– Absolutely sick – NRK Sport – Sports news, results and broadcasting schedule

– We will probably get sweats, says Michael Brandsegg-Nygård laughingly to NRK.

Brandsegg-Nygård talks about the situation that could change both his and his friend Stian Solberg’s life forever.

Soon they are ready for a nerve-wracking night inside what is essentially a giant TV screen in Las Vegas.

“The Sphere” is an indoor arena with room for 18,600 spectators. The entire facade of the 112-metre-high building is a luminous screen that constantly changes motifs.

Here, the ice hockey talents will wait to hear their own name called out to deafening cheers.

– You just have to try to enjoy it. If you’re there, it means you’ve done well, says Stian Solberg.

– A crazy circus

The 18-year-olds have done so well that talent scouts have flocked to them over the past year.

The world’s best ice hockey clubs have followed their development with skeptical eyes.

And now the clubs have to do something they have never done before.

– It will be a crazy circus, says TV2’s ice hockey expert Bjørn Erevik to NRK.

On 28 June, the clubs in the world’s best ice hockey league, the NHL, will choose from among the world’s greatest ice hockey talents. It happens during the so-called NHL draft.

On the talent scouts’ favorite lists, the players Brandsegg-Nygård and Solberg are likely to be among the NHL clubs’ first choices.

No Norwegian has ever been selected first by an NHL team.

Now two best friends from Oslo can be chosen first.

– It is very special. There is nothing to compare it to. We have never been close to this, says TV2 expert Erevik.

The rule for the clubs during the NHL draft is simple: they get to select one player per round for a total of seven rounds.

And why is it so spectacular to be the NHL clubs’ first choice?

– If you are picked in the first round, you are destined to become an NHL player, says former NHL player Anders Myrvold to NRK.

The fact is that very few talents who are picked in the NHL draft actually have a career in the NHL.

But if you are selected first in the NHL draft, you are seen as a future star in the world’s biggest ice hockey league.

– It would have been pretty cool. Especially since we are friends too. We have known each other for a very long time. It will be a cool experience to be able to write history, says Brandsegg-Nygård side by side with Solberg.

– Don’t want to be perceived as an asshole

As two-year-olds, Michael and Stian took their first skates.

As eight-year-olds, they got up at six in the morning to train.

As teenagers, both became national team players. Stian was only 16 years old and the youngest ever in a national team squad.

Both have a background in the same club: Vålerenga.

– We have taken the steps quite similarly together. We have been with each other practically every day for several years. It is clear that it has meant a lot to have a good friend with whom you can do everything, says Solberg.

And the teenagers have not become less attractive lately.

On Friday, Stian Solberg decided the international match against Latvia with a magnificent goal in overtime.

Last weekend, Brandsegg-Nygård gave the crowd a jaw drop when he scored all four goals for Norway against Denmark.

Two weeks earlier, Solberg sent Vålerenga to the NM final with two artistic goals.

In the stands sat the NHL scouts.

Brandsegg-Nygård reveals that he is characterized by being in the spotlight. He says that he thinks about everything from his body language to what food he eats.

– I’ve heard people say that the NHL scouts are everywhere. I take that seriously when I meet people. I don’t want to be seen as an asshole. I never feel that I can make mistakes, says Brandsegg-Nygård.

– There is a bit of pressure, but that’s how sport is, he adds.

– Cynical sports world

In June, both will apparently be called up on stage live on American television. And perhaps they will write Norwegian sports history by being the first ever first choice from Norway.

On stage, they will pose with the kit of the club that has chosen them.

– It would have been absolutely sick if we were drafted to the same team, but I dare not hope for that, says Solberg.

Solberg recently signed a two-year contract with Swedish Färjestad. The NHL club that chooses him will then have the rights to use Solberg for the next four years.

If both Solberg and Brandsegg-Nygård become historic in Las Vegas in June, the road to the NHL may still be difficult.

– That’s when the job begins in a cynical sports world that revolves around money, contracts and a lot of good players fighting for existence, says Myrvold.

Myrvold himself was selected in the fifth round of the NHL draft. Norway’s most played NHL star, Mats Zuccarello, was never picked in the NHL draft. He made his mark by impressing in the Swedish league.