Question have started to emerge as a young Japanese goalie declared for the SMJHL draft last night under the radar or night with a rather famous last name around the SHL that of former goalie and current agent Mika Aalto.

Valtteri Aalto declared for the SMJHL draft late last night, with the draft happening tonight, and has left teams with more questions then answers at this time. Another big question people are having, is how a clearly Finnish name and father, did he end up with the nationality Japan? We did some digging to find out.

Mika Aalto had a bright future when he was drafted to Toronto many years ago, but that future quickly faded as he was never able to find his footing at the professional level of the SHL. Mika ended up leaving the SHL and travelled around the world playing where he could, had spent mist of his time in Japan and Russia bringing what experience he could to these programs.

Around his time of playing and helping the Japanese program he would have a son named Valtteri. Mika and his new son spent only a few years in Japan, but enough for Valtteri to gain his citizenship there before moving onto Russia where Mika would setup his agency business with the names of former SHL champions Roman Morenov and Artemi Berezin.
Valtteri grew up in Russia, but Mika wanted him to know about his Finnish and Japanese heritage, and Valtteri really became attached to learning about Japan and all it’s wonderful things. With Mika always travelling, Valtteri wanted to be schooled in Japan while his dad was always on the move during the hockey season with his clients.

As Valtteri started his schooling journey in Japan, people around the hockey world there recognized the last name and started making connection, Valtteri was then asked to start playing hockey in the Japanese programs, it took some convincing as Valtteri was not that interested in hockey like his dad, but the raw talent was there.

After a few seasons, people started to notice that Valtteri did have the gift his dad had for the net, he then started to enjoy it and make some new friends in the local programs, and during the off-season of both school and hockey, Valtteri would return to Russia where his father lived and would train with him and Morenov and Berezin, which really jump started Valtteri’s career.

When Valtteri returned to Japan the next season, the national program took notice, and he was fast tracked to be a possible goalie of the future for Japan. Valtteri then played a few more seasons with the national junior program and really was catching the attention of the West and big hockey. Mika started to get calls about Valtteri’s future, and they decided it was in his best interest for a hockey career to hire his dad who had the experience.

Skip ahead a year or two and here we are, Mika finally convinced his son to declare for the upcoming SMJHL and try his hand at a possible professional future in the SHL.