Item No. 1: A football Finn
It’s not every day that
Blue Jackets 6-foot-5 forward
Patrik Laine looks up to make eye contact. He’s a towering figure in most
NHL dressing rooms, but that changed this week when a mountainous 18-year-old walked through the doors.
Olaus Alinen, a 6-7, 315-pound offensive lineman from Finland, spent a few days last week with Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen and his family. Kekalainen is friends with Finnish football legend Klaus Alinen, Olaus’ father.
It was all part of an unofficial visit to Ohio State, which is one of more than 40 FBS programs with scholarship offers on the table for Alinen. He’s currently a senior at Loomis Chafee School, a college prep boarding school in Windsor, Conn.
“I was really impressed with him,” Kekalainen said. “I’m not a football expert, and I’m not going to try to be, but I was impressed with him as a person, just how mature he was and how he seemed to be handling the process he’s going through, with so many scholarship offers.
“Hopefully he comes to Ohio State and makes us football fans, too. It was an unofficial visit, but I was happy to help. Finns stick together.”
Early last week, Kekalainen went to OSU with Alinen to watch a spring practice and take a tour of the facilities.
“It was really a great experience,” Kekalainen said. “Wow, what a freakin’ facility they have. Just unbelievable. I’ve been in NFL locker rooms, I’ve been in baseball (clubhouses) — it’s been a little while — but I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Kekalainen then brought Alinen into the Blue Jackets’ dressing room to meet Laine and goaltender
Joonas Korpisalo, the two Finns on the club. Korpisalo and Alinen are both from Pori, on the west coast of Finland against the Baltic Sea.
“(Olaus) wears a size 17 shoe,” Kekalainen said. “He played goalie when he was younger, but they couldn’t get him big enough skates anymore, so he had to quit playing hockey.”
He seems to have made the right choice. Alinen, considered a four-star prospect, has offers from Alabama, Georgia, Miami, USC, Stanford, Ohio State and others. He’s making more unofficial visits in the coming weeks.
“That’s a big, big boy,” Laine said with a big smile. “Hopefully he comes (to school) here so we can get a little more Finnish presence in this town.
“It would be fun going to the games now and then to see a Finnish guy play. He’s in a great position where he can choose wherever he wants to go. If he decides to come here, I could try to help him out, if he has any questions.”
Klaus Alinen, a tight end, played in a few preseason games with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, but mostly stayed in Finland, where he had a Hall of Fame career. Finland has its own seven-team league, the Vaahteraliiga, which was founded in 1980.
No Finnish-born player has ever played in an NFL game, Kekalainen said, “but Olaus might be the first.”
Alinen is expected to make an official visit to Ohio State this summer. He told
The Athletic that he had a great first visit to Columbus.
“It was seriously awesome to meet those players and have Mr. Kekalainen help during my visit,” he said. “(Laine and Koripisalo) are players I’ve watched growing up, doing great things, and I think really highly of them. It was really cool to meet them.
“I was able to see both Columbus and Ohio State on my visit. It’s a really good thing to have that Columbus connection. If I choose Ohio State, that could be really helpful.”
If Kekalainen helps Ohio State land their next great offensive lineman, you wonder if/how the Buckeyes might repay the favor. Maybe they’d let Kekalainen’s hockey team use that football stadium for an outdoor game some year.