During May 2019, 'De Kanadensiska Bombflygarna Och Leksands IF' ['The Canadian Airmen and Leksand's IF'], a book by Lars Ingels, was released. It tells the fascinating, unknown story of interned Canadian airmen playing a full hockey season in Sweden during World War II. It is an exciting tale, untold until now, where many twists of fate transformed the horrible theatre of war into a game played on Swedish ice.

"It was a great way to fight a war," a sergeant of the Royal Canadian Air Force later described the winter of 1944, when he, together with a dozen compatriots, played a hockey season in the province of Dalarna, in central Sweden.

Between August 1943 and January 1944, eight Bomber Command aircraft managed dramatic escapes to Sweden for emergency landings or crashes after facing down German fighters and anti-aircraft guns. Five of the aircraft had Canadian aircrew on board. As Sweden was a neutral country, these airmen were interned in accordance with the Hague convention, waiting to be exchanged.

The Canadians ended up in Falun (just thirty miles from Leksand). When winter came, they realized that here they could play their favourite sport, ice hockey, just like in Canada. Hockey had skated into Dalarna just a few years earlier and here came a crew of Canadian hockey players as an unexpected gift from on high, literally!