Valtteri Filppula and Juuso Hietanen will finish in the national team

Valtteri Filppula, 38, made history. He is the first Finnish hockey player to win the Stanley Cup, Olympic gold and now also the world championship.

In the Nokia arena, he was honored to be the first to lift the trophy. The captain described the feeling as incredible when everything goes to the button.

In the interview area, the biggest emotions had already leveled off a bit. It was time to answer the question about the future of the Lions career.

Was this your last international match?

– It must have been pretty close. Let’s see now, I don’t make a final decision yet, but I don’t think there will be very many of those matches.

A few meters away 36-year-old defender Juuso Hietanen said almost the same answer.

– Yes, this is probably the final decision.

– There is a great victory in mind and happy feelings. Let’s enjoy the victory and make the final decisions after that, Hietanen said.

It left the Karelia tournament

Filppula, who played 1056 NHL matches, returned to Europe after a long round this season.

Switzerland and Geneva-Servette were chosen as the address. When the invitation to the national team came in the autumn, Filppula gladly left. Even at that point, he did not dare to dream of a two-gold spring season.

– It didn’t spin at all. It was nice to go to Switzerland and from there to the Karelia tournament.

However, the dream of three golds began to materialize when Filppula returned home from the gold medal neck in Beijing.

– Then the thoughts started spinning in these races, when in Switzerland the season ended too early for us. I got to sit down for a while. There was a feeling in the camp that you could still experience the home races.

As usual, Filppula remained humble and honored the master teams for the tremendous success of his career.

– Three golds means that I have been lucky to be part of such great teams. This is one of the finest in my career.