Trustee Spotlight: Kalle Uusitalo

This week is a special week as our Alumni Spotlight is also one of our Trustees, Kalle Uusitalo!  For the uninitiated, the University of London (UoL) closed its Student Union during COVID and cut all sport, clubs, and societies entirely.  To keep the team alive, we created a trio of charities to shift the team to a new legal structure that could provide long-term sustainability and allow us to grow stronger than ever before (once we really get going).

A note to our readers: Kalle is a Trustee of the UL Ice Hockey Trust, the CIO that was created from our transference out of UoL.  He will also be the President of our Alumni Council that we are developing to ensure that alumni have a way to engage, volunteer, and stay connected with the team.  We’ll get back into that a little later (and we’ll write a separate article about it because this one is all about one of our most legendary Dragons).

One last little italicized note here, Kalle is one of three members of our Hall of Fame (alongside Max Pinkney and Clive Vergnaud).  Some of you may remember these players as having Retired Jerseys, a system that we’re shifting to the Hall of Fame.

We aren’t removing anyone’s honors or distinguished achievements.  Instead, we’re creating a new Hall of Fame where we can properly honor the range of players at different skill levels who have made amazing sporting achievements as well as those who have supported the club above and beyond what is expected.

This will be part of a larger initiative to bring back something similar to the Purples Ball which is no longer operational.  We are hoping to find corporate or individual sponsors to help us provide a venue with similar pomp and circumstance that so many alumni were able to experience (and awards to match).

Kalle was, and still is, the heart and soul of the London Dragons. He played an impressive 5 seasons with the London Dragons and even came back for our special 2021-2022 BUIHA COVID year when we had a special Challenge Match against Cambridge.  Kalle actually scored the game winning goal in that match (before we went on to score another seven in a 11-3 win).

His time with the Dragons started back in the 2010-2011 season with 7 goals and 2 assists over 7 games.  Despite playing a more physical role in a skilled team, he managed to be third in goals behind Donny MacPherson and Martin Lambert that year which led the Dragons to the Division 1 South Champions and the winners of the Division 1 Cup. However, that wouldn’t be the end of the hardware that Dragons would bring home with a Uusitalo in the roster.  Earning the C on his jersey after only one year, the teams he captained also brought home the Division 1 Checking South Championship: 2012-2013, 2014-2015, the Division 1 League Championship 2012-2013, 2014-2015, and the Nationals Championship in 2011-2012.

Kalle’s run with the Dragons is one of the longest in our history, landing an impressive third place all-time for most games played at 51 (his record broken by second place holder Michael D’Aprix and first place holder Raphael Girard with a whopping 79 games played).  Thanks to his longevity and consistent productivity, he is also fourth overall in all-time assists with 36, third in all-time goals with 41, and fourth overall in all-time points with 77. Surprisingly, considering he quickly earned the nickname "Crazy Viking" and his straightforward, bulldozing style of play, the big (i.e. wide) Finn only ranks 27th on the all-time PIM list!

With a record like this it’s not surprising to learn that Kalle started skating when he was only four years old and playing already way back in 1994!  Considering that the current roster only has 3 players from the 1900s this year, time certainly flies when you’re having fun. And no, we don't feel old.  Uusitalo spent his junior years mainly in his local organisation of Kisa-Eagles, apart from a one year stint in the U16 Elite with Tappara, finishing off with the Kisa-Eagles U20 in the U20 II-Division of Finland, two steps below from where one of our last Alumni Spotlights, Joose Harju played.

Kalle spoke of his time before the Dragons and the way that joining the BUIHA and our team changed the way he played, he said:

“By far, I played my best and most productive hockey with the Dragons, I guess I’m a serious late bloomer.  In Finland, I was not the most skilled guy on the ice.  I was very much in a heavy hitting third-line grinder role who would just bulldoze people and run around.  There wasn’t much playmaking involved.  Once I joined the Dragons, I found that my shot could be an asset (I didn’t get many chances to use it back home) so it was put to good use.  Not to say that physical play wasn’t a part, in my first year we caused havoc with our physical play as well.  Obviously, I was a bit older so not playing with the same people you have come through juniors with was fun, especially since they were from all over the world!”

During his time with the Dragons, Kalle studied a BSc in Sport Psychology and Performance at London Metropolitan University (now Sports Psychology and Coaching).  Kalle earned a Laurel Award from the University of London awarded to those who show notable ability in supporting a sport in the University of London, has regularly represented the university in competitive activity (and is not eligible for a Purple Award) or has been of notable service in the organization or administration of a sport. As mentioned briefly before, he was also the Captain of the team for four out of the five years he played with the Dragons, displaying leadership and poise that few others can.

Another note to our readers: the University of London previously provided an award ceremony called the Purples. This was an event during which students would be awarded Purples, Half-Purples, and Laurels to acknowledge their sporting skill and support of sports, clubs, and societies. Unfortunately, UoL had a hard divide between Students of UoL (the 17 member universities) and non-Students of affiliated universities. Kalle was unable to ever win a Purple but was awarded a Laurel, something that Olympians and Poet Laureates have also won. He has also been awarded Honorary Life Membership to the University of London and Student Central.

Like many of us who join the team, the Dragons quickly become a community for life, which, like Kalle mentioned in preparation for this article, was unexpected.  Kalle found some of his closest friends 15 years ago in the changing room at the old Lee Valley and has since enjoyed countless nights out, dinners, trips abroad, tournaments, birthdays, and weddings with these friends.  Kalle even met his wife, Caroline O'Riordan, PhD, on the team while he was volunteering as one of the Dragons coaches and she was the captain of the C team.  He also loves that he can travel pretty much anywhere around the world and meet up with Dragons who span the farthest reaches of the globe.

Kalle came to London, again like so many of us, without knowing many, if anyone in the city he had not even visited before.  London can be a daunting place to move to, particularly if you have grown up in a rural area and your new home city has one and a half times the population of the entire country you are from.  Joining the Dragons made the transition to a new country, new language, and new university far easier than expected and to quote him on the topic, “The safety net was invaluable. Friendships on the Dragons quickly evolved into knowing a lot of people across other teams and all of a sudden, my social circle suddenly exploded”.

Always up for a night out in his playing days, there are many fond memories of frequenting Bar Prague in London (with a shoutout to Dragon Alum Ludy D.).  He fondly remembers these nights out in Shoreditch and unforgettable times in Limehouse. You could say that he truly made the most of living in London.

Since then, Kalle has continued to play hockey.  While in Amsterdam he played for Odin Amsterdam in the Dutch 3rd Division and now skates 3-4 times a week with the Coventry Snipers and Birmingham Rockets. Kalle is also one of the masterminds behind our Alumni Tournament, the Mokum Mayhem, where the Dragons have brought the biggest trophy home every time and many alumni surely remember from the recent years.

It’s impressive that he has time to play so much hockey as he goes above and beyond in both his professional life and in his charitable or volunteer life.  During the daytime, he works for BetComply where his time is split between operational work for clients and internal projects.  After a few years in EdTech and Fintech, he returned to work in the iGaming industry (online gambling) and currently specializes in dealing with disputes and complaints, something he stumbled upon half-accidentally but discovered that it is something he is actually good at and truly enjoys doing.

Kalle's day-to-day internal work also involves a range of duties from market research and due diligence to writing policies, producing articles (maybe he’ll write a guest article for the Dragons) or other publications, and simply getting involved in what’s cookin’. He is excited for what’s coming next as many of his clients are crypto casinos and the ecosystem poses a unique blend of opportunities to investigate both fraud and user behavior as well as innovative threats. And with Finland moving to a license based model, meaning that anyone can apply for a license in the market, there is no shortage of work in the industry for a Finnish speaking regulatory compliance specialist.

Outside of volunteering for the Dragons, Kalle has been a supporter of the British Universities Ice Hockey Association and their mission.  Particularly as a color commentator for the Nationals Tournament in Sheffield previously with Richard ‘Rambo’ Gray, forming a dynamic duo many BUIHA fans surely remember. He was also a key supporter of the Dragons before COVID and moving abroad, helping to coach the A, B, and C teams from 2017 – 2020, giving the crucial first lessons to many players on how to skate, shoot, and pass.  He also donated many sticks to the organization to help stock our teams with much needed equipment, back when the organisation had resources to support multiple teams.

Since then, Kalle has supported the Dragons with help on our social media, drills, strategies, providing deep knowledge of the team and the league, making him a key candidate as a Trustee for the UL Ice Hockey Trust. In fact, it’s likely that most people reading this article know Kalle and he’s likely made a major impact on their lives.

One last bit about Kalle.  He is going to be the President of our new Alumni Council. We mentioned above (and we’ll go into more detail in a separate article) that we are forming an Alumni Council to help us keep in touch with our alumni around the world.  With almost 25 years of Dragons across multiple teams, we’ve started to develop quite the alumni network.  However, without any support structures in place, our students and former players will never know the other Dragons in Toronto, Hong Kong, Vancouver, Damascus, Boston, Stockholm, DC, Oslo, Zurich, Los Angeles, Dubai, or Helsinki (just to name a few).

We want to use this as an opportunity to bring alumni together a few times a year (ideally 4) to meet online, chat about opportunities to engage with alumni, and put together an action plan for events.  Things like pond hockey tournaments, watch parties, networking events, and more. We’re aiming for one player, from each team, from each year, to act as a representative on the Council. If you’re interested, please fill out our Alumni Contact Update Form!

Finally, we’d like to come back to our new Hall of Fame (another expansion article is waiting in the wings).  It should be clear by now that Kalle is a shoo-in to our Hall of Fame.  He had his jersey retired for a good reason, being a record holding player, a key volunteer in the Dragons, an advocate for hockey in general, and one of the individuals who embodied the true spirit of being a Dragon.

We’ll always love playing and working with Kalle!

If you’d like to get in touch with Kalle Uusitalo please connect with him on LinkedIn or follow his Instagram (did we forget to mention he is a world class photographer?  We use many of his photos for our websites and social media).  He’s open to networking and happy to chat to anyone interested in the Compliance or Gambling Industry.

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At the bottom of every article we'll also include links to all of our web pages and our forms. As always, please help us in our journey to reinvigorate the Dragons after UoL cut all sports!

• If you were on the Dragons, please help us keep in touch with our Alumni Contact Update form!