The bottom of Artturi Lehkonen, who shot the Stanley Cup hockey championship goal, was built by a sports family. Arttur’s father Ismo Lehkonen tells how his son’s journey has gone.
There was never any mercy in the Lehko family when it came to competition. A competitive family of seven played everything possible and competed for everything – and the little ones in the family did not benefit from compassion, quite the contrary. Especially a former top hockey player, later known as a coach Ismo-father always played against his children seriously.
Sometimes even in the gray area to increase their offspring.
In his childhood yard games, Ismo’s father made the boy disappear time and time again to temper his character. Artturi, who loved competition, played and lost, played and lost. Especially the short challenges, in which the imagined Game Clock had time for only one performance, were often used in the father’s selection.
However, Artturi never stopped trying.
– When he got a small palate in a game, he disappeared somewhere, but returned soon and announced that he thought it was a draw. A few hours later, the boy had already announced that he thought he had actually won the game, Ismo Lehkonen smiles after the decisive NHL final for Urheil.
– We laughed at my wife (Riitta) that the boy has quite an imagination, Lehkonen says.
Lehkonen has worked as an Sport expert during the Stanley Cup finals. In this interview, he speaks specifically as the father of Artturi Lehkonen.
– Sometimes he went to the forest to cry at the same time, explaining to himself what he had done wrong and what he should have done to win, Lehkonen recalls with a laugh.
The father created the son in the canvas
And the competition did not end in childhood. Already playing in the NHL, Artturi Lehkonen wanted to challenge his father to a boxing match. Ismo Lehkonen has a boxing background, so the boy was quickly knocked out. The match, hidden from the mother, is very proof of the competitiveness of the family and, above all, of Arttur.
Dad was scared of knockout, but stressed the importance of the race.
– The boy wanted the hardest possible place, the NHL. Then you have to learn to endure different situations, whatever it is. If you are subjected to humiliation, humiliation or whatever, you have to endure it or you will not succeed in the NHL. This was where the whole family was involved. There are five seconds left and the goal should be done. We constantly created pressure situations.
On the other hand, the older Artturi became, the more the father left the responsibility for the sport to the son himself – still constantly challenging this.
– I told Ars I wasn’t going to wake you up in the morning. I’m not starting to demand homework from him on the sports side. Until the KalPa years, I questioned everything all the time. I threw in that it wouldn’t be nice to supervise a little longer and sleep for a long time in the morning. The boy’s self-sufficiency increased.
At the age of 17, Lehkonen moved from TPS to KalPa, where he made it through the Finnish Championships.
In any case, coaching in the family was left to the coaches of the junior clubs, unlike in many other Finnish families. It was pointless for the father to seek support from the son for the missing playing time by blaming the coach.
– I never called TPS’s junior coaches, for example. If Artturi came to complain to me about something, I said, “what are you tweeting to me.” I always taught that things are sorted out directly with the coach. If there is not enough ice time or you can’t get overwhelmed, go find out with the coach, Lehkonen recalls.
Although Ismo, known as the old man’s puck man, has been a strict mentor and coach for Arttur, he has been able to rely on the help of professionals in the right places. For example, when teenager Arttur’s stress with sports began to show outwardly.
At that time, a young coach, a former professional hockey player, was acquired for the young man Tuomas Grönman.
– Arsi started bringing games home, slept badly and teased, Ismo recalls.
– At that point, Mrs. Lehkonen pulled an ace up her sleeve and called “Osku” (Grönman). We are ultimately just parents, my father and Riitta’s mother. When a young person is feeling unwell because of sports, help should be sought from outside. After the first sessions, the boy changed immediately.
A hard lift from Sweden
After two years of KalPa, Lehkonen made a surprising turn and left for Sweden. Both Artturi and Ismo consider two years of Frölunda to be a key period for the player’s development. In Sweden, Lehkonen was deciding on both the Swedish and European championships.
Two years also accommodated a lot of difficult times.
– It was tolerable when Roger Rönnberg (head coach) started baking from a one-way player to a two-way player. Suddenly he didn’t play with superiority. With five to five, he played in the bottom chain against his opponent’s best. The coach demanded more all the time. More hardness, more speed, Ismo recalls.
When Lehkonen moved to the NHL in Montreal in the fall of 2016, his overall play made an immediate impact. On that side, he knocked 18 goals on the board. Lehkonen grew into the credit player of his team, who was always played in important moments of the match, especially when it came to protecting his own goal.
– I remember when Arsi left for Canada, my brother Timo advised him to get excited about the game, Ismo remembers.
– It’s easier said than done, but the boy has succeeded. The NHL is every boy’s dream and that time must be enjoyed.
Lehkonen made it to the big headlines in the NHL for the first time a year ago when he hit the crown of Montreal’s fabulous spring: a hit from a Turku player sent Montreal to the Stanley Cup final. Many didn’t believe their eyes when Lehkonen did the same trick this spring in a Colorado shirt.
The winning goal for the decisive Stanley Cup final came on. A trick that only Finns have achieved Jari Kurri 35 years ago.
– Artturi understood at a very early stage that an additional gear had to be found for the playoffs. The athletic level has to be at a level that can beat the regular season of 82 matches, but a new gear has yet to be found on top for the spring. With that in mind, he has also practiced hard even during the season.
Now Lehkonen is a Stanley Cup winner, a Swedish champion, a youth world champion and so on. A player who will be mentioned among the toughest solution players in the history of Finnish hockey in the future.
For Dad, internalizing everything that happened has been mute.
– I could never have believed that such things would happen at the Varissuo Ice Rink. Quite a few times here I have had to pinch myself to see if this is some kind of movie. You just can’t understand this. Getting up from the starting point in the NHL is an incredibly hard tick. This gives faith to all the pieces.
Dad got to the scene
It was also a special victory that this time the father got to see his son’s extracts on the spot. Artturi also played in the NHL finals a year ago, then in a Montreal shirt, but the challenges posed by the pandemic blocked the trip. Mom was unable to attend due to busy work. This, too, is apt to describe the family’s world of values and work ethic.
Ismo’s father also received a gold credit for the pandemic and final loss disappointment a year ago.
– It is much easier to watch games on the spot. Watching on TV is always a kind of suffering play of its kind. When I get to the place, I have a much better sense of how the boy feels on the ice, Lehkonen says.
On the other hand, he is less in contact with his son now.
– We’ve played less now. He always calls home before the game and talks to both of us parents. First her mother and then mine.
A lot is known about Lehkonen as a hockey player this spring, but little is still known as a person. The polite and often good-natured Artturi has deliberately kept his civilian side hidden. The father calls his son the mother of the mother and adds that the reputation or the big money in the account has not changed Arttur.
– I don’t care about things like that, Ismo laughs.
– Agents and others take care of those things and Arsi just lives that little boy’s dream, Ismo continues.
Now it’s time to live. As lord of the ring.