Finnish women heading off to Russian ice hockey league

Four Finns signed by team from Nizhny Novgorod

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By Antti Penttinen
     
      "The offer was very... ahmm.. tempting", says Emma Laaksonen, who is leaving the Espoo Blues hockey team to take up a professional contract in Russia.
      Sitting next to Laaksonen in the cafeteria at the Tikkurila Sports Hall in Vantaa are her Espoo Blues team-mate Karoliina Rantamäki and Kati Kovalainen from IHK in Helsinki. Both appear to be very much of the same opinion about the impendsing move.
      The trio are three of the first four Finnish women to play in the Russian league, and at the same time the first Finnish women to become ice hockey professionals.
     
The three women hint that a contract for the upcoming season was struck at the beginning of the summer, but they are not in a position to go into any more detail on the matter.
      SKIF, a team from Nizhny Novgorod (the city known as Gorky from 1932 until 1990), came and bagged four Finnish girls at once.
      Also joining them next season will be Nora Tallus from IHK. All four women have represented Finland at the Olympics and World Championships.
     
SKIF are currently in Finland on a pre-season training camp and have been playing a series of warm-up matches against Finnish opposition. The Finnish quartet thus had a great opportunity to join the Russian team's roster during the training camp, and so get a soft landing into the squad before they head off to Russia on the 10th.
      The season there starts in earnest on September 29th.
     
The Russian players and their Finnish reinforcements have wound up a morning spell on the ice with some stretching exercises in the sports hall corridors. Nora Tallus is not present, as she is suffering from a slight ankle injury.
      The Finnish internationals have not been signed up by just any old Russian outfit, as SKIF finished as runners-up in the Russian women's league last season, right behind Moscow Tornado.
      The club has only one aim this year: the championship title. And the Finnish girls - two forwards and two defenders - were acquired very much with that end in mind.
     
Until now, Russian women's ice hockey has not really seen any foreign imports. The three Finns know of only one precedent: the Canadian international Isabelle Chartrand played for Tornado in Moscow last season.
      Russia are ranked fifth in women's hockey, right behind Finland, so the Finnish girls are not going to get an easy ride in their new environment.
      There are five members of the Russian national squad on the SKIF roster.
      In international tournaments, Finland has generally beaten the Russian Federation by one or two goals, so there is no great difference in skills between the two countries.
     
As yet, Laaksonen and her fellows have not the faintest idea about the sort of attendances that can be expected at women's league matches in Russia, or the publicity and media exposure the sport enjoys.
      "I do know that the ice-hall where we will be playing in Nizhny Novgorod has just been modernised, and it is supposed to seat 5,000 people", says Kati Kovalainen.
      One thing the women have heard about already is that they will be doing some hard travelling: the longest distance to an away match will be roughly 3,000 kilometres to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.
     
Eight teams play in the top Russian women's league. The women list the names of the places they will be visiting - Ekaterinburg (the former Sverdlovsk), Magnitogorsk, Moscow, Krasnoyarsk...
      All of them have learning Russian uppermost in their minds. Laaksonen has studied the language at high school and when she was at university in the United States, but she wants to strengthen her Russian skills.
      It is not as though they will be completely lost without the language - training on the ice is much the same from one country to the next. But the SKIF head coach Alexandr Viryasov speaks no English, and nor do any of the other members of the coaching staff.
      Among the players, only the team captain speaks some English, but her help is going to be all-important as the women settle in.
      Nizhny Novgorod is the fourth-largest city in Russia, with a population of just under one and a half million. Fortunately the women will not have to hunt for an apartment: they have been fixed up with two flats close to the ice-hall.
      Tero Lehterä, a member of the Finnish men's team that won the World Championships in 1995, was on the roster of a team in Niznhy Novgorod between 2003 and 2005, and he has already given the girls plenty of good advice.
     
The contractual arrangements were carried out by a Moscow-based agent. After the Russian club made contact, the players were given six weeks to mull the idea over.
      "I've played with Espoo Blues for sixteen years", explains 29-year-old Karoliina Rantamäki. "I've always dreamed of playing professionally", she says by way of explanation for her decision to move east.
      She admits it did feel strange to suit up in a SKIF jersey against Blues in a training match last week. Blues, seven times the Finnish champions, won the encounter 3-0.
     
Emma Laaksonen captained Espoo Blues last season, but acknowledges that the call to play in Russia grabbed her attention, and when her Finnish employers off the ice were prepared to be flexible, she decided to go for it.
      Rantamäki is a secretary, Laaksonen, 25, works as a dealer with a bank, and Kovalainen, 32, is a nurse. Nora Tallus, 26, is a kindergarten teacher by training.
      However, at least until the end of March next year, all four will be hockey pros in foreign parts.
      "You can read about how we are getting on in our blog, which we are all going to write together", promises Laaksonen.
      The weblog has not been set up yet, but the chances are it will be accessible through the Espoo Blues web pages.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 5.9.2007


Links:
  Members of the Finnish women´s hockey team in Torino (all four women are listed here)

ANTTI PENTTINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
antti.penttinen@sanoma.fi