Jari Kurri honoured by Jokerit at club's 40th anniversary match

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Helsinki hockey team Jokerit marked up 40 years on Saturday with a Finnish League fixture at home to Lukko from Rauma.
      Things ended the way they were supposed to, on a celebratory note, as Jokerit won 5-3, thanks in no small measure to a hat-trick from Jani Rita. Jokerit thus conslidated their position in 4th place in the league table.
     
However, the event was memorable as much for the past as the present.
      The celebrations included the “retirement” of the Number 17 jersey belonging to former Jokerit player Jari Kurri.
      In fact, Kurri wore the numbers 11, 16, and 71 on his back during the three seasons he played for the club between 1977 and 1980, but 17 is the number most often associated with him in the years that followed.
      Jari Kurri joined the Edmonton Oilers in 1980, where he played for nine and a half seasons and collected five Stanley Cup titles.
     
He continued to ply his trade in the NHL (with the Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and Colorado Avalanche) until his retirement from the game in 1998, by which time he had scored 601 goals and 797 assists for a total of 1,398 points, making him the highest scoring European-born player in NHL history.
      In November 2006, Kurri’s total of 1,251 regular-season games played in the NHL was surpassed by fellow-Finn Teppo Numminen, who now holds the record for most NHL games played as a European-trained player.
      These days Kurri, 47, is General Manager for the Finnish Lions, the national ice hockey team.


Links:
  Jari Kurri (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat