The Story Behind The Number - Raimo Tuominen

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HOUSTON - Raimo Tuominen has been in the VHLM for a bit and is taking in his first season in the VHL system. Coming from SM-Liiga, Raimo has kept the same jersey number from his time with Tappara. Before wearing the 44 that he wore with Tappara and now wears with Houston, Raimo was the number 8.

 

“It’s not much of a surprise but growing up, Teemu was THE man. He went from a Finnish hockey champion to an NHL legend. This man single handedly saved Jokerit, got Finland a silver medal in the olympics, won Finnish and NHL championships, set a bunch of Anaheim scoring records, had the best rookie season in NHL history, had a long career even after all his knee problems- you get the gist. Teemu Selanne was our guy. Makes sense that he would be my favourite player. I wanted to be a goal scorer as dynamic as he was and a player who was just as resilient. Still do,” Raimo commented. “Naturally, I wanted to rep his number 8.”

 

Then, when he went to Tappara, the number was retired in honour of SM-Liiga’s all-time leading scorer, Janne Ojanen. Ojanen had played most of his career playing for Tappara. As a young prospect, there was no way he was going to get the number. So, he just chose 44.

 

“4 plus 4 is 8. I wanted to keep some reference to the number 8 because of how much success it brought me. I’m quite the superstitious type,” Raimo admitted.