Colorado Avalanche: Mikko Rantanen Writes Letter to Kyle Keefe in Finnish

Colorado Avalanche star wing Mikko Rantanen had fun with Altitude TV’s Kyle Keefe right after the All Star Weekend.

The Colorado Avalanche are enjoying a productive offseason. Indeed, they’ve been doing a good job of getting their free agents signed, though a certain Finn we’ll be discussing in a moment hasn’t inked anything yet. They even signed their fourth-overall draft pick, defenseman Bo Byram, to his entry-level contract.

And now, to address the Finn in the room — Mikko Rantanen needs a contract. He’s a very valuable player, and he’s going to deservedly want to get paid. If he doesn’t sign in the next few days, we’ll explore this topic further.

Until then, though, let’s return to the regular season. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I actually love writing in the offseason even though there’s little news. (Although the Avs have been dropping nuggets along the way.)

I like it because you miss stuff in the regular season. It’s game after game, news, stats, opinions. That’s great and fun, but I also like to write human interest stories, too. And you just don’t always have time for that during the season.

Well, a funny little bit that Altitude TV reporter Kyle Keefe did with Mikko Rantanen escaped my notice. The little skit came out just after the All Star Break.

Now, hopefully you’re familiar with Kyle Keefe. He’s probably the funniest guy on Altitude. He gets the information we all want, but he does so in a highly amusing way.

What’s more, he’s not afraid to make fun of his own self for entertainment purposes. And this bit was an example of that.

Keefe likes to play up what he perceives as his importance to the players. Now, granted, he actually spoke at captain Gabriel Landeskog‘s wedding, the two became so close. However, he mostly just likes to yuk it up sometimes.

In this little skit, Keefe pretends that Rantanen wrote to him during the All Star break. (Rantanen, of course, was one of three players named to the All Star team.) The only problem with the letter is that it’s in Finnish:

Now, before we get to the content of the letter, I’d like to offer kudos to Keefe for his Finnish pronunciation. I’m not overly familiar with Finnish (though I have been to Finland), but Keefe doesn’t seem to be pronouncing the words too badly. (Of course, he also called the language Finn, but we’ll give him a pass considering the rest of the skit.)

Anyway, some highlights of the letter are Mikko’s assurance that he kicked butt, he was more famous than his Avs compatriots Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog, that his hair was better than Gabe’s and his speed faster than Nate’s.

Mikko doesn’t even blink as he translates those boasts. He just plays right along!

Also, he “writes” that he went surfing after the game… naked. And that it was really cold, really, really cold. (We’ll leave the visual at that, especially since he references George Constanza’s… shrinkage.)

Next, we see Mikko forget the word for handsome, so he calls Keefe beautiful. Kyle further pumps his own tires by getting Rants to call him “smart.” However, it gets real after that when Mikko translates that he also called Keefe fat and bald.

It all ends in the right way with, “Mennään Avs,” or Let’s go Avs!

Mikko Rantanen seemed to have a lot of fun representing the Colorado Avalanche at his first All Star Weekend appearance. I’m glad he and Kyle Keefe continued the fun when the big, important Finn returned.

Now, let’s get him signed.