Here to stay: Mika Koivuniemi may still be new to the U.S., but his dominance on the PBA tour is becoming old hat

LIKE MOST PROFESSIONAL bowlers, Finland's Mika Koivuniemi fooled around with plenty of other sports before settling on tenpins as his livelihood. That was lucky for him, as it turns out--but unlucky for the vast majority of other bowlers on the PBA tour.

"There was basketball, of course, because I was always taller than most boys," Koivuniemi recalls. "And soccer/football, ice hockey, and miniature golf--a sport that is much like the American game, but is taken more seriously in Finland. I was national junior champion when I was 15.

"And I played Finnish baseball a lot. The game had 700,000 paid spectators last year."

Finnish baseball?

Koivuniemi, who made a pretty good living as a world-traveling "amateur" bowler before joining the PBA in 2000 and winning the ABC Masters championship the same year, manages a rudimentary smile. (Koivuniemi assumes a seemingly humorless personality on TV, but is actually rather a pleasant guy off the lanes.)

"Uh, Finnish baseball is like the American game in many ways," Koivuniemi says. "But it's also different. We call it 'pesapallo.' The pitcher--we use the word 'server'--stands about four feet from the batter, and he must toss the ball about three feet above the batter's head. The batter can't swing until the ball is coming down. There are more strikeouts than you would imagine.

"It is a little complicated after that. If you hit the ball beyond a certain boundary line, you are out. The object is to hit where the fielders cannot catch it ..."

With this the 37-year-old bowler, sensing that he had lost his audience, grins (that's twice in just a few minutes!) and stops waving his arms. "Pesapallo was introduced to Finland in 1922, by Lauri 'Wheatstone' Pihkala after he visited America."

But while other games captured young Koivuniemi's attention from time to time, that other American game, bowling, always was in the back of his mind. His mother, Tuula, competed as a member of a bowling league, and when Koivuniemi was II, she introduced him to the sport.

"My mother tried to help me, but I wouldn't listen to her," Koivuniemi says. "There was a couple at the bowling center who gave me some important help, but mostly I was self-taught. Most of the better bowlers in Helsinki threw a small hook from the right side--the righthanders, that is--and that's still the most comfortable for me."

That high speed, mini-hook is the very shot Koivuniemi used, with few variations, to capture his second PBA major tournament, the 2002 U.S. Open, in Fountain Valley, Calif.

"The U.S. Open has a history that goes back to 1941, in the days of Don Carter and Dick Weber," Koivuniemi says, "and it's my greatest thrill in bowling, so far."

As the 2003-04 season wrapped up, Koivuniemi had established himself as a powerful new figure on the PBA tour, with a career total of two major titles and two victories in regular events. In one of the television meets in the fall of 2003, he rolled a 300 game in the semifinal--good for a $10,000 bonus--celebrated for a moment, then regained his composure to emerge victorious in the title match.

The Koivuniemi family moved to the U.S. in 1996 and rented an apartment near Detroit. The PBA, with its television ratings down and prize money on the skimpy side, didn't appeal to Koivuniemi then, so he took his chances on the high-roller tournaments that were luring non-PBA members here and in other parts of the world. Often he shared a car and a motel room with Patrick Healey Jr., an American whose career has mirrored that of Koivuniemi, first by his retaining "amateur" status and cashing frequently and now by his stardom on the PBA tour.

"In 1997, I won the Super Hoinke Tournament in Cincinnati," Koivuniemi recalls. "The prize was $100,000, and that kept me going for a while."

His financial situation was further strengthened that year when he joined the staff of Turbo 2-n-1 Grips, whose factory included some lanes where Koivuniemi could practice without charge. Later Koivuniemi also signed with Ebonite.

Koivuniemi, who has won tournaments in eight countries--Finland, the U.S., Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Holland, China, and Denmark--figures he earned $90,000 in 1999. That included $17,000 after he finally joined the PBA late in the year.

"We moved back to Finland in 2000," Koivuniemi says, "because my wife, Leena, was expecting our second child and we wanted to be near family."

Lidia, a girl, arrived in the spring. The family, which also includes 10-year-old Ida, packed up again and flew back across the ocean to Michigan. This time they bought a home in Ann Arbor. Koivuniemi competed in 18 PBA meets and earned $64,000 when the prizes still were slim. The Koivuniemis were here to stay.

"Pat Healey helped convince me that I should live in America," Koivuniemi says. "He had bowled against me in a lot of tournaments when we were traveling together, and he was sure I could make it."

Koivuniemi spends as much time at home as possible between PBA seasons. He was trained as an electrician in Finland and worked for a while in this trade before becoming a full-time bowler. (He also spent eight months in the Finnish army.) Koivuniemi most recently put his "professional" trade to work when he installed a home sauna last summer.

"I'm gone half of the year or longer, so I enjoy being with my family when I can," he says. "There's not much bowling talk when I am home. Leena doesn't bowl, but she understands the game and the whole family watches if I'm on TV."

So is Michigan too warm for this native of Finland? "Oh, no," Koivuniemi says. "Michigan is much farther south than Finland, but we, too, have four seasons. It is a nice place to live."

Koivuniemi learned some English when he was in school, like most Finnish children. "I learned much more English from Americans I bowled with," he adds, grinning. "It is a difficult language."

Koivuniemi is as economical with words as he is in his approach to the game. "I don't change balls as often as some of the pros," he says. "If I am not scoring well, I think first that maybe I am doing something wrong, that maybe it is not the fault of the ball. I consider that maybe I am throwing too hard or too soft. Maybe my problem is the amount of loft. Or my release could be off. If a ball has been working well for me, I like to stay with it until I am sure it is no longer suitable for that lane condition."

Koivuniemi's favorite method for dealing with lanes that are breaking down is to increase his loft and speed. I have a high backswing and much shoulder strength," he explains. "I throw about 18 or 19 miles per hour. I can go over 20 if necessary."

However, as every top bowler learns, sometimes one's favorite medicine doesn't cure the problem. In the TV finals of the Baby Ruth Real Deal Classic in February, Koivuniemi tangled with another power shooter, Jason Couch, and won going away, 234-189. (Couch jokingly waved a white towel in surrender when Koivuniemi shot a bowling ball hard enough at a 4-6-10 split in the 8th frame to cause the 4-pin to bounce off the cushion and bring down the 6-pin.)

Bowling against Walter Ray Williams Jr. two games later, both Koivuniemi and Williams realized during their brief pregame warmup that the lanes were hooking more. Williams gave up a couple of boards with his feet, moving his starting position to the left.

Koivuniemi, the power hitter, rolled a strike in the opening frame, but not another until the 5th. Williams started with a four-bagger. Then Koivuniemi astonished the fired-up crowd by leaving the 3-6-10 "fence" three times in succession. Williams finished the match as a 268-200 winner.

Koivuniemi, who was already guaranteed a spot in all of the 2004-05 PBA meets because of his win in the Cambridge Credit Classic three mouths earlier and is a strong contender for Player of the Year honors, shook his head in disgust as he left the scene.

A nearby spectator said the big man from the north was mumbling. Maybe it was the Finnish equivalent of "You can't win 'em all."

Mike and Mika Meet in St. Louis

IT SEEMED LIKE A HAPPY COINCIdence when PBA Hail of Fame member Mike Aulby, making one of his occasional appearances in a PBA tournament, was paired with an old buddy, Mika Koivuniemi, in the first round of match play of the Baby Ruth meet in O'Fallon, III., in February.

"When I was a regular on the tour, Mika and I would find a hockey game and go see it, whether it was NHL or even high school," Aulby says. "In the past year, some other hockey fathers and I invested in a hockey arena near Indianapolis, doing a lot of the construction ourselves. It's called 'Arctic Zone.' Mika and I are a lot alike, in that we'd usually rather spend time with our families when we're not bowling."

Aulby, 44, bowled well in two elimination rounds, but Koivuniemi gave his friend a cold shoulder in their best-of-seven match, eliminating Aulby by winning four straight: 238-237, 257-221, 269-215, 214-212.

"It's OK," says Aulby, smiling. "No hard feelings. Well, not much anyway."

COPYRIGHT 2004 Century Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group