Viivi Vainikka

Viivi Vainikka (born 23 December 2001) is a Finnish ice hockey player and member of the Finnish national team, currently playing in the Swedish Women's Hockey League (Swedish: Svenska damhockeyligan; SDHL) with Luleå HF/MSSK.^[1]

Viivi Vainikka
Born	(2001-12-23) 23 December 2001 (age 23) Espoo, Uusimaa, Finland
Height	1.66 m (5 ft 5 in)
Weight	67 kg (148 lb; 10 st 8 lb)
Position	Left wing
Shoots	Left
SDHL team Former teams	Luleå HF/MSSK Team Kuortane
National team	Finland
Playing career	2016–present
Medal record Olympic Games 2022 Beijing Ice hockey World Championship 2019 Finland 2021 Canada 2024 United States

Playing career

Vainikka began playing hockey at the age of five.^[2] She made her debut in the Naisten Liiga, the top flight of Finnish women's hockey at the age of 15 with Team Kuortane. Across four years with the team, she scored 129 points in 112 games. After scoring a career-best 52 points in 30 games in the 2018–19 season, including 28 goals, she won the Emma Laaksonen Award for fair play.

She left Finland to sign a two-year contract with Luleå HF/MSSK in Sweden ahead of the 2020–21 SDHL season, joining the roster with the highest concentration of Finnish national team players in the world, Finland included.^[3] She scored twice in her first two SDHL games.^[4] In November 2020, along with four other Finnish national team and Luleå teammates, she was forced to miss several SDHL games while being quarantined under Finnish law after a national team camp where a player tested positive for COVID-19.^[5]

International

Vainikka won silver with the Finnish national team at the 2019 Women's World Championship.^[6][7] She was officially named to the Finnish roster for the 2020 Women's World Championship on 4 March 2020, prior to the cancellation of the tournament International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) on 7 March 2020 due to public health concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.^[8][9]

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

				Regular season						Playoffs
Season	Team	League		GP	G	A	Pts	PIM		GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
2016–17	Team Kuortane	Naisten SM-sarja		28	5	7	12	4		2	0	0	0	0
2017–18	Team Kuortane	Naisten Liiga		24	9	15	24	2		8	4	7	11	0
2018–19	Team Kuortane	Naisten Liiga		30	26	15	41	6		4	2	2	4	0
2019–20	Team Kuortane	Naisten Liiga		30	28	24	52	6		8	12	6	18	8
2020–21	Luleå/MSSK	SDHL		32	13	14	27	22		9	4	4	8	4
2021–22	Luleå/MSSK	SDHL		36	17	22	39	4		12	5	4	9	0
2022–23	Luleå/MSSK	SDHL		32	23	18	41	6		8	5	6	11	0
Naisten Liiga totals				84	63	54	117	14		20	18	15	33	8
SDHL totals				100	53	54	107	32		29	14	14	28	4

International

Year	Team	Event	Result		GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
2017	Finland U18	WW18	5		3	0	0	0	0
2018	Finland U18	WW18	5		5	2	2	4	0
2019	Finland U18	WW18			6	2	4	6	2
2019	Finland	WW			7	1	3	4	0
2021	Finland	WW			7	1	0	1	0
2022	Finland	OG			6	2	1	3	2
2022	Finland	WW	6th		7	2	2	4	0
2023	Finland	WW	5th		7	5	5	10	0
Junior totals					14	4	6	10	2
Senior totals					34	11	11	22	2

Sources: ^[10][11]

Awards and honors

Award	Year
Naisten Liiga
Finnish Championship Bronze Medal	2018
Emma Laaksonen Award	2020
All-Star – Second Team	2020
Player of the Month	January 2020
SDHL
Swedish Championship Gold Medal	2021, 2022
International
World U18 Championship Bronze Medal	2019
World Championship Silver Medal	2019
World Championship Bronze Medal	2021
Olympic Bronze Medal	2022