Global Series family affair for Avalanche forward Lehkonen

HELSINKI -- All Ismo Lehkonen could do was stare.

There it was, right in front of him, glistening in the summer sunlight that shone through the front window. Hockey's ultimate prize, the Stanley Cup.
Only it wasn't in the Great Hall at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, its normal home.
It was at Lehkonen's home in Turku, Finland.
Surely this must be a dream, he thought. Except it wasn't.
"I was speechless," Ismo, the father of Colorado Avalanche forward Artturi Lehkonen, said during a conversation with NHL.com on Tuesday. "It was sitting in our house, on our kitchen table."
RELATED: [Complete 2022 NHL Global Series Finland coverage]
Another dream will come true for Lehkonen this week, when he gets to watch his son, Artturi, and the Avalanche play the Columbus Blue Jackets in Tampere as part of the 2022 NHL Global Series.
Arturri and the Avalanche arrive in Finland as conquering heroes having won the Stanley Cup with a 2-1 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 of the Final on June 26. Thirty-three days later, on July 29, Artturi brought the Cup home to share it with loved ones.
His dad, the man who coached him since he was a boy, couldn't be happier for his son. Still, there were some activities he could not, would not, engage in during Artturi's special day.
"I refused to touch the Cup," he said. "And then they took it into the sauna. I wouldn't go there either.
"It's like a Holy Grail, that Cup. I respect that Cup so much. It might be a little weird, but I wouldn't touch it."
What he did do while admiring it from afar is think about how proud he was of Artturi and the message that was being sent to Finnish kids who one day aspired to win the Cup like his son did.
"He worked his butt off for years to get to this place," Ismo said. "And now he gets to come back to his home country and play in front of the fans here as a Stanley Cup champion. That's inspirational."
Indeed, Finnish hockey fans will be able to see that firsthand during the Global Series, with games Friday (2 p.m. ET; NHLN, SN, ALT, BSOH) and Saturday at Nokia Arena in Tampere, Finland.
Ismo, who will be working the games as a television analyst for the Finnish Broadcasting Company, said it will be a special week for Artturi and forward Mikko Rantanen, his teammate and close friend whose hometown of Nousiainen is 20 miles from Turku and 120 miles from Tampere.
"Hockey is the No. 1 sport in Finland," he said. "Every kid wants to play hockey. And when they actually see those two play here and that they had won the Cup, they understand that, 'If I work as hard as these two guys, we actually have a chance to make an NHL roster and have a chance to win the Cup. Let's keep doing that.'"
For the soft-spoken Artturi, he is embracing the entire situation, including the spotlight that comes with having games in Europe that are really home games for him and Rantanen.
"It's going to be a fun show," the 27-year-old said. "I mean, it's a special occasion to play a regular-season game back at home.
"It's going to cost me a lot of tickets, but it's going to be awesome."
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Ismo was in Tampa carrying out his television analyst duties for the Final when the Avalanche won Game 6.

After the final horn sounded, and the Stanley Cup had been handed to Colorado captain
Gabriel Landeskog
, friends and family swarmed the ice to share in the celebration. But not Ismo. At least not right away.
Instead, he waited about 30 minutes and watched the beginning of the on-ice party on a television in the press area.
"This is the boys' time. They earned it. This is about them," he said, before eventually joining the festivities.
For Ismo, the players had put in the work and deserved the rewards of their labor. It's a philosophy he's always had in his lengthy involvement in the sport.
As a player, Ismo was a forward for Jokerit Helsinki and HPK Hameenlinna in Liiga, Finland's top professional league, from 1979-86. When his playing career ended in 1991, he started coaching first division and youth teams in Finland and moved to Liiga in 1998-99 season. He told told Artturi he would stop coaching teams if his son's NHL dream was close to becoming a reality and followed up on that promise when it did.
Now age 60, he spends his summers coaching a handful of pros in Turku, a group that includes his son and Rantanen, a player Ismo has known since the Avalanche forward was 12.
That was the same age Artturi was when he told his dad he wanted to be an NHL player. For the next eight years, Ismo questioned his son's diet, his desire, his work ethic.
"It was alright," Artturi told NHL.com when asked what it was like growing up as a coach's son. "He was hard on me growing up. Not so much anymore.
"As a young kid, he was hard. And that's OK. It was totally understood. His message was simple: If you started something, do it right or don't do it at all."
Artturi must have been doing something right: he went to Frolunda of the Swedish Elite League a year after he was selected by the Montreal Canadiens in the second round (No. 55) of the 2013 NHL Draft. He played two seasons with the Swedish team in Gothenburg, then joined the Canadiens as a 21-year-old in 2016-17.
He was in his sixth season with Montreal when he was traded to Colorado for defenseman
Justin Barron
and a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft on March 21. Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic had picked Rantanen's brain about Lehkonen before making the trade and was told his friend was a valuable commodity at each end of the ice.
Artturi had nine points (six goals, three assists) in 16 games for Colorado after the trade, but it was the postseason when he really stood out. He had 14 points (eight goals, six assists) in 20 games during its Stanley Cup run and scored the series-winning goals against the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Final and the Lightning in the Final.
"Like I said, he was hard on me," Artturi said. "But looking back it probably helped me get to this point."
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As the two games in Finland approach, Ismo pragmatically is looking at the matchup more from an analyst's viewpoint than that of a dad.
Ismo and Hannu Rantanen, Mikko's dad, were in the New York area for the past week watching their sons and the Avalanche (4-4-1) defeat the New York Rangers 3-2 in a shootout on Wednesday before losing 1-0 to the New Jersey Devils on Friday and 5-4 to the New York Islanders on Sunday. The Blue Jackets (3-7-0), meanwhile, are on a three-game skid and lost 7-1 to the Devils on Sunday.
"Both teams have been struggling so I think you are going to see two teams come out very hard and battle for points," Ismo said. "That's what's going to make it fun."

In terms of the short term, father and son each said the ticket demands started a while ago from long-lost friends and family members.
"Ya, a lot of people are asking," Ismo said with a laugh. "But those tickets are so expensive. I don't have that type of money. Sorry, boys. I don't have money to buy the tickets. That's why I'm working the games."
Those who do have tickets will see games with a distinct Finnish flavor. Consider that, along with Lehkonen and Rantanen, the Blue Jackets feature hometown boy Patrik Laine, a forward, and fellow Finn, goalie Joonas Korpisalo, on their roster.
"I'm looking forward to it," Artturi said. "It's a brand-new arena. I've been there once. So, it's going to be the first time for me skating there too.
"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity for sure. I mean, it's a unique situation. So, you've just got to enjoy it."
Ismo agrees with his son, who enters the Global Series with six points (two goals, four assists) in nine games.
"It's going to be fun," he said. "I'm proud of him. He's never stopped working and I think people are starting to notice that.
"As for the publicity the Finnish players will get this week, I think they'll be able to handle that. They won't mind talking to people. And it's a big deal here. There will be plenty of people who want to talk to them."