Eetu Sopanen (born 24 April 1996) is a Finnish former

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

defenceman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from Goal (ice hockey), scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the l ...

. He last played with

KalPa Kalevan Pallo (KalPa) is a professional ice hockey team which competes in the Finnish Liiga. They play in Kuopio, Finland at the Niiralan monttu, Olvi Areena. Team history Established in 1929 as ''Sortavalan Palloseura'' in Sortavala, the club r ...

in the Finnish

Liiga The Liiga, colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. The league comprises 16 teams from all around Finland with relegation and promotion between the Mesti ...

. He was part of Finland's gold medal winning U20 team at the

2016 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships The 2016 World Junior Ice Hockey Championship was the 40th Ice Hockey World Junior Championship. It was hosted in Helsinki, Finland. It began on December 26, 2015, and ended with the gold medal game on January 5, 2016. This marked the sixth time ...

, however he only got to play 3 games before suffering a knee injury. Sopanen made his

debut playing with

Lahti Pelicans The Lahti Pelicans are a Finnish professional ice hockey team playing in the Liiga, Finland. Founded in 1996, they play in the city of Lahti at Isku Arena. The team is co-owned by (among others) former National Hockey League (NHL) goaltender Pasi ...

during the

2014–15 Liiga season The 2014–15 SM-liiga season was the 40th season of the SM-liiga, the top level of ice hockey in Finland, since the league's formation in 1975. Teams Regular season Top six advanced straight to quarter-finals, while teams between 7th and 10th p ...

. He moved to

for the 2016-17 Liiga season. During a Liiga game between KalPa and

SaiPa SAIPA (, ''SAIPA'') is an Iranian automaker headquartered in Tehran. The SAIPAC (an acronym for the French ''Société anonyme iranienne de production des automobiles Citroën'' lit. ''Iranian Limited Company for the Production of Citroën Autom ...

, Sopanen suffered an injury, falling and hitting his head on his teammate's foot, which forced him to end his career at the age of 20.

References

External links

* 1996 births Living people Finnish ice hockey defencemen Iisalmen Peli-Karhut players KalPa players Lahti Pelicans players Peliitat Heinola players Ice hockey people from Kouvola Ice hockey players at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics Youth Olympic gold medalists for Finland 21st-century Finnish sportsmen {{Finland-icehockey-defenceman-stub