Finnish goalie Roni Salmenkangas spent his freshman year at Ferris State going to hell and back. 

This summer he is in his comfort zone in Finland, putting on his pads at Kiekkobussi Arena in Tampere, surrounded by the best professional players in Europe. They’ve been taking turns firing rubber bullets at him throughout July. 

At 6-foot-1, 170 pounds, the 20-year-old Salmenkangas appears to belong on the same ice with NHL studs like the Panthers Aleksander Barkov and Roope Hinz of Dallas. Ten months ago at Ferris State, however, the slight goalie was in danger of breaking.

“Last year I didn’t know what to expect at all,” said Salmenkangas, who arrived in Big Rapids weighing 150 pounds dripping wet. 

“He was actually 149,” veteran coach Bob Daniels said. “I planned on playing him once every three games.” 

As all college hockey fans know, the best laid plans are often mere pipe dreams, and as of November 2018, this freshman’s dream turned into a nightmare.

It started dreamily enough, a convincing 4-1 win over in-state rival Michigan State. But veteran Bulldog goalie Justin Kapelmaster suffered a groin pull, a nagging injury that would haunt him throughout his Ferris farewell, and the Bulldogs goaltending load fell squarely on the freshman frame of Salmenkangas, a slight one at that. 

An 11-game winless streak followed, ruining Christmas for a kid seven time zones from home, his first Yule out of the country. And since there were only two healthy goalies in the program, little Roni had to stick out each practice while the Ferris snipers honed their craft.  

“It was a lot to throw at a young freshman,” said Daniels, who wouldn’t have blamed his kid for ducking out from the end-of-practice shooting galleries. “A lot of times a guy that would play 16 straight games, near the end of such a run, he’s not going to stick around on Thursday and play ‘rebound’ with the guys, he’s not going to stay out and take extra shots so the guys can work on their shots. But Roni stayed out all the time. And he got a lot of chits with his teammates. Even though he struggled at times when he ran out of gas, he really won the players over with his attitude.”

“I was able to practice a lot during the year,” Salmenkangas said. “I think that really helped me later.” After appearing in an astonishing 20 consecutive NCAA games, Salmenkangas finally got his reprieve when Kapelmaster healed up. By the time Roni found the bench in late January, his goals against average was over a goal higher than his previous year in Finnish juniors, his save percentage 100 points lower. Despite scraping rock bottom, the kid’s head remained high.

“He never complained,” Daniels said. “He handled it in such a positive manner. He did struggle mightily in the middle part of that long stretch, but he never let it affect his personality. He’s confident, but not in an arrogant kind of way.”

“That’s always tough when you’re losing a lot of games, my stats started to go down a little,” said Salmenkangas, who takes pride in every incremental uptick of his save percentage generated by each stop. His NCAA stats mid-season were unrecognizable by his standards. “You have to forget about the last game, just try to do your best every single time.”

The freshman was not sure how many opportunities he would get to improve his stats once Kapelmaster returned. When the upperclassman played brilliantly against first-place Minnesota State, and then pitched a shutout against NCAA tourney-bound Bowling Green, Salmenkangas started nesting on the Ferris bench. But a frustrating Saturday night against Bemidji State led to a blown gasket for Kapelmaster, and the Finnish understudy found opportunity once again. His crease counterpart committed a cardinal sin, yanking himself from the game. It infuriated the Ferris coaching staff, who handed the goaltending reins back to the skinny Finn for the remainder of the season.

Rested, yet honed by his dogged work in practice, Salmenkangas put together a six-game goaltending streak worthy of his own lofty standards, carrying the Bulldogs for their final six games down the playoff stretch drive. Although he cobbled together a winning record (3-2-1) and the highest save percentage in the league over that stretch (.934), Ferris failed to reach the postseason for the first time in 22 years.

Eliminated with one game to go play in the regular season, little Roni manned up and shut down powerful Lake State up in the Sault, ending a dismal season on a positive note, a rare feel-good moment for his beleaguered squad. 

“Everybody battled so hard, we were hugging each other in the locker room,” Salmenkangas said. “It was just one of the greatest wins, for sure.”

In a season that could have ruined the psyche of a lesser teen, Salmenkangas survived with his all-important confidence intact. He has a quiet rivalry budding with countryman Filip Lindberg, who just finished his freshman year at UMass, leading the Minutemen to a second-place finish at NCAAs. The two goalies share the same birth year and are both represented by the same agency; neither likes to concede a thing to the other. Roni was asked if Lindberg’s postseason run inspired him.

“It didn’t inspire me,” Salmenkangas said, “but it taught me a lesson, for sure. Never lose the national championship game.”