Julia Liikala (born 20 March 2001) is a Finnish

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 ...

winger and member of the Finnish national ice hockey team. She is signed with the Hockey Club Ambrì-Piotta Girls (HCAP Girls) of the Swiss Women's League (SWHL A) for the 2024–25 season.

Playing career

Liikala was born and raised in

Peräseinäjoki Peräseinäjoki () is a List of former municipalities of Finland, former municipality of Finland. It merged with the town of Seinäjoki on January 1, 2005. It was located in the provinces of Finland, province of Western Finland and is part of th ...

, which was merged with

Seinäjoki Seinäjoki (; "Wall River"; , formerly ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of South Ostrobothnia. Seinäjoki is located in the western interior of the country and along the Seinäjoki (river), River Seinäjoki. The population of Sein ...

in 2005. As a child, she began playing ice hockey with the local club, S-Kiekko. Her debut in a women's league came at age 13, in a

Naisten Suomi-sarja The Naisten Suomi-sarja (), distinguished as the Jääkiekon naisten Suomi-sarja (), is the third-tier women's national ice hockey league in Finland. It was established by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association in 2003 and is the lowest tier of natio ...

game between S-Kiekko and the Kisa-Eagles on 7 February 2015, where she scored the sixth goal in a 10–0

whitewash Whitewash, calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, asbestis or lime paint is a type of paint made from slaked lime ( calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) or chalk (calcium carbonate, CaCO3), sometimes known as "whiting". Various other additives are sometimes ...

. At age 16, Liikala considered joining

Team Kuortane Team Kuortane is an ice hockey team in the Auroraliiga, the premier women's hockey league in Finland. They are based at the Kuortaneen urheilulukio in Kuortane, a small town in South Ostrobothnia, and play at the (). The team was founded by the ...

of the

Kuortaneen urheilulukio Kuortaneen lukio ja urheilulukio or the Kuortane Lukio and Sports Academy is a general and sports-specialised , or school, in Kuortane, Finland. The sports academy is overseen by the Finnish Olympic Committee and affiliated with the Kuortane Oly ...

Kuortane Kuortane is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the South Ostrobothnia region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The neighboring municipalities of Kuortane are ...

, east of Seinäjoki, where a significant number of players from the Finnish national U18 team played and attended secondary school (). Ultimately, she felt that Kuortane was too close to home and opted instead to sign with

HPK Kiekkonaiset HPK Kiekkonaiset () or HPK Naiset are an ice hockey team in the Auroraliiga, the premier women's ice hockey league in Finland. They play in Hämeenlinna, a city in the Finnish south-central province of Kanta-Häme, at the (HML hh; ), a secondar ...

and continue her studies in

Hämeenlinna Hämeenlinna (; ; ; or ''Croneburgum'') is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Kanta-Häme. It is located in the southern interior of the country and on the shores of Vanajavesi, Lake Vanajavesi. The population of Hämeenlinna is appr ...

, away.

International play

As a

junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Aircraft * Ekolot JK-05L Junior, a Polish ultralight aircraft * PZL-112 Junior, a Polish training aircraft * SZD-51 Junior, a Polish-made training and club glider Arts and entertainment Characters * Bowser Jr., ...

player with the Finnish national U18 team, Liikala participated in three

IIHF World Women's U18 Championships The IIHF U18 Women's World Championship, officially the IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women's World Championship, is an annual ice hockey tournament for national women's under-18 (U18) ice hockey teams, administered by the International Ice Hockey Feder ...

, winning a bronze medal in

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

. In 2019, Finnish national team head coach, Pasi Mustonen, described Liikala as having an extremely high potential of earning a roster position on the team for the

2022 Winter Olympics The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Beijing 2022 (2022), were an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beijing, China, and surrounding areas wit ...

and she was selected to represent Finland at the

2020 IIHF Women's World Championship The 2020 IIHF Women's World Championship was scheduled to be an international ice hockey tournament run by the International Ice Hockey Federation. It was scheduled to be contested in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax and Truro, Nova Scotia, Truro, Ca ...

. She was officially named to the roster on 4 March 2020, prior to the cancellation of the tournament on 7 March 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. She had previously appeared with the national team at all of the tournaments of the 2019–20 Women's Euro Hockey Tour. Liikala ultimately made her

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

debut in

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, recording two assists in seven games and winning bronze. As predicted, she was selected to represent

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

in the women's ice hockey tournament at the

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

and took home an Olympic bronze medal. She recorded her first World Championship goal in the preliminary round of the

2022 IIHF Women's World Championship The 2022 IIHF Women's World Championship was an international ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) which was contested in Herning and Frederikshavn, Denmark, from 25 August to 4 September 2022, at th ...

, the lone goal scored for Finland in a 1–4 loss to .

Statistics

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Liikala, Julia 2001 births Living people Finnish women's ice hockey forwards HIFK Naiset players HPK Kiekkonaiset players Ice hockey players at the 2022 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 2022 Winter Olympics Naisten Liiga All-Stars Olympic ice hockey players for Finland Olympic bronze medalists for Finland Olympic medalists in ice hockey Sportspeople from Seinäjoki Ice hockey people from South Ostrobothnia 21st-century Finnish sportswomen