The Swedish women’s ice hockey league holds the top spot in the SDHL point exchange Nora Tulus. The Luleå HF forward from Vantaa has scored 40 (17+23) points in 21 games in the first half of the hockey series.
Five-time Swedish champion Tulus, 27, has taken a leap in a new, effectively better direction, of which the power points are one indication.
– Earlier, I considered myself more of a quarterback. Many people know that I like to pass a lot, but now I have improved in scoring.
Last season, the Finnish forward scored 43 points in the regular season and was among his teammates Petra Nieminen and Jenni Hiirikoski after SDHL’s third most effective player. In the first half of this season, Tulus has collected almost the same number of points as last season in total.
A Finn who had been in Sweden for almost a decade arrived in Sweden without knowing the local language. Today, it doesn’t cause him any more problems.
– Surely these years show that I’ve had a really good time. We go to Sweden and we speak Finnish with the Finns.
Finns in the lead
Finnish ice hockey players enjoy themselves in Sweden. The playing level of the series for both women and men is constantly on the rise. The Finns also do well in their western neighbour, as evidenced by Luleå HF’s Tulus leading the women’s league’s points exchange and Oskarshamn’s Antti Suomela (14+18=32) men’s SHL point statistics.
What does Tulus think about it?
– I didn’t know this fact, but doesn’t it tell you that Finland produces good players and likes to score goals, the Luleå HF player jokes.
According to Tulus, Sweden’s attractiveness is partly explained by its geographical location.
– Certainly one factor is that Sweden is nearby. The United States is really far away and you don’t always know the truth in advance, whether everything there is the same as they are told in advance.
Tulus states that information about the Swedish series spreads to Finland a lot also through Finnish players.
The Finnish women’s hockey league is still in its infancy compared to Sweden’s SDHL. For athletes playing in the Women’s League in Finland, hockey is more of an expensive hobby than a source of income.
– The financial side should be improved. Even to the point that there would be no need to pay for playing and that the equipment would be taken care of by the club. And that you could focus on it full-time, and you wouldn’t have to do another full-time job on top of it, Tulus sums up the situation of the Women’s League.
Tackles included in the game
In Sweden, wing tackles were allowed in the women’s league this season, the first women’s hockey league in the world. It is an experiment that will last this season, but according to Tulus, the players have accepted the change with pleasure.
– After all, it has its own nuance and we want to bring that hardness into the game. I noticed that the first games of the series were such that you wanted to tackle a lot and that it was a fun thing. You don’t have to think much about tackling anymore.
According to the result, the inclusion of the tackle rule for this season has clarified the game.
– When there are players of different sizes on the women’s side, with the rule change, the bigger players can play to their strengths with more certainty, i.e. they can use their size to their advantage without the tackling situations being unclear.
Of course, sudden and strong contacts can also cause dangerous situations.
At the beginning of December, Tulus tackled a Brynäs player against the substitution fence in a scrum situation, when the opponent’s reserve keeper opened the hatch of the substitution fence.
– I don’t know what the opponent’s goalkeeper was thinking at that point. I flew at high speed into the opponent’s substitution fence. Fortunately, nothing worse happened. It was a dangerous situation and it was said a little harsher in the interview after the game, Tulus times.
His comments spread to the Swedish media and all the way to Finland.
– Previously, in such a situation, I would have just skated to my end. With the tackling rule, I decided to tackle in the situation. You also have to be more awake in the substitution box and, so to speak, inside the game, says Tulus.
The SDHL is therefore the only women’s hockey league where wing tackles are allowed. According to Tulus, remembering it in international games is sometimes difficult.
– In international games, you don’t always immediately remember that you can’t tackle. In the first game of the Swedish EHT, I had to remind myself that you shouldn’t play so hard near the wings.