Viivi Vainikka

Viivi Vainikka (born 23 December 2001) is a Finnish ice hockey player for Luleå HF/MSSK of the Swedish Women's Hockey League (Swedish: Svenska damhockeyligan; SDHL) and the Finnish national team.[1]

Viivi Vainikka
Born (2001-12-23) 23 December 2001
Espoo, Uusimaa, Finland
Height 1.76 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight 73 kg (161 lb; 11 st 7 lb)
Position Forward
Shoots Left
SDHL team
Former teams		 Luleå HF/MSSK
Team Kuortane
National team  Finland
Playing career 2016–present
Medal record
World Championships
2019 Finland

Playing career

Vainikka began playing hockey at the age of five.[2] She made her debut in the Naisten Liiga, the top flight of Finnish women's hockey at the age of 15 with Team Kuortane. Across four years with the team, she scored 129 points in 112 games. After scoring a career best 52 points in 30 games in the 2018–19 season, including 28 goals, she won the Emma Laaksonen Award for fair play.

She left Finland to sign a two-year contract with Luleå HF/MSSK in Sweden ahead of the 2020–21 SDHL season, joining the roster with the highest concentration of Finnish national team players in the world, Finland included.[3] She scored twice in her first two SDHL games.[4] In November 2020, along with four other Finnish national team and Luleå teammates, she was forced to miss several SDHL games while being quarantined under Finnish law after a national team camp where a player tested positive for COVID-19.[5]

International

Vainikka won silver with the Finnish national team at the 2019 Women's World Championship.[6][7] She was officially named to the Finnish roster for the 2020 Women's World Championship on 4 March 2020, prior to the cancellation of the tournament International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) on 7 March 2020 due to public health concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.[8][9]

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs
    Regular season   Playoffs
Season Team League GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM
2016–17 Team Kuortane SM-sarja 28 5 7 12 4 2 0 0 0 0
2017–18 Team Kuortane Liiga 24 9 15 24 2 8 4 7 11 0
2018–19 Team Kuortane Liiga 30 26 15 41 6 4 2 2 4 0
2019–20 Team Kuortane Liiga 30 28 24 52 6 8 12 6 18 8
Liiga totals 84 63 54 117 14 20 18 15 33 8

International
Year Team Event Result   GP G A Pts PIM
2017 Finland WJC 5 3 0 0 0 0
2018 Finland WJC 5 5 2 2 4 0
2019 Finland WJC 6 2 4 6 2
2019 Finland WC 7 1 3 4 0
Junior totals 14 4 6 10 2
Senior totals 7 1 3 4 0

Awards and honors
Award Year
Naisten Liiga
Naisten Liiga Bronze Medal 2018
Emma Laaksonen Award 2020
All-Star – Second Team 2020
Player of the Month January 2020
International
World Championship Silver Medal 2019
World U18 Championship Bronze Medal 2019

References
  1. Nilsson, Jonathan (12 September 2020). ""Hon är som en storasyster för mig"". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 12 September 2020.
  2. Foster, Meredith (17 January 2020). "Q&A with Team Kuortane's Viivi Vainikka". The Ice Garden. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  3. Nilsson, Jonathan (12 September 2020). ""Hon är som en storasyster för mig"". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  4. Murphy, Mike (16 September 2020). "Dam Good: Lulea's Jenni Hiirikoski starts off scoring". The Ice Garden. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  5. Kågström, Rasmus (9 November 2020). "Luleåstjärnorna fast i Finland – satta i karantän". HockeySverige (in Swedish). Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  6. "Naisleijonien MM-joukkue yhtä vaille valmis – Kisojen alkuun kymmenen päivää". leijonat.fi. 25 March 2019.
  7. 2019 IIHF Women's World Championship roster
  8. Malmberg, Henna (4 March 2020). "Naisleijonien MM-joukkue valittu – Sukupolven vaihdos tuo MM-joukkueeseen seitsemän ensikertalaista". leijonat.fi (in Finnish). Finnish Ice Hockey Association. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  9. Steiss, Adam (7 March 2020). "Women's Worlds cancelled". IIHF. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
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