Eetu Sopanen (born 24 April 1996) is a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

former

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

defenceman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from Goal (ice hockey), scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the la ...

. He last played with

KalPa Kalevan Pallo (KalPa) is a professional ice hockey team which competes in the Finnish Liiga. They play in Kuopio, Finland at the Niiralan monttu, Olvi Areena. Team history Established in 1929 as ''Sortavalan Palloseura'' in Sortavala, the club r ...

in the Finnish

Liiga The SM-liiga (marketed as just Liiga from 2013 on), (Finnish for ''League'') colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. It is one of the six founding leagu ...

. He was part of Finland's gold medal winning U20 team at the

2016 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships The 2016 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships was the 40th Ice Hockey World Junior Championship. It was hosted in Helsinki, Finland. It began on December 26, 2015, and ended with the gold medal game on January 5, 2016. This marked the sixth time ...

, however he only got to play 3 games before suffering a knee injury. Sopanen made his

debut playing with

Lahti Pelicans The Lahti Pelicans are a Finnish professional ice hockey team playing in the Liiga. Founded in 1996, they play in the city of Lahti at Isku Arena. The team is co-owned by (among others) former National Hockey League (NHL) goaltender Pasi Nurminen ...

during the 2014–15 Liiga season. He moved to

for the 2016-17 Liiga season. During a Liiga game between KalPa and

SaiPa SAIPA ( fa, سایپا, ''SAIPA'') is an Iranian automaker headquartered in Tehran. The SAIPAC (an acronym for the French ''Société anonyme iranienne de production des automobiles Citroën'') was established in 1965 as with 75% Iranian ownersh ...

, Sopanen suffered an injury, falling and hitting his head on his teammate's foot, which forced him to end his career at the age of 20.

References

External links

* 1996 births Living people Finnish ice hockey defencemen Iisalmen Peli-Karhut players KalPa players Lahti Pelicans players Peliitat Heinola players People from Kouvola Ice hockey players at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics Youth Olympic gold medalists for Finland Sportspeople from Kymenlaakso {{Finland-icehockey-defenceman-stub