On Saturday afternoon in Tampere, hours before the Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers played the second of two NHL regular-season games in the Finnish city, the NHL Alumni Association made Finnish hockey icon Jari Kurri the second recipient of the Börje Salming Courage Award.

His appearance at the ceremony to accept the award marked a rare public appearance from Kurri, who was once one of Finnish hockey’s most beloved figures but whose image took a beating during his time at the helm of Jokerit, his home club in Helsinki.

“For two years I have taken steps backwards,” Kurri said in an interview with Finnish media outlet MTV Uutiset back in February. “I had to live in pretty hard times there for a while. It was good to distance myself and enjoy hockey more. Of course, I follow Liiga and the story of Jokerit in (second-tier) Mestis, but from a distance.”

Kurri had a Hall-of-Fame playing career, scoring over 600 goals in 17 NHL seasons and winning five Stanley Cups, all with the Edmonton Oilers. In his most productive years, he was Wayne Gretzky’s right-hand man. Before his NHL career, his club was Jokerit, from childhood to age 20, including his first three seasons as a professional.

After retiring as a player in 1998, Kurri went into management. He was GM of the Finnish national team from 2003 to 2014. In 2013, he added that title with Jokerit, which then played in Liiga, Finland’s top domestic circuit, but was under new Russian ownership. A year later, the club transferred to the Russian-based KHL – a move that was so unpopular with many of the team’s fans that they took to publicly burning team jerseys.

By the time the team left the KHL in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kurri was Jokerit’s majority owner and the club faced bankruptcy after reportedly losing an average of 13 million euros per season. The team did not play at all in 2022-23 and, facing significant backlash from fans and media, Kurri was forced to withdraw from public life.

Jokerit returned to play in 2023 in Mestis, Finland’s second-tier league. The club shares the Helsinki Ice Hall with HIFK, the city’s lone Liiga team. Hartwall Arena, which was Jokerit’s home rink from 1997 to 2022, has been shuttered ever since the assets of its Russian owners were frozen. It has since fallen into a state of disrepair and its future remains uncertain.

This past summer, Jokerit brought back another one of its star products, Valtteri Filppula, to finish his playing career with the intention to transition into an off-ice role with the club.

In a ceremony prior to Jokerit’s home opener this season, the club raised its previously retired numbers to the rafters of the Ice Hall. Wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene, Kurri skipped the ceremony, but that didn’t stop the fans from expressing their thoughts.

Some of them displayed a banner that read, “Jari Kurri – persona non grata.” When his name was announced and his number 17 banner unfurled, they were greeted by boos and whistles. Kurri admitted to being hurt by the reaction.

“I did my best, but this is the result,” he said to Finnish media at Saturday’s ceremony in Tampere. “It’s a bit sad. Yes, it hurt a bit and I was disappointed. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is.”

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