Skaut Los Angeles Kings a otec troch synov: “174 zápasov za 199 dní je oveľa menej než zvyčajne.”

When Wayne Gretzky moved to Los Angeles Kings in 1988, it created the first big hockey excitement in California. After two Stanley Cup victories (2012 and 2014), the Kings are now one of the most important clubs in the entire National Hockey League. The value of the organization is an astronomical $2.9 billion. Since 2016,Jussi Kari-Koskinen (46 years old)has been working as a European scout. In this interview, the Finnish expert describes how it’s possible to attend 174 games in six and half months and raise three teenage sons with his wife. You live in Hämeenlinna which is located between Helsinki and Tampere. You have an excellent geographical location for traveling throughout Finland. As of the end of January 2025, how many games have you seen live in the 2024/25 season as a scout for the Los Angeles Kings? “I live on the North side of Hämeenlinna, in Hattula. The season started for me on July 17th and I’ve only seen 174 games so far. This season has been different because there have been a lot of days with no games in Finland. During many weeks there are only three game days in a week, so you can catch three to four games a week. In the previous years, there were usually games from Tuesday to Sunday so you could easily catch six to eight games a week. When I travel to tournaments, I see two or three matches a day.” The Los Angeles Kings employ 23 scouts, six of whom work in Europe. The Director of European Scouting is your compatriot Christian Ruuttu. You are an amateur scout from Finland, Niklas Andersson is a Swede, Yuri Khmylev is from Russia, and Petr Jelínek is from the Czech Republic. Matjaž Kopitar (father of Anže Kopitar) is in charge of scouting “Unrestricted Free Agents”. How is your field of activity divided across Europe? “You become a Free Agent when you are no longer draft eligible anymore, at 22 years old. Ruuttu travels almost every week and Kopitar is our European pro scout who travels a bit. Me, Andersson and Jelinek stay more in our countries