Antti Pennanen, Jukka Jalonen’s well-known top coach, explains what Finland’s winning streak is based on. He hopes that the responsibility of the big sport will be borne in mind when considering the destination of the proceeds of the home races.
Joel Sippola,
Matti Lehtisaari
Ticket prices for the 2012 World Hockey Championships in Finland were once the subject of much criticism. Also this spring, the price level of the World Cup became a topic of conversation. While expensive tickets have their downsides, the money they earn has done a lot of good.
The World Championships in Tampere and Helsinki were a financial success.
President of the Hockey Association Harri Nummelan According to current data, the Hockey Association will make the spring home competition a financially positive result. The exact amount will not be known until several months later.
– I think we will make a profit of more than five million euros, Nummela estimates.
Nummela says that the proceeds will be invested in the development of Finnish hockey.
– Profit is so important that the financing of certain junior hockey development measures has been based on the profits of previous World Championships. If and when these competitions produce a similar positive result, then we can continue the development work of the junior disc.
When the World Hockey Championships were held in Finland in 2012, the proceeds of the Games were directed to skills coaching. The Hockey Association hired 26 full-time skill coaches with the money.
– For almost ten years now, we have been targeting skills training at the beginning of the player’s path, for 9-11 year olds. So teaching basic hockey skating and racketing. Now in Tampere we saw the results of our work to educate junior players, Nummela says.
Responsibility above
Hockey coach Antti Pennanen for its part, estimates that the effects of the recruitment of skills coaches in 2013 will only become more tangible in the near future. The hiring of skill coaches is targeted at player age groups born in 2003 and beyond.
According to Pennanen, the current gold team has players that show the league’s previous actions.
– In the past, full-time national team coaches were hired for 16- and 20-year-olds. That is certainly one of the things the Hockey Association has put money into. Hiring full-time national team coaches has certainly helped.
– Of course, our biggest strength is cooperation. The clubs do an excellent job and the national team coaches support the clubs.
Hockey is a really expensive sport due to many equipment, among other things. Pennanen hopes that the proceeds of this year’s World Cup will be transferred to at least the childhood and adolescence phase.
– I would move them to childhood and adolescence. I would go to fight against the high cost of the sport and not make hockey an imaginatively wrong kind of species. I would work to ensure that responsibility begins to show more strongly in childhood and adolescence.
Gameplay behind success
For the men’s national hockey team, Sunday’s world championship was already the third tournament win of the last four value tournaments. Until a few years ago, the Lions Value Finals often ended in bitter losses.
In recent years, the culture of winning has become part of Lions ’grip. The team will rise from a loss to victory, as in the 2022 World Cup against Slovakia, the United States and Canada.
Antti Pennanen, who is currently one of the leading coaches in Finnish hockey, lists the reasons for his success, among other things. Head coach of the national team Jukka Jalonen has been operating in its current washroom since the fall of 2018.
Jalonen was also the head coach of the Lions in 2008–2013. In the spring of 2011, he achieved his first world championship.
One of Jalonen’s playful lines has been to play against four pairs of defenders.
– Of course, winning and succeeding have given them self-confidence. The usual ways of winning have been rocked so hard during Jukka’s latest project, Pennanen says.
– There have been no terrible changes in them. Habits are things that the Finnish national team can rely on in tough times. When these are done, we will succeed sooner or later, Pennanen sees.
Experienced coaching team
Pennanen participated in the Lions coaching group in the spring of 2019, when Finland was about to reach its third world championship in history. He knows very well at least Jalonen, the assistant coach, about coaching the current gold team Mikko Mannerin and goalkeeper coach Kari Lehtonen.
– The whole coaching team is experienced. There are very experienced people around Jukka. Jukka, on the other hand, is arguably the best national team coach in the world. He has a long track record of what national team coaching is all about.
Harri Nummela states that success is the result of long-term work.
– A large number of Finnish puck people have taken part in this work. I would see that Finland’s success was never based on having the most players or having the strongest financial resources.
– But we have the best hockey skills in the world. It is good to build on that basis.