Giving new meaning to “home and home”

Jake Virtanen hopes to ride the lessons he learned in the pros to the land of his ancestors

Jake Virtanen is having a pretty good 2015.

Only five days into the New Year he won a gold medal as a member of Canada’s National Junior Team at the 2015 IIHF World Junior Championship.

Less than five months later he was playing with the Utica Comets in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals during the American Hockey League playoffs, only his second game as a professional.

The Comets, the AHL affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks, would eventually fall in five games to the Manchester Monarchs in the Calder Cup Final, but in his 10 games with the team, Virtanen, the sixth overall pick in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft, picked up a season’s worth of lessons.

“It definitely helped me,” he says. ”You play in high-intensity games, in front of lots of fans. It’s something I’ll always remember – being an 18-year-old kid just going up and playing with the pros and getting a lot of experience was awesome.”

After his Western Hockey League team, the Calgary Hitmen, lost in the conference semifinals, Virtanen got the call to join the Comets. He spent a week-and-a-half just skating, there if the team needed him. An injury to a fellow forward got him in the lineup. Only a nasty flu eventually took him out of it. In 10 games Virtanen picked up one assist and posted a plus-two.

“I think [the pro experience] will help me in the future and it’s helped me now,” says Virtanen. Being put through intense practices and going up against more experienced competition provided a welcomed jolt. “I’m looking forward to seeing how the AHL compares, I guess, to the top Russians and Czechs [at summer camp].”

Last year Virtanen played a supporting role on Canada’s National Junior Team. He contributed a goal and three assists, including one in Canada’s gold medal game win over Russia at the World Juniors.

“It was just an unbelievable atmosphere in the rink in Toronto,” he says. “It’s something that’s going to be stuck in my head forever.”

The memory of that Monday night at the Air Canada Centre, and what it took to make it, is what he hopes to bring to Canada’s National Junior Team Sport Chek Summer Development Camp this week.

“I hope to be a leader,” says Virtanen, who last year was the third-youngest member of the team. “Being someone the guys can talk to on and off the ice, just if they need help they can talk to me.”

His firsthand knowledge from last year, as well as what he absorbed in Utica – the professional mindset, the importance of paying attention to every last detail and the value of doing the little things to make a big impact – will serve both himself and his potential teammates well.

“There are only five of us returning, so I want to bring that [World Juniors] experience to these guys, have fun and hopefully win another gold medal in Helsinki,” he says.

What Virtanen hopes to accomplish would be particularly sweet considering where it could happen. His dad, Rainer, was born in Finland and spent 10 of the first 15 years of his life there. Virtanen has dual citizenship.

The possibility of returning to his family’s roots has come up in the Virtanen household. It would give new meaning to the sporting phrase “home and home.”

“It would be pretty cool to win gold there,” says Virtanen. “I guess it would be kind of [like winning in] both of my homelands.”

Virtanen’s first trip to Finland was in April 2014 as a member of Canada’s National Men’s Under-18 Team. His paternal grandparents made the trip with him and family members who still live there came to cheer him on.

The World Juniors have always been a big deal in the Virtanen home. Jake and his brother, Stefan, can still recite the commentary from memorable goals by Jonathan Toews and Jordan Eberle. In 2006, the Abbotsford, B.C., native was able to attend a few games when the event was in Vancouver. And, of course, last year, he was on the ice in Montreal and Toronto.

“There’s already enough motivation to play on Team Canada and represent your country,” he says. “But especially in Finland, it would be nice to go back there and see family.”

After waiting nearly 18 years to see the land of his ancestors, he’s hoping only 16 months will pass between his first and second visit – and even less time between World Juniors gold.