Finland

The amateur team from Finland is among the three most titled teams of Christmas Tournament. The Scandinavian squad has four bronze medals and three of them were won three last years in a row.

The Finns know how to play aggressive hockey and are strong both as a team and individually, which they repeatedly proved to Belarusian fans: Kim Ahlroos became the top scorer of the 7th Christmas Tournament with 11 goals and 2 assists, Simo Vehvilainen was named as the best goalie the year before and in 2008 Nemo Nokkosmäki was the best defenseman of the competition.

This year the team has a strong roster as well. Jukka Tammi who is responsible for the safety of the net has played 260 games for the Finnish national team and took part in 4 Olympics and 7 World Championships, including the one in 1995 when Finns took gold. Marko Palo can also boast of medals of Worlds – he won gold in 1995 and silver in 1994 – as well as bronze of 1994 Olympics. Many other players of the team have also played for Team Finland.

There is another defenseman in the team that deserves particular mentioning and he is well known to Belarusian fans – Kari Heikkilä, the head coach of Belarus National Team, will put on a jersey with a golden lion again and come play on Minsk ice.