Canadian defenseman Brad Hunt, 37, has signed a one-year contract
with Vaasan Sport, the Finnish Liiga club announced on Friday.
After playing his
entire career to this point in North America, including parts of 10
NHL seasons, this is Hunt’s first contract to play in Europe.
“Brining
Brad to Vaasa is fanstastic,” said club sports diractor Ari-Pekka
Pajuluoma, who was told that Hunt is “an experienced and seasoned team
player” by Joel Kiviranta, a former Sport forward who was
Hunt’s teammate in the Colorado
Avalanche organization.
“He
has been a very popular person in every team he has played for, but
we expect, above all, good play on the ice from Brad,” Pajuluoma
continued. “His strengths lie in the game with the puck, and in
addition, he has an incredible shot from the point, so we also expect
him to have a role on the power play.”
Born
in the Vancouver suburb of Maple Ridge, B.C., Hunt played four years
of college hockey at Bemidji State
University. Never drafted by an NHL team, he signed with the AHL’s
Chicago Wolves in the spring of 2012.
Hentrik Zetterberg Returns Home to Timrå in the SHL
Detroit Red Wings legend Henrik Zetterberg
is back in hockey. The 2008 Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy winner has taken
on an advisory role with his former club Timrå IK in Sweden’s SHL.
Between
2013 and 2023, Hunt played 288 NHL regular-season games for the
Edmonton Oilers, St.
Louis Blues, Nashville
Predators, Vegas Golden Knights,
Minnesota Wild, Vancouver
Canucks and Colorado, recording 86 points and 52 penalty minutes.
He also played five playoff games for Minnesota and Colorado,
incurring one minor penalty.
He spent the entire
2024-25 season in the AHL with the Hershey Bears, recording 20 points
in 43 regular-season and playoff games.
To be able to afford
Hunt’s contract, the Vaasan Sport club had to raise over 90,000
euros (approx $105,000 US) from a combination of sponsors and
donations from fans.
Mattias Norlinder returns to Sweden; donations raised to pay contract
Swedish defenseman Mattias Norlinder, 24, has signed a two-year contract with MoDo Hockey, the SHL club announced on Wednesday. Norlinder previously played with the club from 2016 to 2020 at the U16 and U18 levels and also played 55 games in the second-tier professional HockeyAllsvenskan, where he recorded 34 points.
“Without
the
community’s campaign, this
player signing would not have been possible for us,” Pajuluoma
explained.
“This shows what is possible with a community pulling in the same
direction, and this was good proof of how special our community in
Vaasa is.”
The
Liiga season has already started and Vaasan Sport has played two
games, beating Kärpät Oulu 3-0
on the road and then losing its home opener 3-2 to TPS Turku on
Friday. Since being promoted to the
top-tier Liiga in 2014, the team has never finished better than 10th
place. Last season, despite an 11th-place regular-season finish,
Sport won a play-in series and advanced to the quarterfinals for the
first time.
The
club made big news in the off-season when it signed 20-year-old Topi
Rönni, a former Calgary
Flames second-round draft pick who was convicted of rape
in 2024, to a two-year contract. After a strong negative response
from the Finnish media and public, the
contract was terminated two weeks later. Rönni signed soon thereafter with Hungarian ICEHL club Ferencvárosi TC.
Topi Rönni’s Contract With Finnish Club Terminated Due To Public Uproar
Finnish
center Topi Rönni, who
recently
signed as a free agent with Liiga club
Vaasan Sport, has agreed to part ways
with the club after the signing drew intense criticism from the
Finnish public and media.
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