Niklas Edin: How curling's mental game keeps Sweden's skip coming back for more

Seven European titles, six world titles and a complete set of Olympic medals, most recently topped by gold in Beijing 2022.

It is a curling bounty haul unlike any other and, it’s why Sweden’s Niklas Edin is one the greatest of all time.

The 38-year-old, born and raised on a dairy farm in Ornskoldsvik, a city some 300 miles from Stockholm, has devastated nations with his winning ways.

His unparalleled shot-making abilities and knack for executing plays others wouldn’t dream of trying have made him a top adversary and one not many have ever beaten on the biggest stages.

In April, earlier this year, Edin reminded curling exactly why he is one of the best to have taken to the ice.

At the World Men’s Curling Championships 2023 in Ottawa, the skip produced what is now known as the greatest shot in curling ever, when, on the brink of a loss, he managed to nudge a frozen Norwegian stone with a spinning rock while keeping it in play.

“Unbelievable!”, the commentators yelled with the replay of the remarkable moment now on over 200,000 views. “That is the craziest shot I have ever seen.”

It was an extraordinary moment with Edin even cracking a smile as he watched how the seemingly impossible became possible out of his own hands and the reaction to those around him drinking it in.

But more than just a stunning piece of curling artistry, the shot hinted at something more.

That even with a legacy secured, the perennial curling champion is still chasing another level.

Trying to improve the 'mental game'

When you have won everything there is to win - and in some cases, do it several times over - how do you stay motivated?

For Edin, that is the question he often now faces.

Having been stalked by injuries throughout his career, with a knee injury sidelining him last year for over two months and forcing him out of the European Championships 2022, fitness as much willpower is part of the equation.

But just as the Swede has always found a way to find answers to problems put before him on the ice, so too has he found a way to want to stay in the top rungs of curling.

“I’m just trying to improve my mental and theoretical game all the time and that keeps me going,” Edin told Kevin Martin in an interview for Sportsnet.

“I like the way that curling is set up where there’s a physical aspect to it but there’s also a big theoretical and mental part of curling. The older I get the more ‘mental’ I need to look at it,” he explained.

“And the physical side, I can’t be as strong or as fast or as fit as I used to be when I was 20 or 25 but I’m trying to stay in good enough shape that it doesn’t become an issue.”

It comes as little surprise that the ‘mental’ dimension of curling is something Edin is driven to try and master. The theoretical aspect of the sport has always been something that the curler has connected with as far back as his start in curling.

After watching Sweden’s women win bronze at Nagano 1998, Edin’s mother asked her son if he wanted to try. When he rejected her offer, she rounded up three of his teammates from his football team and promptly told Edin she was taking them to a curling session and if he would like to join them.

The move, which Edin at the time remembers as embarrassing, proved to be life-changing as the boys, then just 13, found themselves captured by the challenges presented by the sport.

The Olympic champion in particular found he had an innate ability to read the game.

“I felt it pretty much right away that it was a sport that just suited me, I guess,” Edin told Sportsnet reflecting on his beginnings in curling.

“I felt like it came fairly naturally to me and I kind of saw what I needed to do and how to get the rock into a different position, maybe a little bit quicker than some of the other members that have played for much longer. I just felt like this to me seems pretty obvious but it doesn’t seem obvious to everyone else here.”

Edin’s eye for strategy from the beginning propelled his rise with the Swede winning the 2004 World Junior Curling Championship, just a little under six years after first picking up a rock.

Niklas Edin: Returning to centre stage at the European Curling Championships

That Edin, with his unparalleled resume and his stunning gameplay, still believes there is more to grow and improve speaks to the level of his ambition, which was made plain, when a few months after Beijing it was revealed that he and his team, featuring Oskar Eriksson, Rasmus Wrana and Christoffer Sundgren would be staying together until Milano Cortina 2026.

It means that Team Edin could become the first rink to successfully defend an Olympic gold with Canada’s consecutive medals from 2006 to 2014 all won by different teams.

Before then, the international challenges will come thick and fast with those looking to topple Edin are just as forthcoming.

Scotland, led by Bruce Mouat, continues to be a thorn in the Swede’s side, and the emergence of Italy’s Joel Retornaz as a force just ahead of Milano Cortina means supremacy in Europe is no longer guaranteed.

All that will be put to the test when Edin returns to the European Championships in Aberdeen, a competition he skipped last year with injury. It will be a test of physical preparedness and for Edin, a mental game he will relish.