The 36-year-old Olympic winner Juuso Hietanen will play in Hämeenlinna next season.
Juuso Hietanen made a long lap in the top European leagues. Next season, the defender will play in his breeder club at HPK. AOP
Juuso Hietanen won the Finnish championship at HPK in 2006. This was the first Finnish championship in the club’s club history and the head coach was Jukka Jalonen.
Since then, Hietanen has seen quite a bit of the hockey world.
The world tour is now coming to an end, as according to information from Iltalehti’s various sources, the defender will play in HPK next season.
Hietanen was raised by HPK, so a reliable defender will return home.
This season the veteran played 50 matches in the Swiss league’s Ambri-Piotta with a power of 2 + 17.
In February, Hietanen was crowned the Olympic winner in Beijing. Once again, the team was coached by Jukka Jalonen.
A wild experience
Hietanen’s CV is wildly readable. The man has represented Finland in, among other things, three Olympic tournaments and seven times at the World Championships.
World Championship games in Hietanen’s statistics 60.
In SHL, he played a total of 218 regular season matches.
At KHL, as many as 541 games were played for a calm and reliable defender. Hietanen’s clubs in Russia were Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow Dynamo.
In the league, Hietanen last played in the 2007 season.
Hietanen is a third-generation main series hockey player. His father Juha Hietanen played for HPK from 1973 to 1985 and from 1986 to 1987. Grandfather Aarno Hietanen played in the Tarmo of Hämeenlinna from the 1949–50 season to the 1958–59 Finnish Championship series.
HPK has frozen Juha Hietanen’s game number 17 so that it can only be used by his son Juuso. Next season, the legendary number 17 will be seen on the ice of Rinkelinmäki.
HPK invests
At this stage, Hietanen is one of the toughest acquisitions for the league next season.
It is planned to succeed in Hämeenlinna next season. Jarno Pikkarainen will continue as head coach. As Iltalehti reported in February, Rony Ahonen moves from HIFK to Hämeenlinna.
According to various media reports, among other things Miro Karjalainen, Jiri Pärssinen, Matti Järvinen and Sami Rajaniemi are the men of the club next season.
Hardly all of the team’s players for next season are even known yet.