THE WAR OF MINNESOTA. Susanna Tapani the travel bag lightly bumps into the back of the Tesla.
It’s already past ten in the evening and the Christmas darkness has embraced the Minneapolis airport in its cold embrace
– Share that the printer broke down or, waiting behind the wheel Mira Jalosuo shouts to Tapani, who is sitting in the back seat.
– Yeah! What was the probability that it happened right now, Tapani answers with a slight disbelief in her voice.
The 30-year-old ice hockey player Susanna Tapani has just returned from the Canadian side, Ottawa, where she was applying for an American work permit for her passport.
A professional hockey player must also have a work permit, and it must be applied for in a passport from outside the United States.
However, the consulate’s printer had done the trick, and the formality planned as a quick visit stretched into a two-day wait in the middle of an important and fast-paced training camp.
– I did get a little break. I can press again, Tapani laughs with the calmness brought by the experience.
The team management has taken care of all the practical logistics, except for the late transport from the field to the hotel where Tapani is still living for the time being.
That’s why Jalosuo, a 34-year-old former ice hockey player and current coach who has lived in Minnesota for years, is in charge.
Jalosuo and Tapani have been playing friends for a long time. Together, they have fought in the lion jersey for a total of four World Cup and Olympic medals for Finland.
Now their paths have crossed in the most Finnish state of the United States, Minnesota, where they are building a new historical era of women’s hockey for a long time.
And at the same time, both of their own dreams are coming true.
Tall-husked Jalosuo whistles loudly on the rink of the training center in downtown St. Paul.
The players’ free-form play with the puck ends and they gather around the Finnish coach on their knees.
Jalosuo has attached the flip-flop board to the Plexiglas and gives instructions for the first exercise.
– All right! A couple of warm-up exercises first. On the move with the puck, pass, skate, pass reception, skate and shoot. Everyone goes three times. Is it clear?
Tall and blond Jalosuo has an unmistakably Finnish look, but his delivery has the confidence of a North American after many years spent in Minnesota.
Among the players are half a dozen USA national team players, multiple Olympic medalists. They exude respect for Jalosuta.
– We love Mira. Sometimes we tease him a little about his accent, but he brings the right mix of fun and intensity, says the USA national team forward Grace Zumwinkel a big smile on his face.
Jalosuo, who has had a long career in the national team, has coached various high school and university teams in Minnesota for five years. In every wash, the results have spoken for themselves.
In the fall, Jalosuo received a reward for his work when he was asked to be an assistant coach for the Minnesota team, which is one of the six clubs preparing for the new women’s professional league.
– It’s a big thing for Finnish women’s ice hockey as a whole, that Finnish work is trusted. That in principle, a foreign coach was brought in to coach the so-called women’s team at the very beginning, says Jalosuo.
Is the PWHL finally the series it’s been waiting for?
Women’s NHL. Jalosuo pronounces the words as confidently as everything else he talks about.
In fact, the parable is more a demonstration of a strong belief in the future of women’s hockey than a description of the current reality.
The recent history of women’s professional ice hockey is full of failed attempts to form a serious and successful league that would offer the world’s top players the opportunity to play professionally.
A former American hockey player who played in three Olympics Natalie Darwitz is a telling example of how a female player may have fallen on deaf ears at an early stage.
– I ended my career at the age of 26, which is really early, because there was just nowhere to play.
Now, Darwitz is building a new reality as Minnesota’s General Manager.
– The goal is to offer women the opportunity to play even in their thirties, just like in the NHL, says Darwitz.
The company is not the first. The NWHL (National Women’s Hockey League), its successor the PHF (Premier Hockey Federation) and the CWHL (Canadian Women’s Hockey League) have collapsed due to lack of funding and internal disputes.
Now the situation should be different.
The main sponsor of the new PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League) is the owner of the baseball team Los Angeles Dodgers Mark Walter.
With a fortune of almost six billion dollars, Walter has bought a competitor and committed to finance the new league for eight years.
Walter brings not only long-term investment but also sports business know-how.
– This series has a much better chance of success than the previous professional leagues. Funding and background forces are in order. And when By Bill Jean King people like are involved, it gives the series completely different muscles than the predecessors have had, estimates the hockey editor of the Minnesota Star Tribune Rachel Blount.
Tennis legend Billie Jean King, known for her equality work, has joined the league as a face.
In the endgame, however, the product must be salable.
The teams have been selected from market areas where the puck culture is strong. In addition to Minnesota, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, New York and Boston have a team in the league.
Mira Jalosuo believes that games attract the public.
– The first year you have to do a really good job in terms of getting people to the stands. Minnesota is the “State of Hockey” and I don’t think we will have a problem getting 5000-8000 people in the stands.
Rachel Blout considers Jalosuo’s assessment to be realistic.
– It’s possible, but we don’t know for sure how the fans will respond to the shout. It was smart to include a team from Minnesota because there is already a strong foundation for women’s hockey here.
However, the series is only taking its first steps.
– The teams don’t even have names and logos on their shirts yet, let alone a TV contract. Everyone understands that there is still a long way to go, but now the road is at least open, says GM Natalie Darwitz.
– I hope that when we talk again in ten years, the players will get paid more, there will be plenty of fans and it will be difficult to get a ticket. That’s what we dreamed of. It won’t happen overnight, but we have to build this dream the right way.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
Susanna Tapani, the Finnish ringette and hockey superstar from Turku, is also building this dream.
It was no accident that he ended up in Minnesota. As the first booking event in the history of the PWHL league, i.e. the draft, approached, Mira Jalosuo had something for the GM.
– I told Natalie that I will be quite angry if we don’t book this Tapan.
GM trusted Jalosuo’s word, and at the September 18 booking event in Toronto, Jalosuo got up to the podium and announced in clear Finnish that Minnesota would book Susanna Tapani from Laitila, Finland, in the vito round, booking number 25.
– I saw that heads were falling at the table in Boston. They would have wanted Suski, but they didn’t know what his level was at that moment.
Tapani, who took a gap year from ice hockey, had received an invitation to the booking event.
The league would have paid for the flights and the hotel, but the trip seemed too heavy for a one-day visit.
He invited his loved ones to his home couch in Turku.
– We were talking about something with our friends, when suddenly we heard on the TV that Finnish was being spoken there. Everyone fell silent. When my name came out there, everyone started screaming. I didn’t really understand it, I was just really happy that the name came from there.
After a few weeks, Tapani was already offered a contract.
– It was also a great moment. Quite a few players were offered a contract before the camp. It eased the tension.
For 30-year-old Tapani, the booking for the new professional series was a dream come true and a reward for years of hard and unpaid work. Still, the decision to leave was not easy.
– Yes, it was a tough place. I’m such a friendly person. When you’ve seen your loved ones every day, it’s really hard to be so far away from them.
However, Tapani accepted the challenge and in November he boarded the plane.
– I thought that I don’t have that many years left in my playing career and that it’s a bit like now or never. Then when the career ends, I hope to have time to be at home a little more.
Tapani’s decision was influenced by three things more than others. The desire to test one’s limits, the opportunity to experience full professionalism throughout the season, and money.
The average PWHL league salary is just over $50,000. According to ‘s data, the best salaries with bonuses rise to around $100,000. In addition, players are given $1,500 per month for housing.
– Money played a big role in the decision, because I know there isn’t much left in my playing career. It’s really hard to combine professional training and a living if you don’t get paid for playing.
Tapani doesn’t want to say the amount of his own salary, but says that he does have some savings left over from his salary. However, he has a conflicting attitude towards the salary level of the league.
– I am satisfied, but I hope that the salaries for women will also increase in the future.
On the men’s side, the average salary of an NHL player is around 3.5 million dollars per season.
Breakfast is ready in the hall
In addition to money, the PWHL league has invested in a professional framework.
In Minnesota, the team has its own dressing room in the same training hall where the NHL team Minnesota Wild also trains.
The nameplates indicate the players’ own places and the equipment is neatly waiting for the players in the coat rack and on the shelves.
The home team plays at the Wild’s home arena.
The backgrounds are also managed according to the formula familiar from NHL teams.
The Minnesota women’s team had 18 people on the payroll at the beginning of December, says Mira Jalosuo.
– Breakfast is ready for the players when they come to the hall and lunch after training. There are chiropractors and massage therapists in the hall. I don’t know that anywhere else in the world things have been handled this well, says Jalosuo.
Tapani has also noticed that maintenance works.
– You can leave the training clothes in the hall for laundry and then they will be washed the next day when you come to the hall. All the exercises have been thought out. We have physical trainers. All you have to do is go there and focus on what you’re doing.
Concentration is needed. The PWHL league now gathers the world’s best in the same league for the first time. Among the approximately 160 players are the best players from Canada and the United States, and a bunch of top players from Europe.
All the best in Europe couldn’t get out of their contracts and are therefore elsewhere.
– This is really the first time that the world’s best players play in the same series, confirms journalist Rachel Blout.
Susanna Tapani likes this. Han wants to measure his level.
– I am really grateful that during my career there was still such an opportunity to test my own limits.
My habit is the best in the world. The Canadian hockey publication The Hockey News described Tapan as a “Finnish legend” after the booking ceremony.
Jalosuo does not doubt Tapani’s chances to succeed in the new league. He already considers Tapan to be the team’s best forward, with dazzling skating skills and a world-class shot.
– This environment will feed Suski. I have no doubt that she could be the best female hockey player in the world.
Tapani himself says that he wants to be in a leading role in the team, and in his own opinion, he has the skills to do so. Jalosuo’s laudatory assessment seems to embarrass Tapan a little.
– I want to be the best possible version of myself and thereby help the team. The level compared to others is what it is. I don’t think about people like that.
After the interview with , Tapani will have a skating clinic for young girls. Team players are expected to act as examples for other girls. The growth of the sport is the lifeblood of the future league.
– Little girls get to dream of becoming professionals and we get a reward for the hard work we have done for several years. It’s great that this came at this point. Better late than never.
The first PHWL season in history begins in January.