Finland forward Tuomo Ruutu came into the 2014 Sochi Olympics with quite the track record when it came to international play.
In the 10 tournaments he’s played in including the Olympics, World Championships, and World Junior Championships, he’s been on 10 teams that have won a medal. That includes a bronze at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and a gold at the 2011 Worlds.
As Michael Smith at the Carolina Hurricanes site shares, Ruutu says familiarity helps the Finns on the world stage.
“It’s one of the strengths of Team Finland that most of the guys know each other well, and they’ve played with each other before,” Ruutu said. “We’re really good friends and really tight,” Ruutu said. “A lot of times it feels like, even though you haven’t seen guys for a couple of years, when you see them on the first day, you feel like you saw them yesterday and nothing has changed.”
So far things are going great for Finland after scoring in bunches in victories against Austria and Norway. We’ll see how much that camaraderie pays off for them on Sunday when they face Canada to see who finishes on top of their group.
