Over the weekend, a video surfaced from the great country of Finland. Filmed last year, the makes of said video spoke to our boy Jesse Puljujarvi about a multitude of topics including his yearning to be in the NHL and not Bakersfield, who his dream linemates would be, and the confusing pizza moment that he’s not sure about.

Jesse was his usual loveable self in the interview speaking to his desire to be in Edmonton and not down in Bakersfield again. As we now know, unfortunately, JP did end up spending some time on the farm last year, 10 whole games but still. Later in the video, he was asked who his dream linemates would be. Naturally, his dream C man is Connor McDavid which of course is also our dream to see done as well. His other wingman would be fellow Finn and also good at the hockey, Patrik Laine. The mere thought of that combination has me salivating. The main topic of discussion as you can well see by the title of the video at the bottom is pizza and “Pizzagate.”

The minute that photobomb of Connor’s interview happened Jesse Puljujarvi became a fan favourite and we here at the Nation jumped all over it. Every time we see something or post something about him the pizza emoji is not far behind. “Some people” have even gone so far as to make their own gifs about the moment after the fact.

I’m here to say we’re sorry. Until we saw this video there were only rumours about the pizza interaction confusing Jesse. In this interview, he was asked about how he prefers his pizza and he is definitively in the pineapple and ham pizza is a pizza camp. According to the person I had to go to get this whole video broken down into English from, he mentions he was embarrassed by the video and doesn’t like to be reminded of it.

I’m here to say I am sorry to Jesse. We never meant the endless pizza emojis as anything more than the pure unadulterated enjoyment of everything this young man does. Jesse is a beauty in this league of a lot of robotic and lobotomized answers. He gives us his honest feelings and emotions. He interacts with fans. He gives some of the best interviews that only serve to melt your heart and love him more.

I think you would be hard pressed to find any fans in Edmonton that don’t like the young guy who wears the 98 with pride. There is certainly no one at the Nation that does. The Nation is here to build up the players. Especially off the ice. We all love him and so with that in mind we will be retiring the pizza emoji this season and welcoming our new JP emoji:

We love Jesse Pulujarvi and if he doesn’t like the pizza reference (not unlike the certain deity reference we made about Connor previously) we will move on from it. Let’s go Oilers and let’s go Puljujarvi.

If you know Finnish/want to watch the full video I am referencing, here it is:

I have to thank @kulta64 on twitter for providing me with some cursory notes on this video as my understanding of Finnish is non-existent