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Riikka Sallinen

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Riikka Sallinen
Hockey Hall of Fame, 2022
Born (1973-06-12) 12 June 1973 (age 51)
Jyväskylä, Finland
Height 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in)
Weight 60 kg (132 lb; 9 st 6 lb)
Position Forward
Shot Right
Played for
Coached for HV71
National team  Finland
Playing career 1988–2003
2013–2019
Coaching career 2019–2021
Medal record
Women's ice hockey
Representing  Finland
Olympic Games
Bronze medal – third place 2018 Pyeongchang Team
Bronze medal – third place 1998 Nagano Team
World Championship
Silver medal – second place 2019 Finland
Bronze medal – third place 2017 United States
Bronze medal – third place 2015 Sweden
Bronze medal – third place 1997 Canada
Bronze medal – third place 1994 United States
Bronze medal – third place 1992 Finland
Bronze medal – third place 1990 Canada
European Championships
Gold medal – first place 1989 West Germany
Gold medal – first place 1993 Denmark
Gold medal – first place 1995 Latvia

Hanna-Riikka Sallinen (née Nieminen, previously Välilä; born 12 June 1973) is a Finnish retired ice hockey, bandy, rinkball, and pesäpallo player.[1] She is one of the most highly decorated players to have ever competed in international ice hockey.[2][3]

Sallinen played sixteen seasons with the Finland women's national ice hockey team and earned two Olympic bronze medals, one World Championship silver and six bronze medals, and three European Championship gold medals. In 2007, Sallinen was one of the first two women inducted into the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame, along with defenceman Marianne Ihalainen. She was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame on 21 May 2010 in Cologne, Germany as part of the World Championship festivities; she was only the fourth woman and the first European woman to receive this honor.[4] She is currently the leading all-time European scorer in World Championships and Olympics.

Sallinen's bronze medal at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang made her the oldest player to ever win an Olympic medal in ice hockey, replacing her compatriot Teemu Selänne who set the record at the 2014 Winter Olympics after winning bronze in the men's ice hockey tournament at age 43. Sallinen was awarded the medal at age 44, twenty years after she first won an Olympic medal in the inaugural women's Olympic hockey tournament.[5]

In 2022 she became the ninth woman player named to the Hockey Hall of Fame;[6] she is the first woman not born in North America to be so honoured.[7]

Ice hockey playing career

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Sallinen played eleven seasons in the Naisten SM-sarja and was a five time Finnish Champion, first in 1988–89 with Etelä-Vantaan Urheilijat (EVU), then in 1993–94 with the Keravan Shakers, and in 1996–97, 1997–98, and 2015–16 with JYP Jyväskylä Naiset. She scored 201 goals and notched 194 assists (395 points) in 135 regular season games, averaging 2.93 points per game across her Naisten SM-sarja career, and appeared in 41 Naisten SM-sarja playoff games, scoring 86 points, (36 goals and 50 assists).

In 2016, she joined HV71 in the SDHL. She would captain the team from 2017 to 2019, scoring a total of 119 points in 92 games. She was suspended for four games in the 2018-19 playoffs after bodychecking a Leksands IF player.[8]

She announced her retirement from competition in April 2019, at age 46, shortly after achieving silver at the 2019 IIHF Women's World Championship.[2]

International ice hockey career

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Sallinen represented Finland at three IIHF Women's European Championships, eight IIHF World Women's Championships, and four Olympics. Over her international career she would score 109 goals, 95 assists for 204 points while accumulating only 24 PIMs.[9]

She made her international debut at the 1989 Women's European Championship.[10] She was also a member of Team Finland during the first IIHF-sanctioned international Women's World Ice Hockey Championship in 1990. Leading all players in scoring at the 1994 IIHF Women's World Championship, she was named the tournament's Best Forward. After leading all players in scoring at the 1997 IIHF Women's World Championship, she became the first woman to be named a top-3 forward in three consecutive World Championships.

In her first Olympics in 1998 she led the tournament in scoring, amassing 12 points (7 goals & 5 assists) in six games and leading the Finnish team to the bronze medal. Sallinen would also lead the Finnish national team to three European Championship titles and six IIHF World Women's Championship bronze medals and one silver.

In August 2013, the IIHF reported that she was attempting a comeback[11] and in December 2013, following several matches in the Naisten SM-sarja, she was selected for the Finnish women's team for the Sochi Olympics. She made the Finnish Olympic team again for the 2018 Olympics, helping Finland to a bronze medal.[5][12]

She scored 4 points in 7 games at the 2019 IIHF Women's World Championship as Finland won their first silver medal in history. During the tournament, she averaged 19:58 time-on-ice, second on the team. The logo for the Championship, held in Finland, was designed by Michelle Karvinen in tribute to her career.

Rinkball career

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In rinkball, Sallinen won the European Championship gold in 1989.[citation needed]

Personal life

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Sallinen was born Hanna-Riikka Nieminen on 12 June 1973 in Jyväskylä, Central Finland. She was raised in a sports-oriented home; her father and two older brothers were also successful athletes. Her father, Eero, was a Finnish Champion pesäpallo player in the 1960s. Lasse Nieminen, Sallinen's eldest brother, played nearly 500 games with JYP Jyväskylä in the Liiga and currently serves as assistant coach to the JYP U16 juniors team. Juha "Jussi" Nieminen, Sallinen's second eldest brother, played twelve seasons in the Superpesis with Jyväskylän Kiri.[13]

Sallinen is a physical therapist by training and works in the public sector with disabled and permanently ill people, in addition to working with her husband in the family's pain management and rehabilitation practice.[13]

Sallinen and former Liiga player Mika Välilä were married in 2002 and divorced in early 2018.[14] Their two sons, Emil Välilä (born 2003) and Elis Välilä (born 2005), play on the U18 and U16 teams of the Tappara ice hockey club respectively, the same junior organization in which their father developed.

Sallinen and osteopath Petteri Sallinen married in late 2018. They have a physical therapy practice in Sweden, in which each of them takes responsibility for one-half of patient care; Petteri focuses on alleviating patients' pain and Riikka develops physical therapy regimens for rehabilitation. Petteri, a former film director, was previously married to actress and theater director Anu Hälvä; they divorced in early 2018, and have two children together.[15]

Ice hockey career statistics

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Regular season and playoffs

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    Regular season   Playoffs
Season Team League GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM
1988–89 EVU SM-sarja 6 19 7 26 2 — — — — —
1989–90 JyP HT I-div. 4 5 3 8 0 — — — — —
1991–92 JyP HT I-div. 10 41 3 44 2 — — — — —
1992–93 SC Lyss LKA 17 50 30 80 0 — — — — —
1993–94 Shakers SM-sarja 21 73 56 129 8 5 11 11 22 4
1994–95 JyP HT I-div. 8 35 13 48 25 — — — — —
1995–96 KalPa SM-sarja 10 10 8 18 0 — — — — —
1996–97 JyP HT SM-sarja 24 26 38 64 0 6 3 5 8 4
1997–98 JYP SM-sarja 12 13 8 21 2 6 2 8 10 0
1999–2000 JYP SM-sarja 2 1 0 1 0 — — — — —
2000–01 JyHC SM-sarja 9 10 9 19 6 — — — — —
2001–02 JyHC SM-sarja 13 10 12 22 2 2 1 1 2 2
2002–03 Limhamn HK Div. 1 — — — — — 3 3 3 6 0
2003–2013 did not play
2013–14 JYP SM-sarja 13 7 12 19 18 8 5 11 16 12
2014–15 JYP SM-sarja 14 12 25 37 8 7 5 7 12 4
2015–16 JYP SM-sarja 11 20 19 39 6 6 5 5 10 2
2016–17 HV71 SDHL 23 10 11 21 12 6 3 3 6 4
2016–17 IF Troja/Ljungby Div. 1 1 2 3 5 0 — — — — —
2017–18 HV71 SDHL 36 15 32 47 24 2 1 1 2 2
2018–19 HV71 SDHL 33 14 37 51 8 4 1 1 2 25
SM-sarja totals 135 201 194 395 52 41 36 50 86 28
SDHL totals 92 39 80 119 44 12 5 5 10 31

International

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Year Team Event Result   GP G A Pts PIM
1989 Finland EC Gold 5 9 2 11 2
1990 Finland WC Bronze 5 8 2 10 4
1992 Finland WC Bronze 5 6 2 8 0
1993 Finland EC Gold 3 2 2 4 0
1994 Finland WC Bronze 5 4 8 13 4
1995 Finland EC Gold 5 9 14 23 2
1997 Finland WC Bronze 5 5 5 10 0
1998 Finland OG Bronze 6 7 5 12 4
2002 Finland OG 4th 5 0 3 3 2
2014 Finland OG 5th 6 1 4 5 0
2015 Finland WC Bronze 6 6 0 6 0
2016 Finland WC 4th 6 1 5 6 0
2017 Finland WC Bronze 6 1 2 3 2
2018 Finland OG Bronze 6 4 1 5 0
2019 Finland WC Silver 7 0 4 4 8
Senior totals 81 63 59 123 28

Awards and honours

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Ice hockey

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Award Year
Finland
Finnish Champion in Women's Ice Hockey 1989 (EVU), 1994 (Shakers), 1997, 1998, 2016 (JYP)
Tiia Reima Award 1993–94 (73 goals)
Marianne Ihalainen Award 1993–94 (129 points), 1996–97 (64 points)
Suomen Jääkiekkoleijona
Hockey Hall of Fame Finland 		2007
Karoliina Rantamäki Award 2015–16
President's Trophy 2018[16]
Number retired by JYP Jyväskylä 4 January 2020[17][18]
International
IIHF Women's World Championship Best Forward 1990, 1994
IIHF Women's World Championship All-Star Team 1992, 1994, 1997
IIHF Hall of Fame 2010[19][20]
Hockey Hall of Fame 2022[6]

Other sports

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Award Year
Bandy
Finnish Champion in Women's Bandy 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 (JPS)
Finnish Bandy Association Player of the Year 1989, 1992[21]
Pesäpallo
Finnish Champion in Women's Pesäpallo 1989 (Kiri), 1992, 1993 (LaVi)
Superpesis Player of the Year 1989, 1992, 1993
Superpesis Batting Queen 1993, 1995
Superpesis Most Hits 1993, 1995
Superpesis Most Runs 1989, 1993
Superpesis Golden Bat 1993, 1995
Superpesis Golden Mitt 1993
Rinkball
European Championship Gold Medal 1989
Finnish Champion in Women's Rinkball 1989, 1990, 1992 (JPS), 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 (TRIO 90)

References

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Content in this article is translated from the existing Finnish Wikipedia article at fi:Riikka Sallinen; see its history for attribution.

  1. ^ Freijd, Johan (16 December 2019). "Riikka Sallinen ny assisterande tränare i HV71 Dam" [Riikka Sallinen new assistant coach to HV71 Dam] (in Swedish). HV71. Archived from the original on 20 December 2019. Retrieved 20 December 2019.
  2. ^ a b Foster, Meredith (15 June 2019). "Team Finland legend Riikka Sallinen retires". The Ice Garden. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 20 December 2019.
  3. ^ Murphy, Mike (27 December 2019). "Making the case that Riikka Sallinen is the GOAT". The Ice Garden. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2020.
  4. ^ "IIHF Hall of Fame inducts six new members". National Hockey League. Archived from the original on 8 March 2010. Retrieved 5 March 2010.
  5. ^ a b "Winter Olympics: Finland beat OAR 3–2 to claim women's ice hockey bronze". BBC. 21 February 2018. Archived from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  6. ^ a b "Canuck icons Henrik, Daniel Sedin, Sens star Alfredsson lead 2022 Hockey Hall of Fame class". CBC Sports. The Canadian Press. 27 June 2022. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  7. ^ "Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Daniel Alfredsson headline Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2022". Sportsnet. 27 June 2022. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  8. ^ "Lång avstängning för HV-stjärnan efter huvudtackling - Hockeysverige – Mer av sporten du älskar". 15 February 2019. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 6 November 2020.
  9. ^ "IIHF Hall welcomes five". International Ice Hockey Federation. Archived from the original on 23 January 2010. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
  10. ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Riikka Nieminen-Välilä". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Full name: Hanna-Riikka Nieminen-Välilä
  11. ^ Risto Pakarinen (13 August 2013). "Välilä makes comeback". International Ice Hockey Federation. Archived from the original on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  12. ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Finland Ice Hockey at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2009.
  13. ^ a b Ikonen, Petteri (21 November 2019). "Peliuran jälkeen: Edes otteluiden seuraaminen ei ole enää sytyttänyt Riikka Salliselle paloa pelaamiseen". leijonat.fi (in Finnish). Finnish Ice Hockey Association. Archived from the original on 11 August 2020. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  14. ^ Karhu, Ann-Christine (1 April 2019). "Riikka Sallinen antoi jääkiekolle toisen mahdollisuuden, mutta yksi asia olisi voinut jäädä kokematta – "Pelkäsin että elämä muuttuu pysyvästi"". Yle (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  15. ^ Ylimutka, Leena (31 January 2019). "Avioero! Anu Hälvän ja Petteri Sallisen 22 vuoden pituinen liitto päättyi – ex-mies nai olympiatason jääkiekkoilijan". Iltalehti (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  16. ^ Seppänen, Antti, ed. (5 February 2018). "Liiga palkitsi kauden 2017–18 parhaat – tässä palkittujen lista" [Liiga rewarded the best of the 2017-18 season- the list of award winners]. liiga.fi (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 5 July 2019. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  17. ^ "JYP kunnioittaa Suomen menestyneimmän naisjääkiekkoilijan uraa: Riikka Sallisen pelinumero jäädytetään" [JYP honors the career of Finland's most successful women's ice hockey player: Riikka Sallinen's game number to be retired] (in Finnish). Yle. 6 November 2019. Archived from the original on 17 December 2019. Retrieved 20 December 2019.
  18. ^ Foster, Meredith (7 November 2019). "To The Rafters: JYP to retire Riikka Sallinen's number". The Ice Garden. Archived from the original on 20 December 2019. Retrieved 20 December 2019.
  19. ^ "Nieminen-Välilä jääkiekon Hall of Fameen". Yle (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland. 23 May 2010. Retrieved 19 June 2023.
  20. ^ "IIHF Hall Welcomes Five". International Ice Hockey Federation. 23 May 2010. Retrieved 19 June 2023.
  21. ^ Koskela, Kristina; Karlsson, Tobias; Hoppu, Tuomas, eds. (2020). "Jääpallokirja 2020" (PDF). Jääpallokirja (in Finnish). Helsinki: Suomen Jääpalloliito: 128. ISSN 0784-0411. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 December 2020. Retrieved 22 February 2021.
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Preceded by Winner of the President's trophy
2017–18 		Succeeded by
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