Aatu Kivimaki -on basketball, Fortnite and cooking.
Aatu Kivimaki – the 186cm tall guard from Karkkila – playing now his third season for Vilpas in Salo. Aatu has made his way up from Division 1A/1B with KaU – and stepped to the shoes in the Korisliiga in 2016-17, when he played 36 games for Vilpas.
In Vilpas for the last two seasons, he has been learning from Teemu Rannikko – and as a guard you might not get much better role model to learn from in Finnish basketball. And you only have to look at Ilari Seppala in Kataja – who also played many years with Teemu. And in Ilari and Aatu – we have two very talented Finnish guards, who play in Korisliiga.
This season, as Kivimaki says, has started well with the results for Vilpas – but it does sound that maybe there is room for improvement in the way that the team is playing. Results are the ones that give you the points on the table – but way you perform might be the way that you attract more fans to come and watch your games.
His two completed seasons with Vilpas, have both ended in silver medals for the team – so winning the Championship is definitely something Aatu wants from his time in Salo. Apart from that – heading to play abroad is strongly in his mind as well.
Kivimaki is perhaps best known for his running of the back court, and his three point shooting. But he has also started to get a solid drive to the basket, to finish up with an easy lay-up. So hopefully with more playing time, we’ll see him step up on the scoring charts this season.
At the National level, Kivimaki has represented Finland 19 times at the U16 level, 20 times at the U18, and 15 times at the U20 level. So next step up would be the Challenger team and getting himself to the training roster for Susijengi.
In his first year in Korisliiga – Kivimaki was voted as the ‘Rookie of the Year’ – during the year when Juwan Staten was controlling the backlines at Vilpas – so Kivimaki didn’t get the big minutes – but used the minutes he got well.
Outside basketball – Kivimaki tells me he likes to play Fortnite, but despite getting couple of wins under his belt, a career at E-Sports is not quite yet in his grasp.. neither is he planning to become a streamer, so sticking to basketball sounds like a good choice.
When it comes to cooking – apparently the chicken sauce and pasta – that is what you would get it you were to visit Aatu. From our previous talks about cookery, I might have been expecting something a little bit more exciting 😉
And if you like/hate the playlist at Vilpas Vikings home games – you can thank Aatu for the music you hear before/during the games. He is apparently open to hear suggestions on how to improve it.. so if you find him on social media, maybe drop him a message.
