Aho back in Finland with Hurricanes to revisit where NHL dream took shape 

HELSINKI -- Sebastian Aho is living a dream that took shape 16 years ago.

He was 13 years old and found himself at Hartwall Arena -- the mecca of Finnish hockey and home to the Finnish national ice hockey team -- to watch the Carolina Hurricanes take on the Minnesota Wild in the 2010 NHL Premiere Series.

The trip from his home in Oulu to the Finnish capital is about seven hours by car, but for Aho it may as well have been a different world.

He sat in the stands wide-eyed and imagined himself in the NHL, imagined one day being like the Finnish NHL players in the game below -- Mikko Koivu and Antti Miettinen from the Wild and Jussi Jokinen, Joni Pitkanen, and Tuomo Ruutu from the Hurricanes.

When the 2026 NHL Global Series Finland takes place on Thursday, Aho will stand on that same ice, in what is now called Veikkaus Arena, as one of the faces of the Hurricanes, who are the defending Stanley Cup champion.

He will be the focal point of the sold-out crowd, including a contingent of youth players from Oulu that is making the trek for the two games against the Seattle Kraken, the first on Thursday (12 p.m. ET; HHN, Prime Video, CARNHL, KONG, NHLN, SN+, TVAS) and second on Saturday (1 p.m. ET; HHN, Prime Video, CARNHL, KONG, KING, NHLN, SN1).

“It's so cool,” Aho told NHL.com. “I mean there's a lot of friends and family at those games and that's obviously special, but I was in the game in 2010 when Canes played the Wild and I do remember it was amazing.

“You can watch more NHL games live in Europe and get more highlights and stuff like that now than you could before, but it brings it that much closer when you are there in the building. It's cool to see all of it, the show and high-pace, high-level hockey. If there's young kids who look up to me or any other player, I think it's a cool opportunity for them to see that.”

It will be Aho’s first game here since he helped Finland win the World Junior Championship in 2016.

“It's a special place because we won there,” Aho said. “It's going to be cool to go back and that's the last time I played there. It’s going to be special going back and it will bring some memories about winning that gold medal.”

Like then, there will be plenty looking up to Aho this week. At the World Juniors, he was a player with potential on a team loaded with teen phenoms. Today, he is one of the most accomplished Finnish players of his generation.

Aho is an alternate captain with the Hurricanes, the only NHL team for which he has played since being drafted in the second round (No. 35) of the 2015 NHL Draft. He joined the Hurricanes in the 2016-17 season and has put up 737 points (320 goals, 417 assists) in 775 NHL regular-season games. 

Mikko Rantanen of the Dallas Stars, who has 803 points in 733 games, and Aleksander Barkov of the Florida Panthers, who has 782 points in 806 games, are the only active Finnish players ahead of him on the all-time points list.

Aho had 12 points (five goals, 7 assists) in 19 playoff games last season when the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in against the Vegas Golden Knights.

To say he is accomplished is an understatement.

To say he has travelled further than he imagined while daydreaming about his hockey career during an unforgettable weekend at Hartwall for the Premiere Games would be accurate as well.

Now, he is a hero to so many, including the contingent coming from his youth club, Karpat.

“Those are people that in the same position that I was in years ago,” he said. “You know what it means now because you went through it, how life-changing it can be.”

Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour has had a front-row seat for Aho’s entire NHL journey.

He was an assistant coach when Aho arrived in Carolina as a rookie and pushed him to become better, to get stronger, to take on new responsibilities, including a move to center. It wasn’t always easy.

There were bumps in the road, hard stretches and bitter disappointments, including three losses in the Eastern Conference Final, two via sweep, since Aho’s arrival.

The journey continues, but Aho has become a more complete player under the guidance of Brind’Amour, a highly accomplished player himself.  Aho plays in all situations and is counted on to deliver in the biggest moments.

Aho arrived in Raleigh as a shy teenager and has blossomed into a grown man that has accomplished most everything a hockey player could dream of, including winning the Stanley Cup and playing in the Olympics, winning a bronze medal this year for Team Finland in Milan.

“It's not a coming-out party for him, but it's like a reward almost for him because he's been so valuable for us and I've seen that maturation of all the way through,” Brind’Amour said Tuesday. “To come back here in front of his home country is special.

“Our group hopefully will play well for him. This game, this weekend really is about him for me.”

Captain Jordan Staal has also been along for the whole Aho experience in Carolina. He has been out the past month with a calf injury and has watched Aho take yet another step, assuming many of Staal’s responsibilities on and off the ice.

Aho has a team-leading 26 points (10 goals, 16 assists) in 19 games. He is a plus-14 and leads all forwards by playing an average of 19:49 per game for a team that is a League-best 14-3-2.

“I mean, the guy's been a stud ever since he showed up and there wasn't a doubt in my mind that if I did leave any bit of a hole, it sure didn't look like it, but he could fill it and a lot of other guys can chip in and the boys are rolling,” said Staal, who is close to returning.

Aho says he will have a huge group of fans on hand for these games. His parents, his grandparents, friends will all be there, some seeing him in person as an NHL player for the first time.

“It's tough travel,” Aho said of the cross-Atlantic trip. “It's not like you make a weekend trip from my hometown. So, it's going to be nice for all those people to see me play.”

As for what kind of performance he will give them, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care as long as the Hurricanes win. That is the point of this trip for him.

But he will take the time to soak in the experience as well, to think about being a teenager in this very building with nothing more than a hockey dream, not that long ago.

He’ll think about returning now as a Stanley Cup champion with the blueprint he has left for the next generation of Finnish dreamers to follow.

“I want to make sure I put the best foot forward for them and I think it's going to be exciting for myself as well because, this is so rare,” Aho said. “It's my 11th year now and this is the first time we do this, so I'm very excited and I think it's going to mean a lot.”