Vesa Ilmari Viitakoski (born February 13, 1971 in

Lappeenranta Lappeenranta (; sv, Villmanstrand) is a city and municipality in the region of South Karelia, about from the Russian border and from the town of Vyborg (''Viipuri''). It is situated on the shore of the Lake Saimaa in southeastern Finland, and ...

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 ...

) is a former 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 h ...

player.

Career

Viitakoski started his professional career in his home town, Lappeenranta, playing for two seasons in the local club,

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 ...

. When SaiPa was relegated at the end of the 1990 SM-liiga season, Viitakoski moved to

Tappara Tampere Tappara (; Finnish for "Battle axe") is a Finnish professional ice hockey team playing in the Liiga. They play at '' Tampere Deck Arena'' in Tampere, Finland. The team has won 18 Finnish league championships (1959, 1961, 1964, 1975, 1977, 1979, ...

. After three seasons there and a strong performance in the national team, especially in the 1992

IIHF World Championships The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). First officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics, it is the sport's highest profile annual ...

from which Team Finland came home with silver medals, he signed with the

Calgary Flames The Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. The Flames compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and ...

. All in all, Viitakoski appeared in 23

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

games with the Flames in the 1993–94, 94–95 and 95–96 seasons, scoring two goals and providing four assists. He also played 198 AHL games as a member of the

Saint John Flames The Saint John Flames were a Canadian ice hockey team in the American Hockey League from 1993 to 2003 in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. The Calgary Flames bought and relocated the Utica Devils, to be their AHL affiliate. History The Saint J ...

and

Cornwall Aces The Cornwall Aces were the American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate of the National Hockey League's Quebec Nordiques from 1993 to 1995 and the relocated Colorado Avalanche in 1995–96. They were based in the eastern Ontario city of Cornwall and pla ...

squads, with a point total of 72+106=178. Despite this consistent strong performance in the AHL he never broke through in the NHL; this has been attributed to disfavor by the then head coach Dave King. Abandoning hope for an NHL career, Viitakoski returned to Europe to play for

HV71 HV71 (), often referred to as just HV, is a Swedish professional ice hockey club based in Jönköping, playing in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), the first tier of Swedish ice hockey. The team played in the 2008–09 Champions Hockey League ...

in the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

Elitserien during the 1996–1997 season. After one season there he came back to Finland and Tampere, but not to Tappara but their local rival,

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 ...

. Since then, Viitakoski played in Ilves, except for one and a half seasons spent in

Brynäs IF Brynäs IF is a Swedish ice hockey team from Gävle. The club currently plays in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), the top tier of ice hockey in Sweden. The club has played in the top-tier league since 1960, longer than any other team. History B ...

of the Elitserien, in 2004–05, until he signed with Kärpät in April 2008.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

External links

* 1971 births Living people Calgary Flames draft picks Calgary Flames players Finnish ice hockey left wingers Saint John Flames players Cornwall Aces players Ilves players People from Lappeenranta SaiPa players Tappara players Sportspeople from South Karelia {{Finland-icehockey-winger-stub