VIRTANEN EMBRACES TOP PROSPECTS GAME OPPORTUNITY
Jake Virtanen could picture the life he wanted to lead at the 2007 MasterCard Memorial Cup.
Although just 10-years-old at the time, Virtanen watched closely as his hometown Vancouver Giants hosted the national championship. He monitored the play of his favourite players – Cody Franson and Milan Lucic, in particular – and was swept up by the notion he could one day be playing out his dream in the Western Hockey League.
“I used to always tell my dad when I was young I wanted to be a WHL player,” Virtanen, 17, recalls now. “He would just point things out to me, like how hard they worked.”
Jake took those words to heart, and four years later hard work, along with an undeniable skill set, helped him achieve a dream he had never previously envisioned. As Virtanen progressed as a player in British Columbia’s lower mainland, and his dream of playing in the WHL becoming a distinct possibility, he hoped he would be drafted in the first or second round of the 2011 bantam draft.
The Calgary Hitmen liked him much more than that. The Hitmen, who are hosting the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game on January 15, used the first-overall pick on the dual Canadian-Finnish citizen.
“Until I was in my draft year, I never really thought I could do it,” Virtanen says of being the first player chosen in the draft. “It was just such an honour to get drafted first overall. It was pretty surreal at the time.”
A year and a half into his WHL career, Virtanen is providing the Hitmen with the physical, offensive force they envisioned when drafting him in 2011. The relationship between player and team is bearing fruit for both parties, and now Virtanen will headline one of the Canadian Hockey League’s signature events at his home team’s rink.
“It’s going to be pretty cool to play in the Saddledome,” he says. “There’s nothing better than a big rink and it being filled with a lot of fans getting crazy in there and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Virtanen will be joined by teammate Ben Thomas on Team Orr. The Hitmen duo will become the 25th and 26th players from their franchise to suit up in the event, the most of any CHL team.
As Virtanen relays, it’s a badge of pride following in the footsteps of some prestigious former Hitmen players such as Ryan Getzlaf, Andrew Ladd and current teammate Chris Driedger.
“There are a lot of players on that list,” he says. “It’s just such an honour to compete in the game.”
Virtanen is looking forward to reuniting as teammates with Aaron Ekblad, whom he won a gold medal with playing in the 2013 Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament in August. He’s also looking forward to playing against a familiar adversary in Red Deer defenceman Haydn Fleury.
It’s likely that most of his teammates on Team Orr feel the same sentiments when playing with him. Virtanen is that special breed that provides energy with a timely hit or a timely goal. He’s more Lucic than he is Franson, although he compares his style to Rick Nash’s, who played in the 2002 Top Prospects Game in Saskatoon before becoming the first overall pick in the NHL Draft that season.
“I like to think of myself as a power forward,” he says. “I like being physical, I like taking the body and I like getting pucks to the net and just getting in guys’ grills and just working hard and getting in the gritty areas.
“I think it gives (teammates) energy. Sometimes, when a game goes on, the energy goes down. But if we have guys that are going to be hitting, it will give guys energy. Obviously, I like scoring goals as well. It’s (playing physically) and scoring goals that gives the guys energy and that’s a big factor.”
He’s a chip off the ol’ Canadian block, although he holds Canadian and Finnish passports. His dad, Rainer, moved to Canada as a boy and after jetting back and forth between his new country and his country of origin, settled in B.C. as a teenager.
Virtanen, who has family in Finland but has never been and doesn’t speak his father’s native tongue, hopes to continue representing his home country in future international events.
“My goal is to play for Team Canada and represent Canada and put on a maple leaf,” he says. “I’m hoping I can do that next year (at the World Juniors).”
Although his last name is pronounced differently in Canada as it is in Finland – Virtanen jokes that his grandparents, who live near the family home in Abbotsford, still have a thick accent: “it’s pretty funny, actually,” – Virtanen speaks the language of hockey.
Representing the Hitmen in Calgary at the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game is a dream becoming reality.
“It’s a great organization,” he says, “and playing here through the couple years, it’s been just an awesome time and I’ve had a lot of fun.”
The CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game will be broadcast live on Sportsnet and TVA Sports beginning at 7:00 pm Mountain time, and is also available on the NHL Network in the United States and on Sportsnet 960 The FAN.
