Simo,

Here's the Zoom link for the interview with the Puck Soup people: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7895715059?pwd...kxYXVUdz09

You might not have listened to it before but to give you some warning - these guys are good fun to talk to but if they don't think you're showing enough personality, they'll push your buttons. It's not likely to be malicious but be prepared in case they jab at you about the draft. It's not going to be long unless they start getting a rise out of you. Good luck!

Sam Hodges-Grey
Detroit Falcons Public Relations

Puck Soup - Podcast Central - S74 Draft Series - September 23, 20⬛⬛

The draft series continues today, as the boys talk to Chirper enthusiast Simo Jääskeläinen, of the Detroit Falcons and now the Minnesota Monarchs. Click here or below for a transcript.

Transcript:
PS: Thanks for joining us, Simo. Straight into it - one season of junior down, how do you like the league and the team?

SJ: I said this to most of the teams who scouted me: I think I was very lucky to have been picked by Detroit. I am sure that the other teams across the league would have been just as focused on victory and probably more professional, but the locker room environment in Detroit has been extremely positive. It is...occasionally, it can be bruising to the ego, as nobody gets away without being insulted at least once a day, but everybody has everybody's support when the days go bad. The impression I have from other places is...there is a Finnish phrase, sopia kuin hajuvesi lihapullan, which means "like perfume on a meatball".

PS: Meaning what?

SJ: It seems to mean to be out of place. You would not put perfume on a meatball and there are some teams of the league that I think I would have been a sweet smelling meatball in.

PS: Come on man, you can't say that and not tell us which teams you're talking about.

SJ: I am sure you can make sensible guesses which teams I might mean. But Detroit is the opposite, I do feel that I fit in as a Falcon. There is never any rush to get away from your teammates after practice or after games, particularly the rookie class from last year. We do a lot of things together, we go to sports games, we work out on our own team, we play poker and video games. It is a really good group.

PS: Oh yeah, right, wasn't it your mom who played poker professionally?

SJ: It still is. My mother is a big part of the reason why I could even afford to pursue hockey as a professional career. When I was...eight, I think, maybe seven, she went to a tournament in Helsinki and won over a hundred thousand dollars, then won about the same amount again the year after at one of the biggest events in mainland Europe. Overnight, my second-hand skates and old pads disappeared. Somewhere I have a picture of her from before I was born, where she is pregnant with my brother and I and almost ready to give birth, sat at the poker table in full flow. She has said she was playing when she went into labour but that's not true, it just makes for a good story.

PS: Do any of the team get mad when you hustle them?

SJ: Do you know, I don't actually win very often. Poker is too much calculation and numbers for me to really be good at, my brain just does not work that way. I tell you this, Zedward is good at it. Zeddie and Wayne [Holloway] always leave with more than they arrived. Stormlord, I used to think Stormlord was terrible at bluffing until he baited me into folding a flush when he had a pair of jacks. I lost six hundred dollars that day!

PS: Speaking of the others, you're the fourth Falcon we've spoke to and the others have all said that you have the most ridiculous workout scheme they've seen. What gives?

SJ: So. In the United States, a lot of children play football or baseball or basketball before they decide on hockey, but Finland has a long history of producing very good athletes in athletics. So when my American teammates were playing softball, I was cross-country running. I held a couple of national records for a little while when I was younger and there was a suggestion I could have perhaps pursued running at an Olympic level, but hockey called to me more.

PS: They said 10k runs every day though, that seems insane.

SJ: That is not quite true. I try to do one of those a week, injuries permitting, but to do it every day would be ridiculous. I do intend to run the Boston and the Chicago marathons at some point in the next few years though, and perhaps an ultra-marathon.

PS: If you have any knees left once you're done with hockey.

SJ: Well, that too. It may sound funny from me with what I have just said, but resting is just as important as the workouts themselves.

PS: We've asked everybody so far this question: how are you feeling coming out of the draft? Lots of people were expecting you to be a high pick like in the junior draft - 27th and the second round must feel pretty bad.

SJ: Honestly, it does. I won't name names of specifics because I would not want to pick fights with people I don't know, but I believe I was the tenth or eleventh defenseman taken and I don't think that is a fair reflection of me as a player at all. I can imagine some teams were looking for more offense or a better plus and minus statistic and wished to look elsewhere, but I do believe that in ten years or even five, Minnesota will have emerged as having had the best draft from this class.

PS: We went digging and found a few things you wrote for the Detroit Falcons fan blog, and Gordon-William Gibbles turns up in a few of them. You don't look like his biggest fan, how are you going to deal with being teammates in the future?

SJ: OK, to be clear, I never said anything about Gibbles as a person. It just seemed that every time we played against Great Falls...maybe another player would have been given a penalty for some of those actions, maybe he was given the benefit of the doubt because his size makes it difficult to hit a person and not be close to roughing. Whatever the situation, the first time I said his name was the game after I had been voted Hit of the Week for a game where I clocked him. Cleanly, but I made sure he knew I had my eyes on him. I doubt he has any issues about it and I don't have any issues with him either. If he does, he is welcome to raise them to me and we can deal with them however he desires.

PS: People were calling this the best draft class in seasons. Who's going to be the biggest steal and who's going to be the biggest bust?

SJ: The biggest bust? I told you, I'm not going to pick fights with people I don't know, you're going to get me in trouble! I am confident I will be seen as a steal, but if you want another name I am very surprised Roger Murdock slipped as far as he did. I don't think his numbers last year tell the whole story - Manhattan may have got a first-pairing defenseman out of him.

PS: When do you expect to make it to the big league?

SJ: I suppose I can say now safely, Minnesota were one of the only teams to ask me about my ambition. I would like to be promoted, of course, but I do not really seeing it happening. The Monarchs have a good group of defensive players and I have, I think, three more seasons with Detroit? Potentially?

PS: One last thing before we go: the other Falcons told us to ask you about "corpse paint". What the hell is corpse paint?

SJ: Oh, god. OK, there is some context here, do either of you know anything about black metal? No? Well, there are a lot of respected black metal bands from Scandinavia and many of them use facepaint to give themselves the look of a corpse. What I said to the team was that if we won against Quebec City, I would play the rest of the playoffs wearing corpse paint. And I would have! I would have, but in the tunnel before our first game against Maine one of the referees saw me and a few minutes later, I was told if I set foot on the ice looking like that I'd be given a penalty immediately.

PS: That sounds like total BS!

SJ: Haha, I was furious too, but I was not about to cause trouble for the team. Team first, metal second.

PS: Thanks for the time, Simo, and best of luck next year. Any last words?

SJ: Skree. Falcons fly!

[1,601 words. Yes, I said I was out, then I realised that I'm too old and too ugly to get shoved off something I've quite enjoyed by some people having a go at me, so live with it. Or don't, I'm not a cop.]

A solid interview and good luck to you in the future. Welcome back the site.