Tommi Santala

Tommi Santala
Tommi Santala
Born	June 27, 1979 (age 40); Helsinki, Finland
Height	6 ft 3 in (191 cm)
Weight	216 lb (98 kg; 15 st 6 lb)
Position	Centre
Shoots	Right
Liiga team; Former teams	HIFK ; EHC Kloten ; Jokerit ; HPK ; Atlanta Thrashers ; Vancouver Canucks
National team	Finland
NHL Draft	245th overall, 1999 ; Atlanta Thrashers
Playing career	1998–present

Last updated October 11, 2019

Tommi Santala (born June 27, 1979 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish professional ice hockey player who is currently playing for HIFK of the Liiga.

Helsinki is the capital and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of 650,058. The city's urban area has a population of 1,268,296, making it by far the most populous urban area in Finland as well as the country's most important center for politics, education, finance, culture, and research. Helsinki is located 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 km (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 km (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. It has close historical ties with these three cities.

Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe bordering the Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia, and Gulf of Finland, between Norway to the north, Sweden to the northwest, and Russia to the east. The capital and largest city is Helsinki. Other major cities are Espoo, Vantaa, Tampere, Oulu and Turku.

Ice hockey is a contact team sport played on ice, usually in a rink, in which two teams of skaters use their sticks to shoot a vulcanized rubber puck into their opponent's net to score points. The sport is known to be fast-paced and physical, with teams usually consisting of six players each: one goaltender, and five players who skate up and down the ice trying to take the puck and score a goal against the opposing team.

Playing career

Santala started his pro career in Jokerit in the Finnish SM-liiga in the 1998–99 season. After a total of four seasons with HPK, Santala moved to the Thrashers' organisation for the 2003–04 NHL season. Santala divided his time between 50 games in the AHL Chicago Wolves and 33 NHL games.^[1] He spent the 2004–05 NHL lockout with the Wolves registering 40 assists and 48 points in 67 games. During the post-season he helped Chicago win the Robert W. Clarke Trophy, for AHL Western Conference Champions,^[2] by adding 11 points in 18 games.^[3] However, the Wolves were swept in the Calder Cup finals by the Philadelphia Phantoms.^[4]

The 2003–04 NHL season was the 87th regular season of the National Hockey League. The Stanley Cup champions were the Tampa Bay Lightning, who won the best of seven series four games to three against the Calgary Flames.

American Hockey League ice hockey league in the United States

The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the league has an affiliation agreement with one NHL team. When NHL teams do not have an AHL affiliate, players are assigned to AHL teams affiliated with other NHL teams. Twenty-seven AHL teams are located in the United States and the remaining four are in Canada. The league offices are located in Springfield, Massachusetts, and its current president is David Andrews.

The Chicago Wolves are a professional ice hockey team playing in the Central Division of the Western Conference of the American Hockey League. The Wolves play home games at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois and are owned by Chicago business owners Don Levin and Buddy Meyers. They are the minor league affiliate of the Vegas Golden Knights.

After the lockout, Santala was assigned to Jokerit by the Thrashers. He played one year with Jokerit before Atlanta traded him to the Vancouver Canucks. Santala played 30 games for the Canucks during the 2006–07 season, but he suffered a knee injury on December 8, 2006 in a game vs. the Carolina Hurricanes that forced him to miss the majority of the season.^[1] On September 5, 2007 he signed as a free agent with Jokerit.^[3]

The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Canucks play their home games at Rogers Arena, formerly known as General Motors Place, which has an official capacity of 18,910. Travis Green is the head coach and Jim Benning is the general manager.

The 2006–07 NHL season was the 90th season of operation of the National Hockey League (NHL). The 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs began on April 11, 2007, and concluded on June 6, with the Anaheim Ducks defeating the Ottawa Senators to win their first Stanley Cup, becoming the first team from California to do so.

The Carolina Hurricanes are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They are members of the Metropolitan Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Hurricanes play their home games at the 18,680-seat PNC Arena.

After one season back with Jokerit, Santala opted to leave and sign with Swiss club, the Kloten Flyers from the 2008–09 season. He parted company with the team in December 2016 to join the KHL.^[5] On December 23, 2016, he inked a deal with Metallurg Magnitogorsk.

The 2008–09 National League A season, was the second ice hockey season of the National League A since the reorganization of the Swiss league and the 71st in the history of Swiss professional hockey.

The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) is an international professional ice hockey league founded in 2008. It comprises 24 member clubs based in Belarus, China, Finland, Latvia, Kazakhstan and Russia, and it is planned to expand to more countries. It is widely considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league in Europe and Asia, and second in the world behind the National Hockey League. KHL has the third highest average attendance in Europe with 6,121 spectators per game in the regular season, and the highest total attendance in Europe with 5.32 million spectators in the regular season.

Metallurg Magnitogorsk is a professional ice hockey team based in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. They are members of the Kharlamov Division of the Kontinental Hockey League. They also competed in the Champions Hockey League, losing the 2008–09 season championship round to the ZSC Lions of the Swiss ice hockey league National League A.

Unhappy with his KHL experience, Santala returned to EHC Kloten on a one-year deal for the 2017-18 season.

International play

Santala played for Team Finland in the 1999 World Junior Championship registering two points through six games. He represented Finland at the World Championships in, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2010. However, he only played one game for the 2006 Finnish team that won the Bronze medal. Santala had a much larger role for Finland during the 2002 Karlja Cup. Finland won the Gold and Santala was named a Second Team All-Star.^[3]

1999 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships 1999 edition of the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships

The 1999 Ice Hockey World Junior Championship was held in Winnipeg, and five other communities in Manitoba, Canada from December 26, 1998 to January 5, 1999. In the gold medal match at Winnipeg Arena, Russia defeated Canada 3-2 on Artem Chubarov's overtime goal. The bronze medal was claimed by Slovakia, giving the six-year-old country its first medal at an IIHF event.

The 2003 IIHF World Championship was held between April 26 and May 11, 2003 in Helsinki, Tampere and Turku, Finland.

The 2006 IIHF World Championship was held in May 2006 in Riga, Latvia. It was the 70th annual event, and was run by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

			Regular season					Playoffs
Season	Team	League	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
1998–99	Jokerit	SM-l	30	0	0	0	14	3	0	0	0	0
1999–00	Jokerit	SM-l	14	0	1	1	2	—	—	—	—	—
1999–00	HPK	SM-l	38	8	19	27	63	8	3	4	7	10
2000–01	HPK	SM-l	56	16	24	40	90	—	—	—	—	—
2001–02	HPK	SM-l	17	6	16	22	14	—	—	—	—	—
2002–03	HPK	SM-l	50	13	38	51	92	13	6	6	12	18
2003–04	Atlanta Thrashers	NHL	33	1	2	3	22	—	—	—	—	—
2003–04	Chicago Wolves	AHL	50	15	22	37	34	10	1	6	7	31
2004–05	Chicago Wolves	AHL	67	8	40	48	83	18	5	6	11	42
2005–06	Jokerit	SM-l	43	9	23	32	80	—	—	—	—	—
2006–07	Manitoba Moose	AHL	6	0	3	3	8	—	—	—	—	—
2006–07	Vancouver Canucks	NHL	30	1	5	6	24	1	0	0	0	0
2007–08	Jokerit	SM-l	56	28	30	58	82	13	4	12	16	18
2008–09	Kloten Flyers	NLA	50	13	35	48	96	15	4	5	9	18
2009–10	Kloten Flyers	NLA	47	17	32	49	59	10	4	5	9	20
2010–11	Kloten Flyers	NLA	49	10	36	46	78	16	4	7	11	32
2011–12	Kloten Flyers	NLA	47	9	35	44	46	5	1	2	3	4
2012–13	Kloten Flyers	NLA	45	11	27	38	62	—	—	—	—	—
2013–14	Kloten Flyers	NLA	39	14	25	39	44	16	5	9	14	22
2014–15	Kloten Flyers	NLA	39	9	15	24	42	—	—	—	—	—
2015–16	Kloten Flyers	NLA	48	13	26	39	50	4	0	2	2	6
NHL totals			63	2	7	9	46	1	0	0	0	0

International

Year	Team	Event	Result	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
1999	Finland	WJC	5th	6	1	1	2	6
2003	Finland	WC	5th	7	0	1	1	6
2006	Finland	WC		1	0	0	0	2
2009	Finland	WC	5th	7	0	0	0	4
2010	Finland	WC	6th	6	0	0	0	4
Junior totals				6	1	1	2	6
Senior totals				21	0	1	1	16

Transactions

June 26, 1999 — Drafted by the Atlanta Thrashers in the 9th round, 245th overall.
June 14, 2006 — Traded to the Vancouver Canucks along with a 5th round pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft for a conditional draft pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft.

Related Research Articles

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References

1 2 "Tommi Santala's player profile". Hockey Reference.com. Retrieved 2010-06-03.
↑ "Wolves team Awards and Honors". Chicago Wolves.com. Retrieved 2010-06-03.
1 2 3 "Tommi Santala's bio". Legends of Hockey.net. Retrieved 2010-06-03.
↑ "Trophy Case: Calder Cup". AHL Hall of Fame.com. Retrieved 2010-06-01.
↑ "MM_Santala - EHC Kloten". EHC Kloten (in German). Archived from the original on 2016-12-22. Retrieved 2016-12-19.

External links

Biographical information and career statistics from Eliteprospects.com , or Eurohockey.com , or Hockey-Reference.com , or The Internet Hockey Database

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[hr-1] 1 2 "Tommi Santala's player profile". Hockey Reference.com. Retrieved 2010-06-03.

[2] "Wolves team Awards and Honors". Chicago Wolves.com. Retrieved 2010-06-03.

[loh-3] 1 2 3 "Tommi Santala's bio". Legends of Hockey.net. Retrieved 2010-06-03.

[4] "Trophy Case: Calder Cup". AHL Hall of Fame.com. Retrieved 2010-06-01.

[5] "MM_Santala - EHC Kloten". EHC Kloten (in German). Archived from the original on 2016-12-22. Retrieved 2016-12-19.

Tommi Santala

Born	(1979-06-27) June 27, 1979 (age 40) Helsinki, Finland
Height	6 ft 3 in (191 cm)
Weight	216 lb (98 kg; 15 st 6 lb)
Position	Centre
Shoots	Right
Liiga team Former teams	HIFK EHC Kloten Jokerit HPK Atlanta Thrashers Vancouver Canucks
National team	Finland
NHL Draft	245th overall, 1999 Atlanta Thrashers
Playing career	1998–present