There are those in the Great White North who fondly remember the 1972 eight-game Summit Series between Canada’s NHL stars and the Soviet Union.
Canada would win the series against the 4-3-1 Big Red Machine, but Bobby Clark’s infamous two-handed slash that broke Soviet superstar Valeri Kharlamov’s ankle in Game 6 There was help.
Not so fondly remembered by our neighbors to the north is another on-ice match between Canadian and Finnish female athletes in 1998, a nasty bout of dominance in the ringette. It’s a five-game summit series to solve problems.
The Finns won the first two games on home ice in Turku to take the series 3-2.
Five-year-old Susannah Tapani, who lives in the village of Raitila on the Gulf of Bothnia, 60 miles north, was preparing to discover the joys of rubber bands, like sliding them on a straight stick.
“Not as fast as hockey, right?” she was asked rhetorically Tuesday.
Tapani looked quizzical and said, “I wouldn’t say that. On a ringet, you have to skate very fast, even in short bursts.”
Tapani has become a stalwart in the ringette world, having helped Finland win five of the six world championships it has won since 2010, and a few years ago a documentary about her, Icebreaker, was released in Finland. It was produced.
“I can’t remember the last time Finland didn’t win in a ringette,” Tapani said.
She spoke during a break Tuesday morning after practice for St. Paul’s new professional hockey team, the Minnesota PWHL, and before physical training in the hallway below the Xcel Energy Center.
So far, Tapani’s time on the ice has been as a hockey forward, having been on two Finnish Olympic teams (two bronze medals) and five world championship teams (one silver medal, four bronze). I have belonged.
As a proud father once told me about his track and field daughter, with all her gold medals in her ring, “If she wore all her medals, she’d be bulletproof.”
Tapani’s hockey playing began in Raithila as part of their friendship. “When we were younger, they asked me to join because they didn’t have enough boys on the team,” she said.
Once hooked, she played on numerous men’s teams and various women’s teams in Finland and Sweden before being scouted to play at the University of North Dakota.
This was during the 2013-14 season, three years before UND president Mark Kennedy got away with canceling the highly competitive women’s program to save a few bucks.
“It was a great facility and a good team. We also had the opportunity to play in the Minnesota Women’s Arena that season, which was great,” Tapani said.
“I only stayed for one academic year because the situation at the university, what I wanted from my studies, was better in Finland.”
Now 30 years old, still juggling hockey and loving ringettes, she returned to the U.S. and started a new hockey game with a 10-year commitment of funding from Dodgers owner Mark Walter and his wife. playing in the league. , Kimbra.
“I was going to play for the New York Riveters in another league, and then those leagues replaced this league and I got drafted to Minnesota,” Tapani said.
“We knew this was a hockey state, but when that crowd came out to support us on Sunday… it was amazing.”
More than 13,000 people were announced Sunday for Minnesota’s first PWHL game. Tapani became the focal point of the second line, from which Grace Zumwinkle scored a hat trick as the home team won 3-0.
There are two more games on the X’s first homestand: Wednesday against Toronto and Sunday against New York. A few thousand people are expected for the midweek game and 6,000 to 7,000 for the 3pm game on Sunday. (Note: Vikings playoff games will not be played as a tournament.)
Ken Clay, a 15-year NHL defenseman, has been Minnesota’s coach for just over a week, but he has quickly come to appreciate Tapani’s sharpness as an athlete.
“There’s a lot of things that need to be corrected,” Klee said. “But Susannah, with her experience and maturity as an athlete, goes to the right places and makes the right plays.
“We are very fortunate to have her on board at an early stage in our efforts to put together a cohesive team.”
So does this mean that Tapani, known to everyone in its homeland as ‘Pampas grass’, has put its Finnish ringet glory behind it?
“The next world championship is not in three years. For now it’s all hockey,” she said.