Miikka Kiprusoff looking to spend spring at Timrå

World-class goalie settling in to pass his winter in Sweden

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By Heikki Miettinen in Örnsköldsvik
     
      By any standards, the night could definitely have been a bit more successful from goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff’s point of view. Four pucks flew past him as MoDo demolished Timrå 5-1 at home in a match of the Swedish ice hockey Elite League.
      Kiprusoff witnessed the last goal while leaning against the side of the players’ box.
      Thursday night was supposed to bring Timrå its ninth consecutive win in the Elite League, but it turned out to be a near-fiasco. Their impressive streak ended abruptly and brutally.
      "I have never seen Kiprusoff let in four goals, and with a couple between the legs", NHL coach Barry Smith from Detroit commented.
     
The silver-haired Smith seems to have time to be everywhere. On Wednesday he was still standing in the box of the Espoo Blues when the home team beat JYP from Jyväskylä. One day later, he sat in the hockey arena of Örnsköldsvik, invited by his friend and MoDo coach Kent Forsberg.
      What also did not go quite as planned was that Kiprusoff did not even know after the match that he was selected the MVP or best player from the Timrå team. The announcer yells out the Finnish goalie’s name a couple of times in vain after the game, as "Kipper" is already sitting in the cramped dressing room of the visiting team.
      The starting point for the interview has thus slid more or less to ice-level, and one can sense that the atmosphere is going to be chilly.
      Stuff and nonsense!
     
Kiprusoff sips idly on a sports drink to recover from the night’s strains, and he strips off his gear as calmly as ever. "Nah. I have had my butt kicked before. This was one game out of many, and during a long season there are bound to be nights like this", he reasons. The flow of chatter picks up a bit when he hears of his award as best of the team.
      The Elite League is bursting at the seams with NHL players owing to the ongoing lockout in North America, and more are on the way. On Thursday, Peter Forsberg opened up the torture of Kiprusoff with a fine goal, and he was followed by the Sedin brothers and Mattias Weinhandl. The night belonged completely to MoDo.
      But one match alone does not measure the quality of Timrå or of Kiprusoff. The Finn is one of the group of NHL professionals who attract the most attention from one round to the next.
     
The first stage of the contract between Kiprusoff and the team ends on December 15th, but unless some miracle takes place, a continuation will be drafted and fine-tuned within the next couple of weeks.
      "Since I am here now, I would like to finish the season here as well", Kiprusoff explains.
      "This is a good team that can succeed. That means a lot."
      Up until now, Kiprusoff’s girlfriend has travelled between Finland and Sweden, but if his career continues at Timrå, she will move officially under the same roof in Sweden.
     
As a young goalkeeper, Kiprusoff played for AIK in Stockholm for a while. His recollections of those days are a bit vague. For the time being, Timrå has offered only positive experiences, and one dark night far away in Örnsköldsvik will not change that.
      The first positive event was meeting Finnish goalie coach Mika Tarvainen. Having a Finnish coach helps quite a bit, allowing for analysing and processing games and training sessions in your native language.
      The current season brought big changes also for 36-year-old Tarvainen. He was supposed to coach Kimmo Kapanen above all at Timrå, and to focus on the day-to-day life in the Elite League.
      Tarvainen has toured from Kuopio to Timrå via Hämeenlinna and Lahti. Kapanen is his acquaintance from years back, as both hail from Kuopio.
     
Tarvainen’s agenda was altered when Kapanen was forced to miss the start of the season due to a long-term injury. An even bigger change came when the knock-on effects of the NHL dispute turned the Swedish league into the toughest in the world this year. His own team acquired one of the world’s best goalies, and based on the current league standings, the team is one of the favourites for the national championship.
      "It is great not to have to think everything through alone. I got used to having a goalie coach already when I was little", Kiprusoff says.
      Tarvainen has an odd role in Swedish hockey. He is the league’s first full-time goalkeepers’ coach.
      "The training of goalies is completely outdated in Sweden", Tarvainen observes. He watches the MoDo game from the stands and goes to meet Kiprusoff to give him his comments afterwards.
      During their brief chat, the duo process the events of the match. "You can see many situations from the stands better than on the ice", Kiprusoff remarks.
     
It takes a while before Kiprusoff emerges from the dressing room and climbs to the second floor of the MoDo arena for a late dinner. On the way, he acknowledges that there is a slight chance he will play for TPS in Turku during the remainder of the season.
      In practice, TPS and Finland fall off the list of alternatives, as Kiprusoff would need to leave the country before the summer in order to avoid paying income tax in Finland. It is difficult to find anything abroad that would beat spending the summer by the Aurajoki river in Turku.
      "And I do not even have a home abroad, because I rented out my place back in Calgary", he explains.
      The dressing room of the home team has emptied long ago into the zero-degree night in Örnsköldsvik. Peter Forsberg was one of the last to leave, as is customary for him.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.10.2004


Previously in HS International Edition:
  "In Kipper we trust": Miikka Kiprusoff is playing for the Stanley Cup (8.6.2004)

HEIKKI MIETTINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
heikki.miettinen@hs.fi