Seventeen-year-old forward Sebastian Aho has had his first good taste of professional hockey this season, which included a few games in the Champions Hockey League for Karpat Oulu. This week he's playing with the Finnish U18 national team, in preparation for the World Championship in April.

by David Simon

KAVARE, Czech Republic – Mentioning the name "Sebastian Aho" sometimes caused some confusion in the Champions Hockey League this season. There were actually two players with this name, and both of them made it to the semi-finals. They also both played in this season's World Junior Championship in Canada, where they met in the quarter-finals, and have crossed paths a few times over the years whenever Finnish and Swedish youth national theams have played each other, which is quite often. 

One must think they sometimes get confused for one another.

"Yes, a couple of times," said the Finnish Sebastian Aho, a 17-year-old left winger for Karpat Oulu, when asked if he's ever been confused for his Swedish namesake, an 18-year-old defenceman for Skelleftea AIK.

This week, the young Finn is playing with his U18 national team at a tournament in Kavare and Poruba, Czech Republic. This five-team event also features the Czechs, Russia, Sweden and the United States.

"This is good preparation before the U18 World Championship for us," he said of the tournament. "These games are good for our team. Every game is important and we have to play one good game tomorrow against the USA."

One good game is all the Finns can hope for at this point, having lost their first three games. However, Aho himself seems to be in good shape to make the final U18 squad that goes to Switzerland in April – he is a returning member of last year's team that hosted the U18 championship, and also made his country's U20 team. 

In Friday's game he scored a goal in a 5–3 loss to Sweden. Incidentally, the other Sebastian Aho wasn't playing in this game – he's now too old to play in the U18 category.

"I'm not satisfied. Of course it is good (to score) but we lost our third game," he said, disappointed. "Today, we played well for two periods but we scored only three goals and Sweden scored five. We weren't too sharp."

Entering this season with three professional games under his belt, Aho has played 22 games in the Finnish Liiga this year so far – 19 with his Karpat club and three on loan to Assat Pori. He has two goals and five assists in total, as well as seven points in eight junior league games. He also saw some Champions League action.

"I played only seven games, I was on one road trip," he said of his experience in Europe's premier club hockey competition. "It was nice. We made the semi-finals, but every game is different in the CHL."

After the Finns' final game at the U18 tournament on Saturday, Aho and his teammates will return home and focus on the remainder of the domestic season. In a couple of months, most of them will be back together again in blue and white, where they'll be gunning for a medal in Switzerland.