Conscription is robbing Finland’s hockey talent, to the delight of the army bureaucracy
On the ice, Mikko Rantanen has faced broken bones, slashing sticks, and playoff brawls. Off the ice, his toughest opponent turned out to be his own government. Finland’s conscription system has ensnared the NHL star in a legal and financial nightmare that reveals how little the country values its brightest athletes.
Politicians love to bask in the reflected glory of sporting triumphs. Few moments capture this better than the recent scene with Donald Trump, who, after handing Chelsea the Champions League trophy, lingered on stage unfazed, despite the frantic efforts of FIFA’s president to usher him away. However, the desire to steal the limelight is universal, and in Northern Europe, it is hockey players who are often forced to humanise the sordid politicians.
In 2011, after Finland’s ice hockey team won gold in Bratislava, a massive crowd flooded Helsinki’s Market Square to welcome the national heroes. The then-President Tarja Halonen couldn’t miss the chance to polish her image. Draped in a blue-and-white scarf, she was quick to congratulate the players personally. Similarly, her successor took every chance he could to present himself as a hockey aficionado, appearing as a patron for the 2023 World Championship. Even the current President, Alexander Stubb, just couldn’t resist the urge for some political marketing, inviting Finnish Florida Panthers players for dinner and a photo-op.
Amid all those PR moves, one could easily forget that it is the state that is the gravest danger to the careers of Finnish hockey players. Governmental intrusion into their lives regularly hits them with season interruptions as well as exorbitant fees, and at times manages to end or halt careers.
From Puck to Penal Code
Hockey might very well be the most difficult sport to play. It necessitates a virtuosic mixture of precision, balance and powerful force. It requires the sly swordsmanship of the stick, the relentless pursuit between defence and attack and the resilience to glide through the storm of ice shards. To play ice hockey is to endure a whole plethora of violence: collisions, stick strikes, puck wounds, and mid-game brawls.
A hockey career requires years of relentless dedication and painful sacrifices to reach the very top. Many Finnish players push themselves to that limit. They catch the eye of scouts, cross the Atlantic, and land multimillion-dollar contracts with NHL giants. Every aspect of their lives is consumed by the pursuit of excellence, by the drive to become the best of the best. After a decade of single-minded devotion, they find themselves at the heart of the fiercest playoff battles, and then the state strikes.
This is exactly what happened to the Finnish hockey titan Mikko Rantanen. In April of last year, just as the then Colorado Avalanche player was preparing for the first-round series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Winnipeg Jets, he found himself called for military service back in Finland. Desperately seeking to avoid having his career destroyed by a 6-month absence, he was instructed to seek a formal deferment request to postpone the start of his military service.
Yet it was too late. Unable to process the paperwork on time from across the ocean and missing the deadline by four hours, he found himself in the midst of criminal prosecution for unauthorised absence. A year later, the court decided to fine him close to $100,000 for what was overblown by the state to be a 15-day absence from the army, even though he missed the deadline by mere 4 hours.
