Antti Niemi is the prototypical Finnish goaltender: Quiet and good.

BY MARK SPECTOR
sportsnet.ca

CHICAGO -- Vesa Rantanen, the Finnish hockey writer emeritus now based in Vancouver, boarded a plane on Friday morning to follow his homeland’s most talked about goalie in Round 2 of the playoffs.

I reached him on his cell phone, in a boarding lounge at YVR.

“When will you be in Chicago?” I asked.

“Chicago? I am heading for Boston,” Rantanen said. “Tuukka Rask.”

It was classic Antti Niemi — always playing avustaa hypistellä. (That’s second fiddle in Finnish.)

Niemi is the backup who stole the No. 1 job here in Chicago, posting seven shutouts in 35 regular season starts and adding two more in a six-game Round 1.

But who, exactly is this new “Toni-0” in Blackhawks lore? The Finn who will spend most of the next two weeks trying to derail the dreams of Canucks fans?

Antti Niemi is 26-year-old rookie who broke in with the lowly Lahti Pelicans, the Columbus Blue Jackets of the Finnish Elite League. He is the son-in-law of legendary two-sport man Timo Nummelin, “the only Finnish sportsman to be named both football (1968) and ice hockey (1981) player of the year,” according to Wikipedia.

He hails from Vantaa, the rougher of two Helsinki suburbs and home to the Ruutu brothers and Valtteri Filppula. There, he drove the Zamboni at the local rink, supplementing his second division hockey income while practicing with the men in the morning, and the juniors at night. “He’d literally clean the ice, then hurry up and get dressed,” said his agent Bill Zito.

“After high school, I was waiting almost a year before going to Finnish army,” Niemi said Friday. “One buddy of mine who had played on the same team as me had done work for the arena before he went to army, so …”

Quiet? As interviews go, this kid is Miikka Kiprusoff on valium.

As a goaler, however, he is panned gold for an organization that has done everything well — except in between the pipes. Niemi, a find of former G Dale Tallon, has stolen the job from Cristobal Huet, so the backup in Chicago now earns $5.625 million while the starter is paid $827,000.

“I remember when he first got here,” defenceman Brian Campbell recalled. “The first game he’s walking out, his pads are flopping everywhere, chest protector is hanging outside of his jersey. I couldn’t believe this guy was going to play net for us tonight. He just does not look like the cleanest guy.

“Usually goalies love their gear … to look perfect. I’m like, ‘Here we go. Get ready tonight.’”

In the wave of Finnish goaltenders, Niemi is that rare shell left on the beach after the water recedes. He was never even the best kid in Helsinki and area, and was never invited to national junior camps.

But he is, alas, your typical Finn, a race predisposed to anonymously donning a mask and standing in front of frozen, vulcanized rubber discs fired at speeds approaching 100 mph.

“They’re disciplined, they show up to do their work. They work a lot,” said Campbell, who spent the lockout playing in Helsinki with Jokerit. “It doesn’t matter if they’re 19 years old or 35, they all show up and do their work, and are prepared.

“Very polite people,” he continued, “except when they have a few in them. Then they turn sideways. Antti is not like that, but I’ve seen it before. You get that juice in them, and look out.”

To be fair, Rantanen did his best to find out. He had come through Chicago at the end of the regular season, where he sat down for a meal after Game 82 with Niemi, his lovely wife, and Zito. There, Niemi rewarded his countryman with the same engaging repartee that he laid on a handful of writers Friday morning at the United Center.

Which is to say, Niemi barely opened his mouth all night. And he didn’t touch the wine. Not even a sip.

“We're shy, quiet, hard-working and even lonely. That's what Antti is,” Pasi Nurminen, the former Atlanta ‘tender who took Niemi under his wing back home in Vantaa, told the Chicago Tribune. “We spoke (three) weeks ago and he told me he was nervous. I said, 'Don't be. It's the same game, same puck as when you played in Finland. Be the goalie you can be. Now is the time.'''

But time for what, is the question with this guy. It seems he either shuts you out or lets in four — there is no in between.

But beware the bloodlines. Finnish hockey’s first hero was a goalie named Urpo Ylonen, who beat the Czechs for the first time in ’67. His childhood heroes were an old Minnesota North Star named Jarmo Myllys, Arturs Irbe, and another rookie who had a pretty decent post-season run, Patrick Roy.

They were great stories, all.

If you don’t mind, the Canucks hope the Antti Niemi story ends right here.