Aleksander “Sasha” Barkov was a good soccer player growing up, and an even better tennis player, with powerful groundstrokes, a decent serve, and an older brother who spent a brief time on the pro tour. But his true love was hockey, which should come as no surprise.
Barkov, the 22-year-old Florida Panther headed to the NHL All-Star Game, was born in Tampere, Finland, site of the first ice hockey match in Finnish history, home of the Finnish Ice Hockey Museum and the Hakametsa Arena, the first ice hockey arena built in Finland.
As if that weren’t enough to lure “Barky” to the ice, his father Alexander (with an x) was a three-time Soviet IIHF World Championship player in the 1990s and spent the last 10 seasons of his career playing for Tappara Tempere in the Finnish league.