Hanna-Riikka Sallinen (néeNieminen, previously Välilä; born 12 June 1973) is a Finnish retired ice hockey, bandy, rinkball, and pesäpallo player.[1] She is one of the most highly decorated players to have ever competed in international ice hockey.[2][3]
In 2022 she became the ninth woman player named to the Hockey Hall of Fame;[6] she is the first woman not born in North America to be so honoured.[7]
Ice hockey playing career
Sallinen played eleven seasons in the Naisten SM-sarja and was a five time Finnish Champion, first in 1988–89 with Etelä-Vantaan Urheilijat (EVU), then in 1993–94 with the Keravan Shakers, and in 1996–97, 1997–98, and 2015–16 with JYP Jyväskylä Naiset. She scored 201 goals and notched 194 assists (395 points) in 135 regular season games, averaging 2.93 points per game across her Naisten SM-sarja career, and appeared in 41 Naisten SM-sarja playoff games, scoring 86 points, (36 goals and 50 assists).
In 2016, she joined HV71 in the SDHL. She would captain the team from 2017 to 2019, scoring a total of 119 points in 92 games. She was suspended for four games in the 2018-19 playoffs after bodychecking a Leksands IF player.[8]
In her first Olympics in 1998 she led the tournament in scoring, amassing 12 points (7 goals & 5 assists) in six games and leading the Finnish team to the bronze medal. Sallinen would also lead the Finnish national team to three European Championship titles and six IIHF World Women's Championship bronze medals and one silver.
In August 2013, the IIHF reported that she was attempting a comeback[11] and in December 2013, following several matches in the Naisten SM-sarja, she was selected for the Finnish women's team for the Sochi Olympics. She made the Finnish Olympic team again for the 2018 Olympics, helping Finland to a bronze medal.[5][12]
She scored 4 points in 7 games at the 2019 IIHF Women's World Championship as Finland won their first silver medal in history. During the tournament, she averaged 19:58 time-on-ice, second on the team. The logo for the Championship, held in Finland, was designed by Michelle Karvinen in tribute to her career.
Sallinen was born Hanna-Riikka Nieminen on 12 June 1973 in Jyväskylä, Central Finland. She was raised in a sports-oriented home; her father and two older brothers were also successful athletes. Her father, Eero, was a Finnish Champion pesäpallo player in the 1960s. Lasse Nieminen, Sallinen's eldest brother, played nearly 500 games with JYP Jyväskylä in the Liiga and currently serves as assistant coach to the JYP U16 juniors team. Juha "Jussi" Nieminen, Sallinen's second eldest brother, played twelve seasons in the Superpesis with Jyväskylän Kiri.[13]
Sallinen is a physical therapist by training and works in the public sector with disabled and permanently ill people, in addition to working with her husband in the family's pain management and rehabilitation practice.[13]
Sallinen and former Liiga player Mika Välilä were married in 2002 and divorced in early 2018.[14] Their two sons, Emil Välilä (born 2003) and Elis Välilä (born 2005), play on the U18 and U16 teams of the Tappara ice hockey club respectively, the same junior organization in which their father developed.
Sallinen and osteopath Petteri Sallinen married in late 2018. They have a physical therapy practice in Sweden, in which each of them takes responsibility for one-half of patient care; Petteri focuses on alleviating patients' pain and Riikka develops physical therapy regimens for rehabilitation. Petteri, a former film director, was previously married to actress and theater director Anu Hälvä; they divorced in early 2018, and have two children together.[15]
^Koskela, Kristina; Karlsson, Tobias; Hoppu, Tuomas, eds. (2020). "Jääpallokirja 2020"(PDF). Jääpallokirja (in Finnish). Helsinki: Suomen Jääpalloliito: 128. ISSN0784-0411. Archived(PDF) from the original on 4 December 2020. Retrieved 22 February 2021.
