Number 4 already hangs from the rafters. Number 17 is about to join it. And when Jonas Engström is honoured, the man behind that number four will be there in person.
According to Christian Gustafsson's reporting in Barometern, Skeeter Moore is coming to Be-Ge Hockey Center on Saturday 31 October for the retirement of Jonas Engström's No. 17 during IK's home game against MoDo. In a video message shared by IK, Moore describes being invited as a great honour.
The player who inspired a supporters' club
Skeeter was never just another former scorer in Oskarshamn. When IK began climbing the Swedish league pyramid in the early 1990s, the American centre became one of the faces of that entire adventure.
He arrived in 1992 and stayed for four seasons, helping take IK from Division 3 to Division 1 by the spring of 1996. Elite Prospects lists 303 points in 137 competitive games, including playoff matches. Regular-season only figures are 281 points in 124 games. In his last season he scored 78 points in 35 league games.
The numbers almost defy belief. But his impact reached far beyond the scoresheet.
One of the club's former supporters' associations was even called Moore Support. That says something about what he meant to the town. His No. 4 was eventually retired alongside Peter Ekroth's No. 5, honouring two players who helped lay the foundations for what came next.
Different generations, one IK
Jonas Engström belongs to another era. Captain for eight seasons, he wore the C when IK reached the SHL in 2019. Skeeter helped lift the club out of the lower divisions; Jonas embodied its long climb towards the top of Swedish hockey.
Now those two chapters will come together under one roof. Number four is coming home to watch number seventeen take his place.
That Moore is making the journey back from across the Atlantic makes it much more than a routine ceremony. This is the club's past meeting the people supporting it today – exactly the kind of connection worth protecting.
Fill BEGE for the people who built IK
Just 2,200 spectators attended IK's last Friday home game. We can argue about how the team plays, but a club's history and atmosphere are also made by the people who turn up.
IK host MoDo on 31 October, with faceoff at 14:00 local time. There will be points at stake, but this is bigger than the result. Two of the people who helped shape the identity of this club will be connected in a very public way.
Welcome home, Skeeter. And give Jonas the tribute he deserves.
Sources: Barometern's report on Moore's return, IK's club history, and our earlier story on Engström's No. 17.