Widing was born in
Oulu, Finland, to a Finnish mother, Hilkka (). They
moved to Sweden with his
Swedish-speaking Finnish father, Yngve Widing, when he was four years old, and he received Swedish citizenship. In 1964 his family moved to
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, so he could play junior ice hockey for the
Brandon Wheat Kings. He played three seasons there, improving his point total each season from 38 to 114 and then finally to 144 in only a 50-game schedule. He was named to the
Manitoba Junior Hockey League Second All-Star Team in 1967. Widing joined the
New York Rangers of the NHL in
1969–70, thus becoming the first mostly European-trained player with a full-time contract in the NHL. After only 44 games he was traded to the
Los Angeles Kings along with
Réal Lemieux for
Ted Irvine. In Los Angeles he developed into a legitimate scoring threat, garnering at least 55 points in five consecutive seasons. Kings' owner
Jack Kent Cooke gave him the nickname "Whitey" and instructed his announcers to pronounce his last name as "why-ding" as opposed to the real pronunciation of "vee-ding". He often played on a line with
Bob Berry and
Mike Corrigan known as "the hot line". By
1976 Widing's productivity had dropped considerably, and he was traded to the
Cleveland Barons the following season. In
1977–78, he played for the
Edmonton Oilers of the
World Hockey Association, scoring 42 points in his final professional season. Traded to the
Indianapolis Racers for
Bill Goldsworthy, he retired instead of playing.
Statistics Regular season and playoffs International ==Death==