When Natan Teshome steps onto the ice this regular season, it will be only the second time a player from Finland has played for the North Bay Battalion. Teshome signed his education and development agreement with the team on August 14, 2024, after being selected in the first round of the Canadian Hockey League Import Draft on July 3. The 18-year-old is poised to make an impact in his first season with the Troops.
“The gains he's made since day one, stepping on the ice to our final scrimmage, have already been massive,” says Battalion General Manager John Winstanley. “He can play different positions. He's responsible, he can really skate, and I think he's going to fit in well.”
Standing at five-foot-11 and weighing 172 pounds, Teshome arrives in North Bay with a solid resume. Last season, he played 37 games with Helsinki’s Jokerit U20s, recording four goals and 10 assists for 14 points. He also gained valuable experience playing on Finland’s national team across various levels since the age of 15, including coming to Canada for the U-17 World Hockey Challenge in 2023, which was held in Charlottetown and Summerside, Prince Edward Island.
This past April, Teshome was also part of Finland’s team at the IIHF U18 World Championship held in his native country. He says, “It was great getting that experience of playing at that top level against teams like Canada and the USA. They have so many skilled players, and they play differently from the Finnish style of hockey. It was a very good opportunity to see that competition up close and compare yourself and where you need to be.”
The Battalion selected Teshome 45th overall in the Import Draft a few months after that tournament. Scouting reports rated him as “a hard-working two-way forward who uses his skating and pace to drive play in transition and create turnovers on the forecheck, then create chances for his linemates through clever passing plays to the inside while also maintaining a solid defensive presence.”
Teshome joins Ukrainian Iggy Pazii as the Troops' import cohort this year, with Sandis Vilmanis moving on to a pro career. He will be the first Finnish player to suit up for the Troops since Niki Korpialho, who played 15 games during the 2019-2020 COVID-shortened season. The success of Finland's national men's team in recent years has rocketed hockey to the forefront of the country's sporting consciousness. Affectionately known as The Lions, they captured World Championship titles in 2019 and 2022, as well as winning their first Olympic gold in Beijing in 2022. Those achievements are deepening Finland’s love for the game and inspiring the next generation of players like Teshome to follow in the footsteps of Hockey Hall of Famers Teemu Selanne and Jari Kurri, or current NHL stars Aleksander Barkov and Mikko Rantanen.
Teshome was no stranger to the sport's influence, growing up in the beautiful city of Lappeenranta. A city of close to 80,000 people and self-described as a tourism and cultural hub, it attracts the most visitors of any city in Finland outside of the capital, Helsinki.
Teshome says, “My brother played hockey, so I was always at the rink watching him play. Then Dad wanted to put some skates on me. I went on the ice and just took off.”
Teshome’s brother, Nahom, is a 22-year-old playing Division 3 hockey in Sweden, a country a bit closer to Finland than Canada. When Teshome was told he would be playing in Canada, he had to look it up online to figure out where specifically.
"The Battalion called me at home and told me I got drafted. I was very excited. The Battalion is a great organization; I was very happy to be drafted," he recalls. "But I have to be honest, I had to Google North Bay. I didn’t know where it was, but I did my research, and I liked what I saw. It’s very nice here.”
Winstanley adds, “I had the privilege of picking him up from the airport, and we had a good chat driving up here. He’s a really nice kid. We talked about his family, and he's really excited to finally have his own bedroom. Back home, he had to share with his brother, so he's really excited about that.”
Winstanley says there will be a period of major adjustment for Teshome. “We want to just get him acclimated with the city. There's a time change, new equipment, so I think over the first couple of days, we needed to make sure that his body starts to adapt and he's ready, but he’s been showing us that he is.”
Winstanley notes there are going to be some holes to fill on the roster this year, and Teshome has an opportunity to step up and play a major role.
“That's one of the messages we've been talking about with this group we have coming in this year. The players are really going to dictate their ice time and their positions within the team. There's going to be a lot of internal competition, and that's always a good thing because guys are going to be pushing each other and wanting to earn that. You should see the best of them when that starts to happen.”
The transition to North American hockey, with its faster pace and smaller ice surfaces, can be daunting, but Teshome seems unfazed.
“It's been fun to get to know the management and the players. Everybody's been very welcoming, and the games were really fun,” Teshome says, indicating he can’t wait for the season to get started with stands full of screaming fans.
“One of the things he mentioned to me that he was really excited about is he only had about 100 to 150 people watching the games he played in. I think already here at training camp, we've surpassed that.”
