Ice hockey | In China, Jaakko Rissanen was beaten by an NHL whip – the team photo was also changed

KalPan star striker Jaakko Rissanen interesting times are going on in life.

The 33-year-old man from Kuopio recently became a father when he and his wife had their first daughter. On the ice, the game has gone unprecedentedly well.

The center, who is playing the best season of his career, is one of the top names in the points exchange of the SM league with a balance of 13+31=44 in 47 matches. My old points record was already broken.

“When I came here last fall, it was a bit difficult for me and there were a lot of bad games. It’s mostly gone well now. I feel like we play well as a team. The game is much better than last season”, Rissanen compares.

He is Kuopio’s own son, who is playing for KalPa for the fourth time in his career. In between, there have been stints in SaiPa, the KHL and the Swedish League’s Linköping, where he returned to the yellow shield shirt last season.

The road has always taken me home to Pohjois Savo, but a more exotic place of residence has also fallen along the route: Shanghai.

In autumn 2017 happened and happened. KalPa’s charming silver spring had thrown Rissanen, who played a top season, to Russia, to the ranks of the KHL club Vitjaz Podolsk on the outskirts of Moscow.

He knew that the result had to be made immediately.

“I can only blame myself. I played poorly in the first five practice games, and then I wasn’t really looked at anymore,” said Rissanen.

Vitjaz sold him to another KHL club, the Chinese Kunlun Red Star. Suddenly, the skyscrapers of Shanghai were all around.

More than 24 million people live in the city and it is one of the densest metropolises in the world.

“It came to the eyes of a boy from Kuopio how shockingly big it is. And a really great place. Half an hour when you drive by car, it’s one tall skyscraper after another. A few months there was a great life experience,” says Rissanen.

In terms of hockey, not so much.

“In Vitjaz, I played badly myself and so did the team, but we still had the right team and good fans. Hockey in China was frankly not very nice. 50 spectators attended the home games. Fortunately, the city was pretty incredible when you got out of the hall. However, I wouldn’t have been able to do it another way,” says Rissanen.

Kunlun your whip legendary Mike Keenan, who is remembered as a furious and even feared NHL coach. In 1994, he won the Stanley Cup with the New York Rangers.

Canadian Keenan also became the first head coach in history to win both the NHL and KHL championships when he led Metallurg Magnitogorsk to the Gagarin Cup victory in 2014.

“Iron Mike” often clashed with his star players. In China, the hustle and bustle was sudden and sad, as his coaching career drew to a close.

“The discipline was pretty tough. And the players didn’t have a good time. Neither I nor anyone else had a great time. The team’s game didn’t go well,” says Rissanen.

What was special was that Keenan also served as the team’s general manager. He signed Rissanen’s contract.

“Half of the team got fired during the season. A new team photo was also taken in the middle of the season. The players were just told in the morning that you will be fired, you can pack your things, there is no need to come again tomorrow.”

Rissanen was allowed to continue in a small role in the lower chains until the end of the season. In Vitjaz, his statistics were 21 matches with an output of 2+6=8, in Kunlun 25 matches with an output of 2+1=3.

Keenan, who distributed the kicks, finally got a shoe himself.

“When Keenan got fired, the team did a little better. It was quite a windy place,” Rissanen smiles.

Polish cult raider Wojtek Wolski had played under Keenan in Magnitogorsk’s champion team. Wolski also represented Kunlun alongside Rissanen.

“He said that Keenan was really good in Magnitogorsk. There was a second coach who decided all game-related matters, and then Keenan created a spirit. It worked,” says Rissanen.

“Wolski had good memories of Keenan, but then everything came crashing down in Kunlun.”

Rissasee’s seventy-year-old coaching legend didn’t make an impression either.

“There wasn’t a terribly good picture left of him. I don’t know if it was because he was already in his old days.”

Home the returned Rissanen is now enjoying the peace of Pohjois Savo. The new father has taken up a new hobby: bird watching.

“Absolutely!” he confirms.

“I just got a telescope for the cabin. I like to follow what’s going on at that lake. In the fall, there were a lot of migratory birds at this cabin,” Rissanen reports.

The inspiration for the birds came from the parents-in-law. However, he does not consider himself a very professional birdwatcher, at least not yet.

“The downstairs neighbor is a real bird lover. He always goes to the bird tower at six in the morning. I’ve been to the bird tower twice myself. Well, maybe there will be time sometime.”

Work interferes with hobby activities. Rissanen is a nature person of the old alliance anyway.

“I go fishing in the summer and in the forest in the fall.”

In spring 2018 Rissanen signed a five-year contract with KalPa, of which two years he could play abroad. Now that contract is ending.

Thoughts about the future are clear.

“There is a strong desire to continue here – and I believe that it is possible. I believe that an agreement will be reached with KalPa”, he says.

The best season of his career gives good food to the negotiation table.