Olli Määttä of the Lions had time to play the Olympics and the World Cup before his first World Cup tournament. “I just let go,” he describes.
Riga
Slightly it sounds weird, but a double Stanley Cup winner
Olli Määttä, 26, is a hockey at the World Hockey Championships for the first time.
Has played in Määttä Lions, all the way to the Olympics but never in the World Cup.
Even in the Toronto World Cup, Määttä played in the fall of 2016, but it’s wisest to forget. Not by any means because of Määtä, but because of the Lions’ subdued grips.
In Riga living in a bubble with a coronavirus escaping. Määttä knew it when he left for Latvia and was not a mox.
He switched from Chicago to the Los Angeles Kings this season and has had little time to explore the sights of the big city. The small-scale bubble was also lived in the NHL, though not just on the axis of a hotel and an ice rink.
Määttä is also used to the fact that only the voices of players and coaches resonate in the halls. The same was true in Los Angeles. It was not until the end of the season that a few thousand spectators were allowed to enter the Staples Center. It was a small number of 20,000 people in the Great Hall.
Norway’s Michael Haga (left) and Olli Määttä battled for the puck at the World Championships in Riga on Tuesday.
World Cup is a big and interesting event in Finnish hockey, but Määttä was much more in the spotlight before the Sochi Olympics.
Määttä and
Alexander Barkov were the youngest players on the team and from day one it was clear the tournament would miss
Teemu Selänteen for the last service in the Leo shirt.
“It was quite insanely exciting,” Määttä recalls of the tournament in Riga almost seven years ago.
“So much had happened during the season. It was an amazing thing to get to play NHL matches and then the Olympics. It somehow went by itself and was insanely cool. ”
“I just let go. A great memory. ”
Barkov injured his knee badly at the beginning of the tournament, but Määttä played to the end, and played well.
However, it was a tournament remembered for Selänte, his farewell and why not the bronze medals as well.
Olli Määttä at the Sochi Olympics, which brought home a bronze medal.
Before For an NHL career, the Olympics or even professional games, Määttä made a bold decision. He was given the opportunity to go to the London Knights, who play in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) for players aged 15-20.
The Knights are known in the puck world as perhaps the toughest junior team. It was also very strong in Määtä’s two seasons 2011–2013.
Määttä describes having heard “incredibly good things” about the London Knights.
“I wanted to go try it, and I went for one year first. The idea was for me to come back if I wanted to. ”
Määt had two good options, either to go to Canada or to stay in Jyväskylä at JYP.
“I chose the other path, not knowing what that second would have been like.”
The first season went well. Määttä enjoyed it, it was fun. Hockey was good and the career went on.
“I really liked playing there a lot and definitely wanted to go back for a second year. We had a good team and we made it. ”
As many as 12 players rose from the latter year’s team to the NHL. In addition, the most famous are
Max Domi, played more than 500 matches
Bo Horvat and nearly 500 matches so far reached
Chris Tierney.
Määttä says that Finland thinks a little too much about whether it is easier to get into the NHL from a home series or through the Canadian junior leagues.
“Does it depend on which path you choose or how much work you do, after all? Finland has become a world-class player, and they have followed the normal junior path. ”
Määttä rose from the OHL to play for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Year 2014 brought Määkä a lot, but it also scared me. A medical examination at the Penguins training camp found a lump in Määtä’s neck. The diagnosis came pretty soon: a cancerous tumor.
Määtt had felt a small lump on his neck, but he never thought it was anything serious.
“It came out of darkness.”
Now he says the shock was big, even though he didn’t think about it so much then.
“It was a pretty tough thing. I have to say that I was pretty lucky to have a medical check-up before the start of the season. ”
“It was removed at such an early stage that I can’t even compare my own experience to anything other people experience with cancer.”
After falling ill and eventually recovering quickly, Määttä woke up to the importance of keeping his life balanced: resting, sleeping, eating.
“You can never know what’s going on. It was perhaps such a spiritual doctrine of life. ”
In total Määttä played in Pittsburgh for six seasons, of which the spring of 2016 and 2017 ended with the Stanley Cup celebrations.
During the championship years, the team condensed into a strong group, which Määttä enjoyed. Gaming felt light, even though the seasons stretched far into the summer.
“When we went to play the finals, I just wanted to play more and more,” Määttä recalls. “And when it was all over, it felt like it would make sense to just continue this and play more.”
Määttä honestly admits that the last couple of seasons in the Penguins no longer went well. The game did not go as it should. He was more and more caught up in the rumors of transmission.
Pittsburgh made its decision. Määttä was allowed to leave and a new club was found in Chicago. It became a year’s visit and the season that ended went to Los Angeles.
Especially the first move flared, but it started a new song in Määtä’s career.
Although the perennial club Pittsburgh gave up Määtä, he remembers the Penguins with mere good. The club offered Määtä the road to the NHL and as part of a successful team.
Success Määttä is also being sought in Riga, although playing as an NHL player in the World Cup is not the easiest.
During the World Cup, there seem to be five million hockey experts in Finland, many of whom talk as if they had invented the game.
Does NHL player status put more pressure?
“It would be nice to say you don’t think about what others are saying. Expectations are high on myself too and I want to achieve a lot and win, but that’s how we all have it. Just the same person you talk to, everyone wants to succeed. ”
The Lions offered memorable moments two years ago. Määttä would like to get into the same moods this summer.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/hockey-serious-illness-struck-by-darkness-olli-maatta-felt-a-small-lump-on-his-neck-i-was-pretty-lucky/
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