After trying to break into the National Hockey League on a full-time basis for five years, Guelph native Connor Bunnaman’s professional hockey exploits have now taken him to Finland.
“The opportunity presented itself,” the 25-year-old Bunnaman said of joining Oulu-based Karpat in the top league in Finland, the SM-Liiga. “I had other options to stay in the AHL, but I thought I couldn't really pass up this opportunity to travel, maybe have a little new start kind of thing. That's basically it.”
Bunnaman played 58 games in the NHL, four of them being playoff games, in the NHL with all of them being with the Philadelphia Flyers. With limited ice time, he had a goal, two assists and 10 penalty minutes.
Most of his time was spent in the American Hockey League, first with Philadelphia affiliate Lehigh Valley Phantoms and then with the Charlotte Checkers, affiliate of the Florida Panthers, after he was traded from the Flyers in a deadline-day deal in 2022 that included four players and three draft picks.
“It was good,” he said of his time in the NHL. “I learned a lot. I was up and down a lot, which sucked, but I had my few moments where I was there for a couple of months at a time, which was good. I wish I could've stayed a little longer. Just for my whole experience, getting drafted, playing with Claude Giroux and (Jakub) Vorachek, it was pretty crazy being in the same room, playing on the same team as them. It didn't last crazy long, but I'm just really happy that I got the opportunity and experience and all that. That's incredible and it fulfilled my dream of playing in the NHL. Maybe someday I can go back. You never know. Guys come back from Europe all the time, from these leagues.
"You never know, but right now I'm just taking it one year at a time and see where I go.”
This winter he’s adjusting to a new team.
“It is very different in a lot of ways, and very similar,” Bunnaman said. “Right now, I think a lot of the teams are trying to play more of a North American style. At times it's a little difficult with the big ice. In this league, every rink is kind of a different size of ice, which is kind of weird. Four or five teams have NHL-sized rinks so we kind of play a little bit different.
"Our rink is one of the biggest, so you play more of a trap style and you just rag the puck around more. When we're in the other buildings, it's more North American
dump it, chase it and go get it faster. There are a lot of differences, but a lot of similarities.”
He’s also adjusting to a different role than he had in either the NHL or AHL.
“They expect scoring,” Bunnaman said. “They told me (I’d be) the top centre, power play, that's what was expected when I came here. Usually, that's not really my role. All these years I've been more of a PK (penalty kill), defensive guy – second, third-line kind of player. It's definitely an adjustment playing different roles.
“I'm usually in front of the net on a power play, but now I'm on the half wall controlling it. That takes a little bit of time getting used to it and I'm starting to get there. We've got 20 games left here and I'm starting to get a little hot, which is good. Hopefully I can just keep that rolling.”
Through 40 games with Karpat, Bunnaman has seven goals, 10 assists and 12 penalty minutes with five of the goals coming in a four-game stretch late last month.
“I usually don't set goals for myself,” he said. “For me this year it's just take in the whole experience and obviously play well. My whole career I've never really been a points guy. It's been frustrating that way. Every year it's just been keep working hard and the points will come, the points will come. That's what I mainly just focus on and also just keep getting better as a player and as a human.”
While moving to another country can often result in a bit of a culture shock, that has not been the case for Bunnaman, apart from having a teammate help him sign up for a cellphone plan.
“It's pretty easy,” he said. “Everybody speaks English here, there's no language barrier whatsoever. Me and my girlfriend are here and we always describe it like it's Guelph. We're really, really north. There's a downtown and all the bars and restaurants are there. Outside of that, it's kind of a suburban area so it's got a big Guelph feel to it. We love it here. We like most of the food, not all of it, but it's been good here and we like it.”
Oulu is just over 600 kilometres from Helsinki, a drive that’ll take more than seven hours, and is located on the western side of the country on the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia.
“They're famous for their salmon soup here,” Bunnaman said. “Their reindeer here is their meat. They love that, which is really good. The water is nice. There's a lot of nice walking and nature here. The past week it was like minus-35, so all the snow on the trees is frosted. It's really a winter wonderland here.”
Located on a latitude that would put it in on Baffin Island in Nunavut, Oulu doesn’t get a whole lot of sunshine in the winter months.
“The past month or two months almost, the sun would rise 10:30 or 11 (a.m.) and then go down at 1 or 1:30 (p.m.). Some days got kind of tough, but right now it's really nice,” Bunnaman said. “It kind of rises at 9:30 (a.m.) and goes down at 3 to 3:30 (p.m.). But every day the sunset is a different colour. It's really, really nice.”
The lack of natural light doesn’t keep people indoors.
“Here, all that everybody does is bike and walk,” Bunnaman said. “It's crazy how many people are out biking in minus-30. That's kind of the European thing, which is cool.”
A little after this season is over, Bunnaman plans to return to Guelph to the home he bought near the university last year.
“We'll probably travel a bit more here at the end of the year,” he said. “That's the nice thing, we have a lot of time off so we can travel.”
The league does take breaks for international play so Bunnaman gets a week off each time which can lead to some travelling. So far he’s been to Copenhagen and Sweden and would like to see Norway, although a destination in a warmer climate might be on the agenda first.
However, he hopes that opportunity to travel won’t come too soon.
“It's pretty tight,” he said of the league’s standings. “For a win we get three points here so it fluctuates pretty good throughout the year. Five or 10 games ago we were ninth.”
Karpat is sixth, seven points out of third and nine ahead of 11th. Top 10 in the 15-team league qualify for the playoffs.
“We have a good team and I expect us to make playoffs and do pretty well.”
