Jarmo Ruutu - as Asian as they come

[jRuutu 2,426]

Jarmo Ruutu was reportedly picked as the last player on the Team Asia roster for S89 World Junior Championship. Ruutu, a native Finn, is not the first player you might think of when you are thinking about an Asian hockey player. However, if we know anything about history, Finland and the Finnish people used to rule half of the world. Often in the history books you might see The Mongols being incorrectly credited for the work of the Finnish people. This historical inaccuracy was exploited by the Asian Hockey Federation, they were given the green light to register native Finns into the WJC roster.

 

Jarmo Ruutu played 72 games in VHLM this year, scoring 48 points. Ruutu has been a decent addition to the Team Asia roster: he has 6 points in 9 games, he is fourth in hits and he has the fifth-best faceoff percentage. After the 4-2 loss against Canada, Ruutu was asked what it means to play for Team Asia - he had this to say:

 

" I am as Asian as they come, I drive a Toyota, and I watch Jackie Chan films. Sucks we could not get the win today, but when you play like we did in the third period - you don't deserve anything out of any game, and we did not deserve any more than this".