Pekka Rautakallio’s shirt finally rises to the ceiling of Isonmäki Hall: “I’m already wondering if this day will ever come” | Sport

Many eyes will be wet in Pori’s Isonmäki ice rink on Saturday early evening before the Ässät–Lukko match starts. An NHL pioneer who is one of Finland’s best defenders of all time Pekka Rautakallion70, jersey number 5 finally rises to the ceiling of the hall Antti Heikkilän, Arto Javanainen, Raimo Kilpiön, Lasse Heikkilän, Tapio Levon, Veli-Pekka Ketolan and by Yaroslav Otevrelin as a result.

– Better late than never, but when you think about Peka’s position in Pori and Finnish hockey, it took a shamefully long time. A guy of that level shouldn’t reach the age of 70 before picking up his shirt, says Veli-Pekka Ketola to Urheilule.

Ketola did strong lobbying work in the cabinets so that Rautakallio and next Friday also Kari Makkonen the shirts would go up where they belong. The Aces’ championship in the 1977-78 season is one of the most iconic in league history. It was largely based on the performances of Ketola and Rautakallio, who returned to Pori from North America, in the first field, whose other members were Makkonen and Javanainen, who had already moved to another reality, and Harry Nikander.

– I’m already wondering if this day will ever come, admits Rautakallio, whom Urheilu met in an Italian restaurant in the center of Helsinki.

The defender legend’s passion already during his career as a player and coach was Italian food and, above all, wines, which Rautakallio and his wife brought to Finland for a long time. Now the couple spends their retirement days in Espoo.

The relationship is not without distortion

Rautakallio emphasizes during his big day that he appreciates Ässie’s gesture very much. However, he bluntly admits that the time for the ceremony could have been much earlier.

– Let’s put it this way, that my relationship with my beloved breeders’ association has not always been free of strain. As the head coach, I had my own view on the way and culture of doing things, the office staff and the board of trustees had their own, and those views almost never met, Rautakallio commented with a smile.

After the spring of 1979, the top defenseman never played for Ässi again, instead he chose the contract offered by HIFK in 1982 after three excellent NHL seasons. Rautakallio returned to Pori as head coach in 2009-2011. At that time, Ässät became a playoff team again, and the level of demands made tougher by Rautakallio was one explanation for the fact that his assistant coach at the time Karri Kivi in the spring of 2013, he led his team to the league championship with the main responsibility.

Esa Lindell thanked

The latter, which started in 2014, ended with dismissals. Dallas Stars, who played in Ässi at the time, is now one of Finland’s elite defenders Esa Lindell has effusively praised Rautakallio’s contribution to what has later been seen of him on the NHL ice.

After a long separation from the nest, Ässät contacted Rautakallio in the fall. Now the board of the league joint-stock company wanted to freeze his number.

– There is time for boring things, and people have changed. It would have been the act of a small person to blink again in the rear view mirror, Rautakallio says.

Originally, the suspension ceremony was supposed to be organized already in the autumn season in connection with the HIFK home match, but at that time Rautakallio was traveling.

– Dear enemy Lukko is also a very suitable opponent for this connection. I have written a speech and I promise it will be short. The game is always more interesting than the speeches.

For the first time, there was already talk about freezing Rautakallio’s five-point jersey from a long-time playing friend and Leijona colleague Juhani Tamminen with, when he worked as CEO of Ässie from 2001-2003.

– “Tami” said that the matter could be handled in connection with one of the playoffs. Well, Ässie’s playoff history from those seasons has suddenly been retold, Rautakallio says with a laugh.

A poor boy’s dream

Rautakallio’s fine ceremony also offers a trip back in time and a nostalgia trip to a completely different hockey reality, where hockey was first and foremost a sport for boys from lower social classes and working-class homes, and Finland’s first prestigious medal was still a distant future. Getting the right equipment was anything but self-evident.

– As a poor boy, I dreamed that hockey would give me something. It gave much more. On the way, I received great help from many great people, a large part of whom are already gone.

It is also a great picture of the time that even in the 1977-1978 championship season, the toilet of the teams’ dressing rooms in Pori had a canister. After the matches, we jogged 500 meters to the maintenance building of the nearby Stadium to take a shower with our game clothes on, skates and helmet hanging from the handle of the stick. After rare home losses, Rautakallio remembers that he jogged quite hard; Acknowledging the disappointed ticket buyers was not even or especially for the superstar was diplomatic.

– A few years after that (1982) I visited the White House in connection with the NHL All-Star Game. There was an indoor toilet, says Rautakallio, according to which the president Ronald Reagan the focus was somewhere else during the player introductions.

Rautakallio, who already started a family in his twenties, realized at a very young age that there is also a world beyond Pori’s Raatihuoneenmäki. Such an insight in the industrial bear city of the 1960s was no automation.

– In the beginning, I wasn’t the kind of man of the world that many people imagine. Fortunately, my dear wife has been a really open-minded adventurer, and all I’ve had to do is follow along.

Switzerland, dear country

Rautakallio ended his playing career in Switzerland, where he later coached for years. Switzerland is another beloved homeland for the family. In the USA, Rautakallio enjoys himself especially well in Phoenix, where the family’s first-born son, a player-agent Mika Rautakallio lives with his family.

Pekka Rautakallio is among others Ilpo Koskelan and Juha Rantasila with the pioneers of Finnish defensive expertise. Now he greatly enjoys watching these days, for example Miro Heiskanen playing in Dallas. He emphasizes one thing: skating skills. It united the Finnish stars of the early 1970s.

At that time, the position of defenseman was easily assigned to the weakest skaters. Coach Lasse Heikkilä did the opposite in Pori and played the teenage Rautakallio as the winger of the season – so that he would become a better defender.

– I never start taking anything from younger people for myself, but I guess we cleared some kind of path with the boys then. The next knee made it a country road, the next an expressway, and now it’s a highway. The NHL was a very unknown and mythical series in Finland at the end of the 1970s. Now there are absolutely wonderful Finnish boys there. I enjoy their playing and their success immensely.

On his last trip to the USA, Pekka Rautakallio asked his son to get tickets right next to the rink, so he could watch the Colorado pack, which he considered “super good”, up close Cale Makarin gaming.

– I’ve seen some shit, but once again the NHL’s physical, skillful and mental demands continued to amaze. Every boy trying to join the NHL should be taken to watch a couple of NHL games there behind the glasses, and the illusions would disappear.

Open check

Pekka Rautakallio himself could have continued in the NHL for longer than three seasons. In the spring of 1982, CEO of the Calgary Flames Cliff Fletcher handed the Finn an open check on which Rautakallio could have drawn a million dollars for the season as a demand, an outrageous amount of money at the time.

– Considering the change in monetary value, it would probably have been the same order of magnitude as what this Cale Makar earns this season ($11 million).

The amount and signature never appeared on the paper.

– It was time to return to Finland with my family.