The gentleman diplomat

Hall of Famer Kurri keeping up frenetic pace in retirement

Some guys go fishing when their NHL career ends. Some hit the golf course. Still others sidle up to the bar.

Jari Kurri opts for none of the above. At least not in heavy doses.

Kurri is too busy to have one all-consuming hobby. He wants to make a difference in hockey and international sports. Which would build on exactly what he did while flying on Wayne Gretzky's right side for 13 of his 17 NHL seasons.

Kurri retired after the Colorado Avalanche were eliminated from the playoffs in 1998, but it was hardly the end of his sporting career. In fact, it was the beginning of a new career as a coach, businessman and international sporting diplomat.

On Feb. 21, 2002, Kurri was elected to the International Olympic Committee Athletes' Commission along with Swedish downhill skier Pernilla Wiberg, Italian cross-country skier Manuela Di Centa and Norwegian speedskater Adne Sondral of Norway.

Kurri is serving a four-year term on the commission whose goal is to advise the IOC on various issues involving athletes and sports. The panel has become more influential in the wake of reforms that took place following the bidding scandal for the Salt Lake City Games.

"It's a great honor," said Kurri, in Atlanta to visit Thrashers goaltender Pasi Nurminen. "I really do enjoy it. When you are working for the Athletes' Commission, you have to worry about athletics and all different sports around the world. I'm really honored to be there and to represent Finland."

In addition to Kurri and the other three new members, the Athletes' Commission is made up of chairman Sergei Bubka, vice chairman Prince Albert of Monaco, as well as former Olympians Roland Baar, Lee Kyung Chun, Charmaine Crooks, Robert Ctvrtlik, Yaping Deng, Rania Amr Elwani, Manuel Estiarte, Mireya Luis Hernandez, Noureddine Morcelli, Susie O'Neill, Matthew Pinsent and Alexander Popov.

Kurri is also a member of the Coordination Commission, joining Jean-Claude Killy, International Ice Hockey Federation president René Fasel, Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. and nine others.

"It's not much work on a day-to-day basis," Kurri said. "I keep track of what happens in the world of sports. We have a lot of different meetings. We get together three or four times a year. I'm on the 2006 Turin Commission and the role of that is to develop stadiums and stuff like that."

One of Kurri's goals is to ensure that the NHL sends its players to participate in the XX Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy in 2006. He will likely ask for the ear of NHL Players Association executive director Bob Goodenow and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman before they formally sit down to try to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement in 2004 to encourage them to allow NHL players to participate. Both sides have balked at committing NHL players in 2006 due to the long flight to Europe and the midseason break in the NHL schedule it would force.

Kurri also assisted head coach Hannu Aravirta on the Finnish team bench in Salt Lake City and remains active with his home country's developmental program.

"It's definitely fun as a player to give back to the game and my country," Kurri said. "They helped me out a lot when I was growing up. They gave me a chance to play at the national level, so it's good to help them out."

As if working with the IOC and the Finnish team wasn't enough, he also participates in the following activities: serves on the Finnish National Olympic Committee Athletes' Commission; is a board member for the Sport Federation of Southern Finland; owns new media and book publisher Kurri Productions; is a board member for the League of Finnish-American Societies; is president of Jorvi Hospital's Children Fund; and does television commentary for Hockey Night on MTV3. In between all this, he squeezes in as many trips as possible to watch his former Finnish club team Jokerit play in his hometown of Helsinki.

While campaigning for his spot on the committee, Kurri wrote passionately about his love of international sports.

"The atmosphere of the Olympic Village says it all," Kurri said. "Even in the 21st century, [the] Olympic Movement still has great influence for the youth of the world. I respect the Olympic tradition and want to be a member of the Olympic family in the future, too.

"I have been a great sports fan all my life. During more than two decades as a top-level athlete, I had a chance to get to know hundreds of athletes all over the world. Becoming a member of the IOC Athletes' Commission would give me a chance to speak for all of them."

Now that he is on the commission and is empowered with a voice to change sports, Kurri and his board members face serious challenges in the wake of recent Olympic bidding bribery scandals and ongoing drug allegations.

"Doping is a big issue right now for the Athletes' Commission," Kurri said. "We are really worried about that and we'd like to get that under control. There are a lot of issues that we try to be awake about -- things so that the athletes can represent their countries well and do their sport in the best way they can do it. It's interesting and it's a lot of learning, but it's very fun."

At 42, Kurri is still trim enough to play. His features remain as a baby-faced as ever. His blue eyes and light brown hair would allow him to pass for a man 10 years younger.

Only five seasons removed from his NHL career, he could probably still outskate a right wing or two, and if he and Gretzky wanted to do a reunion tour, their incredible telepathic relationship would likely pick back up in a hurry.

But Kurri is well suited for the life of a sporting ambassador and seems content with his new career path. Softspoken, but firm in his beliefs, Kurri will carry himself with grace and dignity on the international scene. He is certain to continue to ascend on the Olympics stage and maintain a high profile in international hockey along with Gretzky, Slava Fetisov and other contemporaries from the 1980s.

In his 17-year NHL career, Kurri won five Stanley Cups, played in eight NHL All-Star Games and was a first- or second-team NHL All-Star five times. He won a bronze medal with Finland in the 1998 Nagano Olympics, played on the Finnish team at the 1980 Lake Placid Games at age 19 and was the first Finn elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2001.

Kurri is the highest-scoring European in NHL history with 601 goals and 797 assists, but he might have added as many as 70 additional goals and 150 more assists if he has come to North America from Jokerit Helsinki before the 1980-81 season, and had he not spent the 1990-91 campaign with the Milan Devils of the Italian first division.

Former Oilers director of player personnel Barry Fraser once said: "We've got some outstanding people, eh? All-Stars, right? But Kurri is by far our most complete player."

When nearing the end of his career in 1998, Kurri foreshadowed his busy "retirement."

"Hopefully, I'll make the right decision about what I want to do with the rest of my life," he told the Rocky Mountain News. "I'm sure I'll stay in hockey in some capacity. I just don't want to be a scout; you gain 50 pounds being a scout.

"I'd like to be remembered as an ambassador."

He's fulfilling that wish more and more every day.

Jon A. Dolezar covers the NHL for SI.com.

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