Being the son of SHL royalty in former West Kendall Platoon defenseman Kari Kekkonen, the pressure was always on Kaarlo to be a good player from the jump. When he first started playing hockey as a young child in Akaa, a small town in the south of Finland, Kaarlo didn’t prove to be as instantly great a player has his family would have hoped, and in fact, he struggled early on to stand out for any good reasons. From as soon as he could walk, his father had him with skates on and a stick in hand at the local rink. Kaarlo could never seem to skate with the kind of flow needed to accelerate and raise his game, something that plagued him until he was into his teens, and it looked for a while as if a career in hockey may be something unobtainable for the young Kaarlo. He also lacked a sense of purpose and urgency around the net, leaving him unable to score the kind of goals his team really needed of him. It was only after much intensive coaching from his legendary father, and some additional help from his uncle Kaapo that Kaarlo was able to start to show the promise needed to get where he is now. It’s important that one remembers the way you get somewhere might take longer, like it did for Kaarlo, but it’s okay as long as you make it in the end.

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