Riikka Sallinen

Riikka Sallinen
Hockey Hall of Fame, 2022
Born (1973-06-12) 12 June 1973
Jyväskylä, Finland
Height 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in)
Weight 60 kg (132 lb; 9 st 6 lb)
Position Forward
Shot Right
Played for
Coached for HV71
National team  Finland
Playing career 1988–2003
20132019
Coaching career 20192021
Medal record
Women's ice hockey
Representing  Finland
Olympic Games
2018 PyeongchangTeam
1998 NaganoTeam
World Championship
2019 Finland
2017 United States
2015 Sweden
1997 Canada
1994 United States
1992 Finland
1990 Canada
European Championships
1989 West Germany
1993 Denmark
1995 Latvia

Hanna-Riikka Sallinen (née Nieminen, previously Välilä; born 12 June 1973) is a Finnish retired ice hockey, bandy, rinkball, and pesäpallo player. She is one of the most highly decorated players to have ever competed in international ice hockey.

Sallinen played sixteen seasons with the Finland women's national ice hockey team and earned two Olympic bronze medals, one World Championship silver and six bronze medals, and three European Championship gold medals. In 2007, Sallinen was one of the first two women inducted into the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame, along with defenceman Marianne Ihalainen. She was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame on 21 May 2010 in Cologne, Germany as part of the World Championship festivities; she was only the fourth woman and the first European woman to receive this honor. She is currently the leading all-time European scorer in World Championships and Olympics.

Sallinen's bronze medal at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang made her the oldest player to ever win an Olympic medal in ice hockey, replacing her compatriot Teemu Selänne who set the record at the 2014 Winter Olympics after winning bronze in the men's ice hockey tournament at age 43. Sallinen was awarded the medal at age 44, twenty years after she first won an Olympic medal in the inaugural women's Olympic hockey tournament.

In 2022 she became the ninth woman player named to the Hockey Hall of Fame; she is the first woman not born in North America to be so honoured.