Rantanen Calls Out Artturi Lehkonen's Dad in Post Game Interview

[Lempo]

Does he call out his own son too when he’s playing like ass?

Back in Montreal Artturi once had his head shaved for some cancer charity stuff, and upon hearing that old man Lehkonen's comment was "Better get used to it!", referring to the genes that will be playing merry hell for Artturi sooner than later.

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

Just trade everyone and hope Macklin is a good franchise starter for the next rendition of the team

 

[thomast]

Ismo have called out Artturi, his son multiple times. He has long coaching career, so he mostly commentates on team game.

He has Charles Barkley like approach when he talks about induvidual players. Says his honest opinion without much filtering. Stephen A. rarely says a bad word about people inside his inner circle. Barkley or Lehkonen doesen’t save anyone from criticism. Not suggesting Lehkonen being correct with his views most of the time, but it’s his job to comment his opinions related to hockey.

Artturi has nothing to do with the incident.

 

[Lempo]

Ismo Lehkonen trains Rantanen every summer and been his coach in youth teams, has expressed concerns of Rantanen might been burned out after plenty of hockey and also commitments outside ice during off season, meaning the training was not optimal. Ismo is also an analyst who probably feel some obligations to come up with an analyse here and there. Which in this case became a bigger thing than was intended, reached all the way across Atlantic sea.

Some people with insight says Rantanen was just stone face joking in the presser after the game. Since he knows Ismo very well, we can assume he is not pissed for real.

I guess Rantanen attending the WHC last May has an amount to do with it. The Skoda Cup is kind of a deal for the Finnish audience and consequently to some of the NHL players. Old man Lehkonen maybe gave here what he feels is the professional opinion of NHL player participating in so-called höntsä games when he should be resting and preparing for summer training.

Might even be about subtly putting the ball rolling for that discussion in Finland.

 

[NotCommitted]

Ismo Lehkonen's original comment (translation mine):
"Could it be that Mikko has hit a wall for the moment? He didn't have all that great summer. There was all kinds of "cat christenings", he had to be in Helsinki and so on. He probably intentionally lowered the revs of the engine after hard years, but maybe he didn't do sports quite the same way as previous summers"

Cat christening is a Finnish idiom for a party/event that's somehow trivial and a bit made up, not really as important as it's made out to be. Helsinki is like 100 miles from Turku where Rantanen spends his summers, for cultural context it might be important (or not) to know that there's this half-jesting thing where people from Turku still think their city is somehow specially important for having been the capital under Swedish rule over 200 years ago, so for a Turku native being in Helsinki might by default mean less focus in truly important things, like being in Turku...

AFAIK they also know each other personally through a very long time.

Just to provide some context. I'm not gonna speculate what it's all about, could be just exchanging friendly pokes through the media and having a bit of fun, or maybe Lehkonen was trying to provoke Rantanen a bit knowing the kind of response that would get, or maybe they are developing a blood feud, who knows.

EDIT: just to add, I don't know what Rantanen was doing in Helsinki in the summer... for a moment I thought it might have been about the WHC, but the games in Finland were played in Tampere.

 

[Murzu]

The interesting thing here is what @Murzu has to say about this. He's not just the number 1 Mikko Rantanen fan but also personal childhood friends with Rantanen. Why didn't he make sure Rantanen trained hard enough during the summer?! Especially since Rantanen went goalless in the word championship against countries like Lithuania, Slovenia and Croatia...

Mikko was way too stressed after carrying the team on his shoulders last season. Now I know I did wrong when I didn't push hard enough for him to train but he needed a mental reset.

 

[Winged Wheel Willy]

Back in Montreal Artturi once had his head shaved for some cancer charity stuff, and upon hearing that old man Lehkonen's comment was "Better get used to it!", referring to the genes that will be playing merry hell for Artturi sooner than later.

Sounds like an old school hammer and anvil kinda guy…Good!

 

[LOFIN]

Sounds like an old school hammer and anvil kinda guy…Good!

He is. One of the most infamous situations in Finnish hockey happened when he was coaching HIFK in SM-Liiga. Jussi Pesonen of JYP hit Marek Stepanek of HIFK hard to the boards, no call. TV cameras caught Lehkonen yelling from the bench "Pesonen is going to get it now, and hard!". Soon after, HIFK player Veli-Pekka Kautonen instigated a fight with Pesonen and beat him up pretty hard. Lehkonen got a 10 game suspension for ordering the fight, Kautonen got a 5 game suspension from that beat up. Video below (0.28 mark):


As for the thread itself, Lehkonen is working as an analyst on multiple Finnish media platform, he's doing a few podcasts as well. He's kinda just doing his job. Maybe these comments were a bit off the rails, and thus got Mikko's attention. But I doubt he's actually too mad about it.

 

[joestevens29]

Who the hell calls out a PPG player for his summer training? Especially on a team that is top 10 in the league in the standings?

Seems like such poor timing, which makes it even worse that his son plays on the team.

 

[Frank the Tank]

both of them are stupid but that is absolutely pathetic from rantanen. like cmon man you've got tens of millions in the bank, a superstar athlete, what the f*** do you care about someone's dad's words? grow up. third party drama by proxy like this is some high school girl shit.

You should watch The Last Dance miniseries.

 

[Lempo]

Cat christening is a Finnish idiom for a party/event that's somehow trivial and a bit made up, not really as important as it's made out to be.

Yes. Actually I found one great definition in English, which may be specifically applicable here, referring to the special Sex and the City kind of intentional and forced social butterflying:

"Kissanristiäiset - cat's christening. Means whatever social event which is more about being seen and appearing to do something worthwhile than actually an event you'd care to attend. Especially if it's a glitzy event with jetsetting celebrities without much substance."

Maybe Ika felt that Rantanen would've used his time better last summer training than whatever it was that he did.

 

[BonMorrison]

Only one man can solve this.

 

[Buck Naked]

Yes. Actually I found one great definition in English, which may be specifically applicable here, referring to the special Sex and the City kind of intentional and forced social butterflying:

"Kissanristiäiset - cat's christening. Means whatever social event which is more about being seen and appearing to do something worthwhile than actually an event you'd care to attend. Especially if it's a glitzy event with jetsetting celebrities without much substance."

Maybe Ika felt that Rantanen would've used his time better last summer training than whatever it was that he did.

This is my new favorite expression! I wonder why it never caught on in Sweden since we are so close.

 

[Voodoo Child]

Shooting off about Rantanen, ok why?

EDIT: And you don’t become Mikko Rantanen because you think ‘I should have went to less cat christenings.’, a Finnish idiom for party but looks like an excellent slang word for something else.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Nah. He's a winger. They don't impact the game like Centers or Dmen do. And he's about to be making $13M on his retirement contract.


It's already a debate on the Avs board even before this news today. Wingers are not that valuable and you really don't want to be paying a winger insane money.


If the Avs had the opportunity to trade Rantanen for a another quality Top 6 Center they should absolutely consider it.

Okay Mr. Lehkonen

 

[snag]

Back in Montreal Artturi once had his head shaved for some cancer charity stuff, and upon hearing that old man Lehkonen's comment was "Better get used to it!", referring to the genes that will be playing merry hell for Artturi sooner than later.

 

[Panteras]

Well, the awkwardness started when Lehkonen’s dad decided to say those things publicly knowing his son and Ranta are teammates. If I was Artturi I would’ve reprimanded my dad and talked to Ranta about it to clear the situation up. With Ranta now making a public reply it leads me to believe that Artturi didn’t care to clear the situation up. Or , if he did, then now that would make Ranta look like a dbag.

 

[dirtydanglez]

love it. call out the doubters.

 

[CupofOil]

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

Right response from Mikko! Show us what you can do!

 

[Ezpz]

If his son didn't play with him you think he would be calling him out? There's once degree of separation and it's his son.

Absolutely not his fault, just looks like a salty dad


55 goals, 100 pts. Led all forwards in pts on route to a cup.

Ya, that guy doesn't have enough of an impact

His dad is a famous hockey media personality in Finland with one of the most tenured coaching careers in Liiga history. It's likely he was asked about it directly.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

So what’s the breakdown of the whole situation? Bizarre and not a good look. An interesting interview, I suppose lol

Father Of Player Gives His Analysis Of Rantanen, Current Avalanche

The 2023-24 version of the Colorado Avalanche are a confusing bunch. On Sunday night, they officially lost the lead in the Central Division for the first time in a little while, as the Winnipeg Jets moved into first place with a win over the Anaheim Ducks. The Central is now getting even tighter...

coloradohockeynow.com

This was the catalyst

His dad is a famous hockey media personality in Finland with one of the most tenured coaching careers in Liiga history. It's likely he was asked about it directly.

He talked about Colorado's situation pretty openly in a Finnish article. In this case maybe too openly causing a bit of drama.

 

[ThirdPeriodTurtle]

I guess we can follow AI translation progress by using "kissanristiäiset" and see if it comes out as "cross-dressing" or something else. Watch this space... (Google is already more correct, so dunno where the Twitter folks even got that...)

Helsinki is like 100 miles from Turku where Rantanen spends his summers, for cultural context it might be important (or not) to know that there's this half-jesting thing where people from Turku still think their city is somehow specially important for having been the capital under Swedish rule over 200 years ago, so for a Turku native being in Helsinki might by default mean less focus in truly important things, like being in Turku...

Love it.

Anyhow, my take on this just based on being Finnish and kinda knowing the culture:

1. Rantanen doesn't seem to be joking, he seems serious (somebody posted the Valtteri Bottas F* You thing, seems like similar feelings here).

2. Artturi has nothing to do with this and the relationship between Artturi and Rantanen is going to be just fine, they'll laugh it off the next time they meet; everybody knows Artturi's dad is what he is and Artturi knows it better than anybody (and as others have said, probably gives Mikko a high five afterwards, lol). I think all the Finns here can agree that this part is true no matter what, the situation is much different with these two players than with some other random players.

3. Once he calms down a bit, Rantanen will brush it off and it's going to be fine. He'll give some s*it to Lehky's dad on the phone or the next time they meet but it's not going to affect the long-term relationships of anybody. I bet Rantanen will be training with Lehky's dad in the summer again.

4. It could all still be a joke, but usually a Finnish guy joking has at least some discernible tongue in cheek, whether it shows up in the face or just a little in the voice or the way things are said, but here saying "shit's going to come back to you" just doesn't seem like a humorous jab to me, more like an emotional "I showed ya". Just goes to show that even the Finnish players are human beings and not machines, and things said can sometimes get under their skin. It's a nothingburger with fries on the side and once those fries are gone, everything's fine again.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

I still can’t tell if this is serious or not. If so, Rantanan makes 9 mil a year, he should understand with that comes criticism that needs to be ignored

Colorado is very private organisation. Usually you hear nothing. That's why he is probably shocked. Usually fans know nothing. Lehkonens father has given us a bit of inner look, more than what we are used to.

A bit different if you play for the Rangers or something or Leafs

 

[Number8]

Lots and lots of handwringing here. Has anyone considered it might have played out like this?

Rantanen: Your dad is talking shit about me.
Lehkonen: My dad always talks shit, it's his thing.
Rantanen: It pisses me off.
Lehkonen: I get it and understand. My dad can be a total dick. Still he's my dad and I love him
Rantanen: I'm gonna rip him in the media.
Lehkonen: Do it. He's a big boy. I'd do same thing myself if I were you.
Rantanen: You and I? We're good?
Lehkonen: Absolutely. Sorry he's being a pain in the ass again.

Not saying it did, but a lot of you are automatically assuming it's WW3 in the Avs lockerroom right now. I guarantee you it's not first time Lehkonen has caught shit for something his father has said. Hockey is a small world and his dad sounds like a total piece of work.