Topi Jaakola (born 15 November 1983) is a Finnish professional

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 ...

who is currently playing for the ZSC Lions in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

(NL). He was drafted by the

Florida Panthers The Florida Panthers are a professional ice hockey team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern ...

, 134th overall, in the

2002 NHL Entry Draft __NOTOC__ The 2002 NHL Entry Draft was the 40th NHL Entry Draft. It was held on June 22 and 23, 2002 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario. Two hundred and ninety-one players were drafted in total: 35 from the Ontario Hockey League (OHL); ...

however opted to remain in Europe to pursue his professional career. Internationally he has represented

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

at several World Championships, where he won the 2011 World Championship.

Playing career

He played his first games at senior level during the 2000–01 season and became a regular player during the following season. He spent his entire Finnish career in the

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 ...

with

Oulun Kärpät Oulun Kärpät (Finnish for "Oulu Ermines", sometimes referred to as Kärpät Oulu) is a Finnish professional ice hockey team based in Oulu and playing in the top-tier Finnish Liiga. Kärpät have won the Finnish championship title eight times ...

, winning four championships (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008). For the 2008–09 season he moved to Sweden to play in

Södertälje SK Södertälje Sportklubb, also known as Södertälje SK and often referred to as SSK, is a Swedish professional ice hockey club playing in HockeyAllsvenskan, the second highest level of pro hockey in Sweden. Södertälje were charter members of Eli ...

. On 30 July 2014, at the completion of his contract with HC Lev Praha, Jaakola remained in the KHL but returned to Finland in agreeing to a two-year contract with Jokerit.

International play

Jaakola has played for

at seven World Championships. He won the gold at the 2011 World Championship and a silver in

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

. He also played for the Finnish national junior team, and won bronze medals in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

and

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

External links

* 1983 births Living people Amur Khabarovsk players Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in the Czech Republic Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in Russia Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in Sweden Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in Switzerland Finnish ice hockey defencemen Florida Panthers draft picks HV71 players Jokerit players Oulun Kärpät players HC Lev Praha players Luleå HF players Södertälje SK players Ice hockey people from Oulu HC TPS players {{Finland-icehockey-defenceman-stub