Sharp elbows on the White House lawn

Finnish female ice hockey player Saara Tuominen has shaken hands with the last two Presidents of the United States

Saara Tuominen

print this

By Jussi-Pekka Reponen
     
      There are not too many Finnish athletes who can honestly say that they have been to the White House to meet the President of the United States.
      Olympic ice hockey player Saara Tuominen is quite plausibly the only Finnish sports personality who has shaken hands with both Barack Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush.
      Tuominen was invited twice to the White House as part of the American National Collegiate Athletic Association  (NCAA) Women’s Ice Hockey Championship team, first in 2008 and again in 2010.
     
“Of course it was very grand  and unique in there”, says Tuominen, who - back in Finland - has also been among the guests to the traditional Independence Day Gala Reception hosted by President Tarja Halonen at the rather more modest Presidential Palace in Helsinki.
      Tuominen won her American collegiate titles while studying and playing ice hockey at the University of Minnesota in Duluth for four seasons.
      Her team, the UMD Bulldogs, have taken the NCAA title five times since 2001.
     
She explains that the parties  that Bush and Obama hosted for the athletes were quite different from one another.
      ”The first time around, only a few other teams besides ours had been invited. We were there for a couple of hours, and they gave us the tour of the White House. Bush took part in the group photo-op, and we also had a chance to chat with him. He was a bit of a joker”, Tuominen recalls.
      Last September more than thirty teams visited Obama all at once, consisting of champions from a variety of disciplines.
     
”Obama did not have time to meet all the teams personally. Also, we were not allowed inside the house itself on that occasion. Instead, we were ushered into the back yard where there was food and drinks laid on for us. I decided to go and shake hands with Obama, but I must admit that I had to use my elbows a fair bit to work my way through the crowd on the White house lawn”, laughs Tuominen, who was the captain of the victorious team for three years of the four she spent in Duluth.
      In Tuominen’s opinion, the American collegiate series is the highest-level league in the world in women’s ice hockey.
     
”There are more than 30 teams in the main series, and nearly 20 of them have realistic chances of making it into the top four and the final tournament Some of the best players from Canada and Europe play there”, Tuominen reasons.
      Tuominen’s right to play on the UMD Bulldogs' roster expired last spring. Last autumn the 25-year-old Finn worked to finish her degree in sports physiology.
      Since then, Tuominen has commenced her work at the Kisakallio Sports Institute in Lohja and has also returned to play ice hockey in the SM-Series, Finland’s premier women's ice hockey league.
      Tuominen’s team is the same Tampere Ilves with which she won a Finnish Championship medal in 2006.
     
“I have very good memories from the USA. For the time being I nevertheless plan to stay here in Finland. Let’s see how the proposed women’s league starts developing in Canada.”
      Tuominen also has an Olympic bronze medal from the Vancouver Games, where she was one of the assistant captains in the Finnish squad.
      She has also taken part in the IIHF Women's World Championships on five different occasions and brought home three bronze medals, in 2004, 2008, and 2009.
     

Next week
Tuominen will face a new challenge: she will be the captain of the women’s ice hockey team in the 25th Winter World University Games in Erzurum, Turkey.
      The team will include half a dozen of last winter’s Finnish Olympic medallists.
      "Our aim is at least to defend the third place we took from the previous games in Harbin in 2009. The Universiade also provides us with useful training for the upcoming IIHF World Championships later in the spring”, says Tuominen, and she reckons that up to half of the players from the Universiade team may also end up wearing the Finnish jersey in the worlds in Switzerland come April.
     
     
FACTFILE: The largest-ever Finnish team heads for Erzurum
     
     
The XVth Winter Universiade will be held in Erzurum in Turkey from 27.1 - 6.2. Erzurum is located in the eastern part of Turkey, in the region known as Eastern Anatolia. Erzurum is a city at altitude, situated on a plateau at 1,850 metres above sea level.
     
Erzurum has a population of approximately 360,000, and the city houses the Atatürk University, with more than 40,000 students enrolled.
     
More than 3,000 athletes and other team members will be taking part in the games, drawn from 57 countries.
     
Finland's Student Sports Federation (OLL) will be sending the largest-ever team to Erzurum, comprising 76 athletes.
     
Among the squad are the two best teams from last year's Synchronised Skating World Championships (gold medallists Rockettes and runners-up Marigold IceUnity), the women's ice hockey team, and individual competitors in Alpine skiing, moguls (freestyle skiing), snowboarding, ski-jumping, and figure skating.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 20.1.2011


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish women´s ice hockey team celebrates Olympic bronze (26.2.2010)

Links:
  XVth Winter Universiade, Erzurum
  UMD Bulldogs (Wikipedia)
  Saara Tuominen (Wikipedia)
  NCAA Women´s Ice Hockey Championship (Wikipedia)

JUSSI-PEKKA REPONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jussi-pekka.reponen@hs.fi