Emilia Kyrkkö (born 24 February 2004) is a Finnish

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

goaltender In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as goalie or netminder) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their own team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays ...

and member of the Finnish national team. She has played

college ice hockey College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America. In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the go ...

with the St. Cloud State Huskies women's ice hockey program since 2024.

Playing career

Kyrkkö began playing

ringette Ringette is a winter team sport played on an ice rink using ice hockey skates, straight sticks with drag-tips, and a blue, rubber, pneumatic ring designed for use on ice surfaces. While the sport was originally created exclusively for female c ...

as a child in

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

. At age nine or ten, she joined the youth department of , the ringette side of the multi-sport club Nokian Urheilijat (NoU). In the 2015–16 season with NoU under-16 (U16), she played as a skater and was the youngest player on the team but she had fully switched to goaltending by the following season, which she played with NoU U14. She continued playing ringette as a net minder with various youth teams of NoU and BLD Ringette, ultimately playing seven seasons of the sport.

Youth

Around age eleven, Sanni Vanhanen invited her to practice with the boys' ice hockey team Vanhanen played on in the youth department of and Kyrkkö decided to join as the only other girl on the team. HC Nokia youth teams played in two or more skill levels (AAA, AA, A, etc.; ''see

minor ice hockey Minor ice hockey or minor hockey is an umbrella term for amateur ice hockey which is played below the junior age level. Players are classified by age, with each age group playing in its own league. The rules, especially as it relates to body c ...

'') of an age class and each team’s players would be rotated through the various levels on a week-by-week basis while continuing to practice as a single unit. This system gave Kyrkkö the opportunity to tend goal at three skill levels in the E1 (U12) leagues and two skill levels in the D2 (U13) leagues during 2016–17 season.

Naisten Liiga

Ahead of the 2020–21 season, Kyrkkö joined Team Kuortane, the national women's development program of the

Finnish Ice Hockey Association The Finnish Ice Hockey Association (, ) is the sport governing body, governing body of ice hockey in Finland. Since the late 1980s, Finland has enjoyed a period of success on the international stage and, , the Finland men's national ice hockey t ...

. Members of the team attend and live at the

Kuortaneen urheilulukio Kuortaneen lukio ja urheilulukio or the Kuortane Lukio and Sports Academy is a general and sports-specialised , or school, in Kuortane, Finland. The sports academy is overseen by the Finnish Olympic Committee and affiliated with the Kuortane Oly ...

, where they balance studies with 20–25 hours per week of training in addition to playing in the Naisten Liiga, the elite women's national league in Finland.

NCAA

In March 2023,

Mira Jalosuo Mira Jalosuo (born 3 February 1989) is a Finnish ice hockey player and head coach for the St. Cloud State women's ice hockey team. She previously served as an assistant coach to the Minnesota Frost of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL ...

, an assistant coach with the St. Cloud State Huskies women's ice hockey program and former Finnish national team player, indicated Kyrkkö had committed to play

St. Cloud State University St. Cloud State University (SCSU) is a public university in St. Cloud, Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1869, the university is one of the largest institutions in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. In the fall of 2023, it ...

as an incoming

freshman A freshman, fresher, first year, or colloquially frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational in ...

for the 2024–25 season.

International play

Kyrkkö served as the flag bearer for

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

in the opening ceremony of the

2020 Winter Youth Olympics The 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games (; ; ; ), officially known as the III Winter Youth Olympic Games and commonly known as Lausanne 2020 (Italian and Romansh: ''Losanna 2020''), were the third edition of the Winter Youth Olympics; a major int ...

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

. She participated in the 3x3 mixed NOC tournament as the only female ice hockey player representing Finland at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics. With Team Black, a mixed

National Olympic Committee A National Olympic Committee (NOC) is a national constituent of the worldwide Olympic movement. Subject to the controls of the International Olympic Committee, NOCs are responsible for organizing their people's participation in the Olympic Games ...

(NOC) team of thirteen players from thirteen nations, she won a silver medal in the tournament. As a

junior ice hockey Junior ice hockey is amateur-level ice hockey for 16 to 20 year-old players. National Junior teams compete annually for the IIHF World Junior Championship. The United States men's national junior ice hockey team are the defending champions from ...

player with the Finnish national under-18 team, Kyrkkö participated in the

2022 IIHF U18 Women's World Championship The 2022 IIHF U18 Women's World Championship was the 14th IIHF U18 Women's World Championship in ice hockey. On December 24, 2021, the tournament was cancelled for the second year in a row by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) due t ...

. She played in four of Finland's five games, securing two shutouts in that span, and recorded a cumulative save percentage of 95.86, the best save percentage of all tournament goaltenders playing more than forty percent of their team's minutes. Her excellent performance helped Finland claim a bronze medal victory and Kyrkkö was selected Best Goaltender by the tournament directorate and named to the Media All Star team. The following year, Kyrkkö was named to Finland's senior national team for the

2023 IIHF Women's World Championship The 2023 IIHF Women's World Championship was the 22nd edition of the IIHF World Women's Championship, an international ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), contested in Brampton, Canada from 5 to 1 ...

as the third goaltender behind Anni Keisala and Sanni Ahola. She did not play in any games during the tournament.

Personal life

Kyrkkö was born on 24 February 2004 in

, Finland. She grew up in Mutala, a village in the

Ylöjärvi Ylöjärvi () is a town in Finland, located in the Pirkanmaa region. It lies to the west of the regional capital, Tampere. The population of Ylöjärvi is approximately , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately . It is the m ...

municipality of Finland’s landlocked south-eastern

Pirkanmaa Pirkanmaa (; ; ), also known as ''Tampere Region'' in government documents, is a region of Finland. It borders the regions of Satakunta, South Ostrobothnia, Central Finland, Päijät-Häme, Kanta-Häme and Southwest Finland. Most of the wate ...

region, as the second-eldest of six siblings. Her younger brother, Julius (born 2005), was her teammate during the seasons she played in the youth department of HC Nokia. Kyrkkö's elder brother, Hugo (born 2003), has played as a defenseman with the under-20 team of

Lempäälän Kisa Lempäälän Kisa (LeKi) is an ice hockey team from Lempäälä, Finland. They currently compete in the Suomi-sarja. Their home Ice rink, rink is Masku Areena, which currently has a seating capacity of only 900 people. Retired numbers * 5 Vesa Pa ...

since 2021. Her younger sister, Fanny (born 2011), also a defenseman, made her junior national team debut at the 2025 IIHF U18 Women's World Championship. Away from ice hockey, she enjoys

video gaming Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

and frisbee golf.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

Awards and honors

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kyrkko, Emilia 2004 births Living people Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in the United States Finnish women's ice hockey goaltenders Ice hockey players at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics Medalists at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics Ice hockey people from Ylöjärvi St. Cloud State Huskies women's ice hockey players Team Kuortane players 21st-century Finnish sportswomen