User:Spitzmauskc/sandbox/Emilia Kyrkkö

Emilia Kyrkkö (born 24 February 2004) is a Finnish ice hockey goaltender and member of the Finnish national team, currently playing in the Naisten Liiga (NSML) with Team Kuortane.

Playing career
Kyrkkö began playing ringette as a child in her hometown. At age nine or ten, she joined the youth department of NoU Ringette, the ringette side of the multi-sport club Nokian Urheilijat (NoU). In the 2015–16 season with NoU under-16 (U16), she played as a skater and was the youngest player on the team but she had fully switched to goaltending by the following season, which she played with NoU U14. She continued playing ringette as a net minder with various youth teams of NoU and BLD Ringette, ultimately playing seven seasons of the sport.

Youth
Around age eleven, Sanni Vanhanen invited her to practice with the boys' ice hockey team she played with in the youth department of HC Nokia and Kyrkkö decided to join as the only other girl on the team. HC Nokia youth teams played in two or more skill levels (AAA, AA, A, etc.; see minor ice hockey) of an age class and each team’s players would be rotated through the various levels on a week-by-week basis while continuing to practice as a single unit. This system gave Kyrkkö the opportunity to tend goal at three skill levels in the E1 (U12) leagues and two skill levels in the D2 (U13) leagues during 2016–17 season.

She and Vanhanen remained the only girls on their HC Nokia team in the 2017–18 season, during which the team played in the E1 AAA, D2 AA, and D2 AAA leagues. Across eighteen games in the D2 AAA with HC Nokia Oranssit, she recorded a 91.52 save percentage. The season also played host to her debut in girls' ice hockey, as she played games with Ähtärin Kiekko-Haukat (KieHa) junior teams in the girls' B (U18) league and in the C (U16) and A (U20) girls' national championship tournaments.

In the 2018–19 season, she moved to the youth ice hockey department of KOOVEE in Tampere and was the starting goaltender for the club's team playing in the boys' D1 (U14) AAA. Across 31 starts in the D1 AAA with KOOVEE Power, she recorded 947 saves and an 88.01 save percentage. In the same season, she played her first games in a national women's league while on loan to Ruoveden Seurakunnan Atleetit (RuoSkA) for two Naisten Suomi-sarja games, posting shutouts in both matches.

She started the following season with KOOVEE Power in the boys' C2 (U15) AAA preliminaries but the team immediately struggled, winning just one game in the eighteen-game preliminary series and finishing with a goal difference of –124. Kyrkkö played in seven games of the C2 AAA preliminaries and faced 434 shots on goal (an average of over 60 per game), ending the series with an 85.71 save percentage. Concurrent to the C2 AAA preliminaries, she also played with both KOOVEE Power and KOOVEE Sport in the boys' C2 AA preliminaries and went on to play in the C2 AA regular season with both as well, recording an 88.94 save percentage across eleven C2 AA games over the full season.

Naisten Liiga
Ahead of the 2020–21 season, Kyrkkö joined Team Kuortane, the national women's development program of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association. Members of the team attend and live at the Kuortaneen urheilulukio, where they balance studies with 20–25 hours per week of training in addition to playing in the Naisten Liiga, the elite women's national league in Finland.

NCAA
In March 2023, Mira Jalosuo, an assistant coach with the St. Cloud State Huskies women's ice hockey program and former Finnish national team player, indicated Kyrkkö had committed to play college ice hockey at St. Cloud State University as an incoming freshman for the 2024–25 season.

International play
2019 EC

– 2 gp, 0.67 GAA, .947 Sv%

2020 Winter Youth Olympics

– Finnish flag bearer in the opening ceremony

– only female ice hockey player to represent Finland at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics

– won silver medal with Team Black in the 3x3 mixed NOC tournament

– split the net with Italian goaltender Carlotta Regine

2022 WW18

– won bronze

– best goaltender

2022–23 EHT

– 2 shutouts at 5N-Füssen

Personal life
Kyrkkö was born on 24 February 2004 in Nokia, Finland to Johanna and ** Kyrkkö. She grew up in Mutala, a village in the Ylöjärvi municipality of Finland’s landlocked south-eastern Pirkanmaa region, as the second-eldest of six siblings. Her younger brother, Julius (born 2005), was her teammate during the seasons she played in the youth department of HC Nokia.

Fanny and Eemel (2011), Julius (2005), Hugo (2003)

Away from ice hockey, she enjoys video gaming and frisbee golf.