Petteri Nikkilä’s choice was influenced by familiar friends.
Petteri Nikkilä originally wanted to play for KHL. Jaakko Stenroos / AOP
Last season, he hockeyed on the back lines of Kouvola’s KooKoo Petteri Nikkilä, 29, will move to the DEL2 league in Bayreuth Tigers next season. The club reported on its website.
Nikkilä, who also played in the lions, scored 28 points in 46 matches at KooKoo. In the playoffs that ended in a loss to the bronze match, Nikkilä scored seven points.
In the 2018–19 season, Nikkilä won the Finnish Championship at HPK. He was also selected for the constellation field of the season.
Nikkilä’s best friend plays in Bayreuth Ville Järveläinen, which weighed a lot on club selection. A club friend familiar from Nikkilä’s HPK times Philippe Cornet also plays on that team.
– I asked Ville about the German league teams and he asked me if I wanted to play in the DEL2 league. I refused at first. I didn’t even think about it, Nikkilä said in a Bayreuth press release.
A week later, the friends had chatted again, at which point Ville had again recommended Bayreuth. Ville talked to the team’s head coach about Nikkilä and the next day the KooKoo star had a deal with Germany.
– With the war in Ukraine, the transfer market shrank. However, I wanted to play outside Finland again, Nikkilä revealed.
Nikkilä would have had a primary desire to go to KHL to play, but the country’s warfare shattered the man’s dreams.
Nikkilä has played a total of 398 regular season matches in the League, resulting in 165 power points. He visited the Swedish SHL for one season before moving to Kouvola last season.