Juhani Wahlsten

Wahlsten began his career at KuPS (Kuopion Palloseura) in Kuopio in 1957, from where he moved to KalPa. Wahlsten helped raise the team to the main league level for the first time. While playing, he formed the "Hurricane Chain" together with Ossi Hyppönen and Mauno Revo. Later, Revo was replaced by second-time center forward, Lauri Helen, and Revo moved to Helen's second place position. Wahlsten's chain friend, Hyppönen, also won the Finnish Championship during those years.

In 1959, Wahlsten moved to Tampere's Ilves, where he won the Finnish championship. After two years with Ilves, Wahlsten moved on for one season to HJK Helsinki, then to the Turku Club. In Turku, Wahlsten became one of Finland's first star players.

After seven TPS (Turun Palloseura) seasons, Wahlsten followed in the footsteps of Reijo Hakanen to AC Klagenfurt in Austria, where he won the national championship. After the season, Wahlsten returned to the Tampere Ilves where he played for the final year before graduating. In the SM series, Wahlsten's balance in the 200 matches was 137 + 82.

For the Finnish national ice hockey team, Wahlsten played 115 matches, scoring 33 + 29. At the World Championships he played five games, and played at the Winter Olympics three times. Wahlsten was the captain of the Finnish national hockey team and scored two goals in 1967, when Finland defeated Czechoslovakia for the first time.

Juhani Wahlsten in 2011

After his career as professional ice hockey player, Wahlsten continued as a coach. In Finland, his club, HC TPS, was first in the Finnish Championships 1971–1972, and then in the Finnish Ice Hockey Championships 1980–1983. In the early 1980s, TPS had a strong team but was unable to reach gold. After Wahlsten came aboard, the team made it to the semi-finals and finished in first place during the three seasons when Wahlsten was coach.

He was also imparting hockey information as a team coach at FC Barcelona Ice Hockey, the ice hockey division of the well-known football team, FC Barcelona. In addition, Wahlsten was the junior manager of EV Füssen in Germany.

Wahlsten, a.k.a. "Juuso" Wahlsten, is known as the "Father of Ringette" in Finland.[5]

In 1979, Wahlsten introduced the Canadian sport of ringette to Finland by inviting two Canadian ringette coaches, Wendy King and Evelyn Watson, from Dollard des Ormeaux (a suburb of Montreal Quebec, Canada) to teach girls of various ages how to play ringette in Finland. Wahlsten then began creating some ringette teams in Turku. Finland's first ringette club was Ringetteläisiä Turun Siniset and the country's first ringette tournament took place in December, 1980.

Today, the World Ringette Championships (WRC) presents the Juuso Wahlsten Trophy, named in his honour, to the winning junior world champion ringette team. The trophy was first introduced at the international competition during the 2019 World Ringette Championships. The Team Canada Juniors became the first national team to win the trophy.

Wahlsten worked as an exercise and gymnastics teacher at Aurajoki Co-educational School, where his wife Leena taught gymnastics to girls. Wahlsten's sons Jali and Sami have also been representative level ice hockey players.

• Called "The Father of Ringette" in Finland after helping introduce the Canadian sport to Finland in the late 1970s to early 1980s
• Inducted into the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame in 1986
• Player member of the IIHF Hall of Fame (inducted 2006)
• HC TPS (a.k.a. TPS or Turun Palloseura) has frozen Wahlsten's game number 8
• 1 Finnish Championship gold as a player (in 1960)
• 1 Finnish Championship silver (SM-silver) as a player
• 1 Austrian Championship gold as a player (1970)
• Selection for the SM Stars All Stars team (in 1967)
• Finnish Hockey Lion, number 43
• 5 World Championship tournaments
• 3 Olympic Games
• 115 Finnish national team Games
• European Championship silver 1962
• KalPa 1956-59
• Ilves 1959-61 and 1970-71
• HJK 1961-62
• TPS 1962-69
• AC Klagenfurt Austria 1969-70
• 1 SM silver and 1 bronze as a coach
• Coach for TPS 1971-72, 1980-83
• Coach for FC Barcelona 1972-74
• Chief coach for EV Füssen juniors 1984-85

• Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame bio