A lot has changed since Valtteri Filppula last played at the Olympics.
The year was 2010 and the Games of Hockey were native to Canada. NHL players took part in the Olympics for the fourth time, and the noise around the puck tournament took to new heights.
By the time of Vancouver, Filppula was a young Stanley Cup winner, and most of his career was just ahead.
Filppula left for Beijing in a completely different mood. His wife gave birth to the family’s first daughter, Veran, just two days before the flight.
Simultaneously with the addition of a family, Filppula understands the limitations of his career as a hockey player. These opportunities – that is, the Olympics – will no longer come to him.
Even now, at age 37, there was a high risk of being sidelined if current NHL players were allowed to participate in Beijing.
National team At the time of the manufacturing camp, Father Filppula was in a busy and busy Swiss maternity hospital.
After that, we had to quickly turn our thoughts into puck and races.
The connection from the Beijing corona bubble will remain open to its current home in Switzerland.
“It’s nice to see a little girl and be able to talk to a face. They have done well there and got home from the hospital on Saturday. ”
Filppula’s parents are helping the baby and mother to cope with everyday life, so the social safety net also works during these times.
“Of course I miss it, but maybe at the moment the baby needs a mother more than me. Maybe it’s a little comfort. ”
The decision to go to the Olympics might sound like a tough solution and not many players would have made it, especially the younger ones.
Filppula thought of options and eventually the solution came easily.
“There will be so few of these games,” Filppula says at the Beijing National Indoor Sports Center, where the Olympic Games will be played.
“It’s great that I got in once more. In that sense, it was an easy choice for hockey. ”
Vancouver for the Olympics, NHL stars were transported to the venue in the middle of the Games, just a couple of days before the first matches. Filppula missed the opening.
In Beijing, he received a decent dose of the opening atmosphere as a Finnish flag bearer.
A great experience that is sure to stay in mind – and as a quiz question – well into the future.
“It was a little nervous before we went down that I hope I’m not fumbling for anything. Fortunately, it went well. ”
“Good atmosphere and great opening anyway. A unique experience. ”
Easy understands that the Olympics are of interest to Filppula. After Vancouver, NHL players made it to the Sochi 2014 Games and Filppula had also been selected there. The role of a big center striker was on offer.
The fate of the puck was missing in the game. Detroit played the final match before the Olympics in Toronto and Filppula got the puck on his feet. The hit came so badly that the leg broke.
Just a moment earlier Mikko Koivu had to leave Sochi due to a long-term injury. The situation was not alleviated by being a teenager at the time Alexander Barkov was injured at the start of the tournament. The center section was hit by a block the size of a boulder.
“It was a pity place,” Filppula says. “I think there had been something there before when it wasn’t such a terribly hard pull. It just hit a good spot and there was a fracture. There is nothing for them. When you play, there are sometimes injuries. ”
“Of course it was annoying and annoying for a while when I couldn’t get in.”
In Vancouver, Filppula scored the second most goals of the Lion. He and Olli Jokinen hit three times. Niklas Hagman made four.
If Filppula were able to score three goals in Beijing, the veteran center could be happy. Points are calculated accurately when Filppula plays together in the results chain Iiro Pakarisen and Harri Pesonen with.
“Now that we have been overwhelmed by the exercises, the result must come. Expectations are high, but time will tell how it will move. ”
Beijing and the 12 years between Vancouver are eternity in hockey. Of the team at the time, Filppula is the only one in China, but in total only two other players will continue their careers at all: a defender playing in Sweden Sami Lepistö and representing the Jukur Jarkko Immonen.
And there is one other unifying factor in these competitions: the head coach Jukka Jalonen. He then took the Lions to bronze, but an even brighter medal is sought from Beijing.
Finland will start the men’s Olympic hockey against Slovakia on Thursday at 10.40. Discovery shows the match live.
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