Karoliina Stina Margaretha Rantamäki (born 23 February 1978) 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 ...

forward. She plays in the

Auroraliiga The is the national premier league for women's ice hockey in Finland. Founded by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association as the Naisten Suomen mestaruus, SM-sarja (NSMs; ) in 1982, it was known as the Naisten Liiga (NSML;) from 2017 until being rebr ...

with

Kiekko-Espoo Kiekko-Espoo is a Finnish professional ice hockey club founded in 2018 as a continuation of the Kiekko-Espoo team originally founded in 1984. Kiekko-Espoo men's team plays in the Liiga, where they were promoted for the 2024–25 Liiga season, 20 ...

. Rantamäki holds the all-time career record for games played with the Finnish women's national ice hockey team, having played in 256 top level international matches. She represented Finland at five

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

and won bronze medals in the women's ice hockey tournaments in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

and

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

. She also represented Finland at thirteen IIHF World Women's Championships and earned eight World Championship bronze medals (

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

). Rantamäki has played with national championship winning teams in both the in Finland and the

Zhenskaya Hockey League The Zhenskaya Hockey League or ZhHL (), officially called the Women's Hockey League (WHL), is a professional ice hockey league in Russia, currently comprising eight teams. The league is also known as the PariMatch Women's Hockey League for sponso ...

(ZhHL) in Russia and its predecessor, the Russian Women's Hockey League. 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 ...

trophy for

Most Valuable Player In team sports, a most valuable player (MVP) award is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particular competition, or ...

of the playoffs was renamed the Karoliina Rantamäki Award in the 2010–11 season and is awarded seasonally.

Playing career

Rantamäki also played for Finland at the 2010 Winter Olympics, and won a second bronze medal. She also won a bronze medal at the 2010 Four Nations Cup in St. John's, Newfoundland. She scored at 2:49 overtime to give Finland the bronze medal at the 2011 IIHF Women's World Championship. In addition, she played for SKIF Nizhny Novgorod.

Career statistics

References

External links

* * * 1978 births Living people Espoo Blues Naiset players Finnish women's ice hockey forwards HIFK Naiset players Ice hockey players at the 1998 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2002 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2006 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2010 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2014 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 1998 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 2010 Winter Olympics Naisten Liiga All-Stars Olympic bronze medalists for Finland Olympic ice hockey players for Finland Olympic medalists in ice hockey Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in Russia HC SKIF players Ice hockey people from Espoo {{Finland-Winter-Olympic-medalist-stub