Päivi Virta (previously Halonen; born 3 August 1964) is a Finnish retired ice hockey

defenseman 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 ...

and one of the most highly decorated women in the history of Finnish ice hockey. As a member of the Finnish national team she won five World Championship bronze medals and five European Championship medals, four gold and one bronze.

Playing career

Virta started her premiere league career in the Naisten SM-sarja (renamed ''Naisten Liiga'' in 2017) with the

Tampereen Ilves Ilves (; Finnish for " Lynx") is a Finnish professional ice hockey team based in Tampere. They play in the Liiga at the Tampere Deck Arena. The colors of Ilves, green, yellow, and black, were taken from what was then the coat of arms of the cit ...

in 1982, the same year the league was established. She went on to play in more than 400 games— with Ilves, the Keravan Shakers, Kiekko-Espoo, and the Espoo Blues— in a career that spanned 24 seasons. Virta saw the Naisten SM-sarja medal podium in every season that she played. She was Finnish Champion fifteen times, more playoff victories than any other player in league history. She also collected six silver Finnish Championship medals and three bronze Finnish Championship.

International play

Virta played in over 140 international matches with the Finnish national team and won bronze medals at the IIHF Women's World Championships in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

, and

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

; gold medals at the IIHF European Women Championships in

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

, and

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

; and a bronze medal at the

1996 IIHF European Women Championships The 1996 IIHF European Women Championships were the sixth and final holding of the IIHF European Women Championships. The tournaments were held in March 1996, with Pool A playing in Yaroslavl, Russia during 23–29 March and Pool B playing in Trn ...

Awards and honors

In 2004 Virta was the first women's hockey player ever to be awarded the Finnish Ice Hockey Association

President's Trophy The Presidents' Trophy (french: Trophée des présidents) is an award presented by the National Hockey League (NHL) to the team that finishes with the most points (i.e. best record) during the NHL regular season. If two teams are tied for the mo ...

, annually bestowed upon a person who has made significant contributions to Finnish ice hockey. She is also one of fewer-than-ten women to have been inducted to the

Hockey Hall of Fame Finland The Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame is housed in and administered by the ('Finnish Ice Hockey Museum'), a part of the Vapriikki Museum Centre, in Tampere, Finland. The was founded in 1979 with the mission to record, document, and exhibit objects ...

and thus to be named a ''Suomen'' ''Jääkiekkoleijona'' (Finnish Ice Hockey Lion). The Finnish Ice Hockey Association presents the

Päivi Halonen Award The Päivi Halonen Award ( fi, Päivi Halonen -palkinto) is an ice hockey trophy awarded seasonally by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association to the best defenceman in the Naisten Liiga The Kansallinen Liiga ('National League') is the premier divi ...

to the Naisten Liiga Defenseman of the Year.

References

Significant content in this article is translated from the existing Finnish Wikipedia article at :fi:Päivi Virta; see its history for attribution.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Virta, Päivi Living people 1964 births Finnish women's ice hockey defencemen Ice hockey people from Tampere Espoo Blues Naiset players Kiekko-Espoo Naiset players Keravan Shakers players Ilves Naiset players