A second of silence was held earlier than each recreation in Finland’s prime 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, was discovered shot to demise in his house on Sunday night time. He was 29.

Police arrested Puhakka’s former accomplice, Rolf Nordmo, a 66-year-old Norwegian veterinarian, and are conducting a homicide investigation as a result of they believe it was a premeditated act, based on multiple Finnish media studies, citing particulars confirmed by a police release. Nordmo has reportedly confessed to the crime and is cooperating with police, telling them that his motive was not accepting the current finish of his relationship with Puhakka after 10 years.

Puhakka was Finland’s first overtly homosexual male professional hockey participant. He got here out publicly in 2019 after the tip of his enjoying profession and launched a 2022 memoir known as “Ulos Kopista” — which roughly interprets to “Out of the Locker (Room).”

The SM-liiga — Finland’s prime professional males’s league — released a statement saying, “Janne Puhakka was an necessary function mannequin, and his braveness and openness left an indelible mark on Finnish hockey.”

The native of Espoo, Finland, represented his nation in a number of worldwide competitions as a young person and gained bronze on the 2013 world under-18 championship. After spending two years enjoying junior hockey in Chicoutimi, Puhakka appeared in 40 Liiga video games with the Blues through the 2015-16 season and went on to play for TuTo Turku and Espoo United in second-tier Mestis earlier than ending his profession with Hole HC in France.

Information of his homicide has made main headlines in Finland, the place Nordmo appeared remotely in a closed-door court docket session on Wednesday.

Later that night time, moments of silence have been noticed in Puhakka’s honor earlier than 5 Liiga video games and two Champions Hockey League video games involving Finnish groups.

(Picture of Janne Puhakka in 2014: Richard Wolowicz / Getty Photographs)





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