Janne Kuokkanen didn’t grow up knowing about the National Hockey League when he was very young, but that quickly changed.
“I was probably three or four when I heard about the NHL for the first time,” Kuokkanen says.
Kuokkanen doesn’t really remember a time when he wanted to do anything other than play in the best hockey league in the world.
On Thursday, the 18-year-old from Oulunsalo, Finland, took a major step toward making that happen.
Kuokkanen signed an entry-level contract with the Carolina Hurricanes, who selected him in the second round of the 2016 NHL entry draft last June.
“Me and my agent and a couple of friends were there. When I heard my name, it was a big moment.”
Kuokkanen could have saved himself the headache of travelling from Helsinki to Buffalo. There are no direct flights — with layovers, you’d be lucky to find anything with a total travel time south of fifteen hours, but he wouldn’t have missed the draft for anything.
Following the draft, it didn’t take long for Kuokkanen’s next destination in the hockey world to materialize: the London Knights selected him with the 56th overall pick in the Canadian Hockey League import draft.
Kuokkanen was at training camp last fall, set for his first taste of North American hockey — and he stood out from the start.
He had 32 points in his first 20 games and was selected to play for Finland at the World Junior Hockey Championship.
As the regular season came to an end for the Knights on Sunday in Sault Ste. Marie, Kuokkanen was still averaging better than a point per game.
Simpson says the season in the OHL has been a good learning process for the young player.
“On the smaller ice surface, there are a lot more one-on-one battles and you really have to use your body to shield the puck and give you a chance to use your skill. The 68-game schedule has been beneficial as well.”
Since Kuokkanen was property of the Hurricanes before arriving in London, he is eligible to play in the American Hockey League next year if that’s where Carolina feels he belongs.
For a player whose main introduction to the NHL was watching “the highlights of the good players” in Finland because live games were on in the middle of the night or not at all, the feeling is a bit overwhelming.
“It’s still hard to know if it is reality or a dream.”
For the immediate future, Kuokkanen’s reality is getting ready for the OHL playoffs as the Knights begin their Western Conference finals against the Windsor Spitfires on Friday night.
London is looking to become the first team since the Spitfires in 2009 and 2010 to win the Memorial Cup in back-to-back years, and if they are to come anywhere close to achieving that goal, Kuokkanen will need to play a major role — yet another step toward the goal he began to chase back when he was just a toddler in Finland.
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