In the Vancouver Canucks’ first season in 1970-71, they nearly had the first Finnish player in the NHL.<\/p>\n
The Vancouver Canucks are known for their Swedish stars, but the first European player in their history was nearly a Finn.<\/p>\n
Before B\u00f6rje Salming blazed a trail with the Toronto Maple Leafs as one of the first true European stars in the NHL, the Canucks came close to signing a European star of their own: the top player in Finland, Lasse Oksanen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll go to Sweden, Finland, even Russia \u2014 but we\u2019ll get players\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Canucks first joined the NHL in 1970, then-owner Tom Scallen was dismayed when they missed out on future Hall-of-Famer Gilbert Perreault to the spin of a carnival prize wheel<\/a>. He declared that his team would leave no stone unturned in their search for players.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sad and I\u2019m mad,\u201d said Scallen. \u201cWe received a setback here today but it makes us more determined than ever to go out and find our own talent. We\u2019ll go to Sweden, Finland, even Russia \u2014 but we\u2019ll get players.\u201d<\/p>\n In truth, it took until 1978 for the Canucks to add their first player from outside of North America when they brought in four Swedes at once \u2014 Thomas Gradin, Lars Lindgren, Lars Zetterstr\u00f6m, and Roland Eriksson \u2014 but it was not for lack of trying. In fact, at their very first training camp in Calgary<\/a>, the Canucks had two players from Finland listed among the 58 players on the camp roster: Jorma Peltonen and Lasse Oksanen, who were linemates for Ilves back in the top Finnish league at the time, the Finnish Championship Series.<\/p>\n Peltonen never showed. He notified the Canucks that he was going to stay home in Finland to look after his pregnant wife. Fair enough.<\/p>\n The Canucks also tried to bring Swedish defenceman Kjell-Rune Milton to camp; he decided to stay in Sweden, with general manager Bud Poile telling The Province\u2019s Clancy Loranger, \u201cOur offer wasn\u2019t high enough.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Both Milton and Peltonen stayed in Europe for their entire careers and never took another shot at the NHL, from what I can tell.<\/p>\n Oksanen, however, not only showed up at training camp in 1970 but also turned heads during the preseason, earning a contract offer from Poile.<\/p>\n \u201cYou had to do more than just play to make a living\u201d<\/p>\n Poile\u2019s contract offer was significant because Oksanen would have become the first Finnish-born-and-raised player in the NHL. While Finnish-born players played in the NHL before the Canucks joined the league, they were all Finns who had immigrated to North America as kids, like Albert Pudas and Pentti Lund.<\/p>\n Oksanen, on the other hand, was already a legend in Finland by the time he tried out for the Canucks. He was 27, about to turn 28 later that year, and had already represented Finland at two Olympics and four World Championships. He led Finland in scoring in the 1968 Olympics, putting up 5 goals and 8 points in 8 games.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In the 1969-70 season, Oksanen led the Finnish Championship Series with 32 goals in 22 games, and his 51 points were good for second behind only his Ilves teammate, Peltonen.<\/p>\n In other words, Oksanen had already established himself as a top-tier hockey player, albeit in an amateur league that allowed him to maintain eligibility to play in the Olympics. That meant Oksanen didn\u2019t make a living playing hockey. Instead, he owned and operated a gas station in Tampere next door to the Hakamets\u00e4 rink, where Ilves played their home games.<\/p>\n \u201cMy friends knew me and came up to me and asked what I was doing,\u201d said Oksanen a few years ago to Aamulehti<\/a>, recalling a time when a few of his Soviet rivals on the ice saw him at the gas station. \u201cI said this was my job. They didn’t really understand. They were full-time professionals. We in Finland were semi-professionals. You had to do more than just play to make a living. That’s why Finland didn’t really do well compared to its eastern neighbor at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s understandable, then, that Oksanen might take the bold step of heading to North America to try his hand at playing professionally. He and Peltonen hired a Toronto lawyer to represent them and made the connection with the expansion Canucks.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has a few of the best moves I\u2019ve seen in Canada\u201d<\/p>\n When Peltonen backed out of the trip to Calgary, it was tough for Oksanen, whose skills with the English language were limited.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 170-pound Finnish import arrived here knowing just one word of English,\u201d noted The Province\u2019s Tom Watt. \u201cThe word is \u2018food.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Hockey Hall of Famer Babe Pratt, who was working for the Canucks in an advisory and public relations capacity, stepped in to try to help Oksanen out. No one on or around the team could speak Finnish, so he put out the call to all of Calgary.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, first I called every steam-bath in town. Lots of masseuses, but no luck. I mean with the Finnish,\u201d said Pratt. \u201cThen I went on radio and made an appeal. Today, the area round the team hotel was like Little Helsinki. The kid\u2019s got so many dinner invitations he\u2019s taking along his friends to help.\u201d<\/p>\n While Oksanen\u2019s skills with language were limited, his skill with the puck was not. He dazzled both the sportswriters in the stands and head coach Hal Laycoe in training camp.<\/p>\n \u201cChances are that Lasse is not likely to be going home this year,\u201d said Watt. \u201c[He] impressed everyone with his general good play and then scored what Hal Laycoe described as the best goal of the camp. Oksanen took the puck in full flight, walked around a defenceman and whipped a blistering wrist shot into the top lefthand corner. It was a professional\u2019s goal all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think either of our goaltenders, George Gardner or Dunc Wilson, have seen many better moves than the ones Oksanen put on them today,\u201d said Laycoe.<\/p>\n Oksanen continued to impress during the preseason, playing on the top line with Orland Kurtenbach and Wayne Maki.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s an excellent hockey player,\u201d said Laycoe. \u201cHe has a real bag of tricks. He has a few of the best moves I\u2019ve seen in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n There was just one problem: Oksanen\u2019s gas station.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was too bleepin\u2019 expensive\u201d<\/p>\n Oksanen made it very clear to the Canucks that he would only sign a contract if they could ensure he would be playing in the NHL. He understandably wanted assurances that he wouldn\u2019t get sent down to the AHL to play for the Rochester Americans.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was a hockey decision and a financial decision. Oksanen wanted to ply his trade in the best league in the world. He wasn\u2019t a young prospect trying to prove himself; he was a 27-year-old man with heaps of international experience.<\/p>\n Financially speaking, the Canucks needed to make it worth his while to uproot his life from Finland. That meant a one-way contract, rather than a two-way contract that would pay him significantly less if he got sent down to the minors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Poile and the Canucks weren\u2019t willing to do that. They offered Oksanen a two-way contract and wouldn\u2019t budge from that offer.<\/p>\n \u201cOksanen says he\u2019ll go home if he doesn\u2019t stick with the NHL team, but Poile says Oksanen should be prepared to sign a two-way contract \u2014 major league and minor \u2014 like everybody else,\u201d said The Province\u2019s Clancy Loranger. \u201cHe\u2019s high on Oksanen\u2019s ability, but\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d like him to prove himself in a lesser league,\u201d said Laycoe, \u201cjust as we would with almost any boy in his position\u2026There isn\u2019t a guy out there who can come to us and say I\u2019ll play for you, but only in Vancouver.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just that he wanted a one-way contract, with assurances that he\u2019d play in the NHL, but that he wanted to be paid enough to make it worth his while to leave Finland.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Canucks had practically already used up their budget for that season,\u201d said Oksanen. \u201cThey offered me a contract that was less than what I was earning in Finland working at a gas station and playing.\u201d<\/p>\n When later asked why the Canucks didn\u2019t sign Oksanen, Poile replied, \u201cHe was too bleepin\u2019 expensive,\u201d according to the Vancouver Sun\u2019s Archie McDonald.<\/p>\n It was reported years later that Oksanen\u2019s asking price was $50,000 per season. The Sun\u2019s Jim Kearney reported that Oksanen \u201ctold Bud Poile he needed that sum because he would have to pay someone to look after his stations while he wintered in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n In fairness, $50,000 was a lot in 1970. The Canucks had just cringed at signing their first-round draft pick, Dale Tallon, to a $60,000 per year contract, which was a rookie record at the time.<\/p>\n