10-21-3, 10-8-2 College Hockey America).

Most recently, the junior scored her first collegiate goal Saturday against Robert Morris. As SU heads into the CHA tournament, which starts Wednesday against Lindenwood, the No. 3 seed Orange will need Backebo’s offensive quickness and playmaking to advance in the playoffs.

“She is a player that I would want to have on my team if I was a coach,” redshirt senior Brooke Avery said. “She does everything she’s asked for. She does, actually, a lot more.”

Before coming to Syracuse, Bäckebo had never spent significant time in the U.S.  She once visited relatives in Minnesota before going back to her hometown with a population of 5,934 people, and then later played in a U-18 Tournament in Buffalo.

Still, Bäckebo was shocked when she moved to Syracuse in 2016, despite the similarity between Swedish and American cultures, she said. Small things made the difference seem huge — the tomato sauce on her pasta tasted different and people greeted each other more casually and warmly.

But her biggest adjustments came on the hockey rink. In Sweden, she competed on an Olympic-size rink her whole life, so sizing down to smaller dimensions posed a challenge. In her first week of practice in Tennity Ice Pavilion, Bäckebo skated backward into the boards, and said she inadvertently crashed. In Sweden, there was “more ice to cover,” she said, and the American game moves faster.

Once she figured out the dimensions of the boards, she joined a deep unit of defenders as a freshman. She racked up the second-most blocks among SU freshmen but struggled with the physical aspects of the game because of her 5-foot-3 frame.

Growing up, Bäckebo played as a forward on a men’s team, she said, before switching to defense on women’s teams. So, after her freshman year, in which she appeared in 18 games, Flanagan moved her to forward, where she’d be less physically disadvantaged.

To combat her small size, she’s used extra weight training sessions and stayed after practice for extra sprints, building up muscle in the process.

“So, if I go into, like, close competitions there, I have no chance,” Bäckebo said. “I (had) to have a play style that didn’t involve too much physics.”

In games, she tries to “sneak out” from physical confrontations along the boards, often turning away from contact. She tries to turn her physical limitations into strengths with bursts of quickness.

Bäckebo’s style of play paid off last weekend against Robert Morris. In the third period, Bäckebo snuck out from a scrum in front of the net and found herself in perfect position to slot home a rebound off sophomore Victoria Klimek’s miss. It was Bäckebo’s first career goal, but she called her shot before the game, with the CHA Tournament in mind.

“Sometimes people don’t realize how much she really does,” Avery said. “You really can’t ask for much more out of her.”

Published on March 3, 2019 at 10:47 pm

Contact Danny: dremerma@syr.edu | @DannyEmerman