A time of quietness used to be held prior to each sport in Finland’s manage skilled hockey league Wednesday following the killing of former participant Janne Puhakka over the weekend.
Puhakka, a ahead who spent two years with the QMJHL’s Chicoutimi Sagueneens and performed professionally in Finland and France, used to be discovered shot to dying in his house on Sunday night time. He used to be 29.
Police arrested Puhakka’s former companion, Rolf Nordmo, a 66-year-old Norwegian veterinarian, and are carrying out a homicide investigation as a result of they believe it used to be a premeditated business, in step with multiple Finnish media experiences, mentioning main points confirmed by a police release. Nordmo has reportedly confessed to the crime and is cooperating with police, telling them that his purpose used to be now not accepting the new finish of his dating with Puhakka upcoming 10 years.
Puhakka used to be Finland’s first brazenly homosexual male professional hockey participant. He got here out publicly in 2019 upcoming the top of his taking part in profession and excepted a 2022 memoir known as “Ulos Kopista” — which kind of interprets to “Out of the Locker (Room).”
The SM-liiga — Finland’s manage professional males’s league — released a statement saying, “Janne Puhakka was an important role model, and his courage and openness left an indelible mark on Finnish hockey.”
The local of Espoo, Finland, represented his nation in a couple of world competitions as a teen and received bronze on the 2013 international under-18 championship. Upcoming spending two years taking part in teenage hockey in Chicoutimi, Puhakka gave the impression in 40 Liiga video games with the Blues right through the 2015-16 season and went directly to play games for TuTo Turku and Espoo United in second-tier Mestis prior to completing his profession with Hole HC in France.
Information of his homicide has made primary headlines in Finland, the place Nordmo gave the impression remotely in a closed-door court docket consultation on Wednesday.
Then that night time, moments of quietness had been noticed in Puhakka’s honor prior to 5 Liiga video games and two Champions Hockey League video games involving Finnish groups.
Ennen illan jokaista Liiga-ottelua, sekä Tapparan ja Pelicansin CHL-otteluissa, pidettiin hiljainen hetki Janne Puhakan muistoa kunnioittaen.
: @r1kuexposures | #Liiga pic.twitter.com/AKK9eEyNzN
— Liiga (@smliiga) October 16, 2024
(Photograph of Janne Puhakka in 2014: Richard Wolowicz / Getty Pictures)
