The female lionesses will face Sweden on Sunday at 5 p.m. The goal is to advance to the A group of the next World Cup. Urheilu follows the match in this article.
It was supposed to be the place for the face wash.
The female lions went to Brampton, Canada, to return to the medal base and, after last fall’s humiliation, get back to the A group.
For the second time in a row, the Czech Republic came before the medal games. Although Finland won all the meetings between the teams during the season at EHT, the Czech Republic was the better managed team in Thursday’s World Cup quarter-final.
It played smart and kept Finland away from the best goal positions. Juuso Toivola found no cures for the rise of female lions.
The second World Cup tournament led by Toivola continued with the same pattern as the first one last August: that time, a loss to the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals dropped the Women’s Lions out of the medal games for the first time in history.
Toivola followed in his mission Pasi Mustowho stepped down from the helm of the Women’s Lions in the middle of the Beijing Olympics due to family reasons.
Although Mustonen has not coached the team for more than a year, he has remained in the headlines frequently, mainly for his disagreements with the players. The matter is currently being investigated in Suek.
Of course, for Mustose, the Olympics were supposed to be the last tournament as Finland’s head coach anyway. The position of head coach of the Women’s Lions we were put on open search in March 2021 (you move to another service)where Mustonen also applied for it.
Black included in the union when it was misunderstood (you move to another service)that he would not want to continue.
The application process was led by the general manager of the Women’s Lions Tuula Puputtiand in addition to Mustonen, the coach of Tyttöleijonia applied for the position, among others Mira Kuisma.
The Ice Hockey Federation considered Mustonen’s long-term assistant coach, Toivola, who has been working on the development of women’s hockey for twenty years, to be the best option, who was offered a 2+2-year contract.
The union man was an easy choice.
However, the last two World Cup tournaments have shown that Toivola is not the right man to lead the team as a challenger to the North American giants.
Last year’s games were overshadowed by uproar. Susanna Tapani traveled to his friend’s wedding in between the games and second guard Meeri Räisänen got to watch the games from the stands after his social media update, which was interpreted as spiky.
This year, neither of them is in the team. The uproar around the team is mainly related to the dispute between the former head coach and the former players.
The team’s atmosphere has been described by the players as excellent.
It is true that there have been big changes in Naisleijon in recent years, which started already after the WC home games in 2019.
They left out of last fall’s World Championships Minttu Tuominen and Sanni Hakala. They also said no thanks to this spring’s World Championships Michelle Karvinen and my habit. Denmark’s best scorer at the World Championships Elisa Holopainen is, on the other hand, injured.
However, the changes do not explain the catastrophic decline.
Whereas before the Women’s Lions were talking about challenging the giants of North America, now they are talking about returning to the A group and beating the weaker countries in the A group.
For example, countries that were not even participating in the main games a few years ago. The Czech Republic played in the I division as recently as 2015.
Dominating the Women’s League point exchange Michaela Pejzlova told Urheilu about the rise of ice hockey in his country, which started especially Tomas Pacinan in the season.
The team got more and more resources: the coaching team grew, the quality of coaching improved and more and more attention was paid to the equipment.
Former Canadian ice hockey player Carla MacLeod has taken the activity forward even further.
According to Pejzlova, women’s hockey in the Czech Republic is invested more and more every year.
It is now visible in the rink.
Sweden’s road ahead?
Many people also remember the sad fate of Sweden from the 2019 World Cup home games in Finland: the country was relegated from the main games to the I division.
After that, Swedish women’s ice hockey was in the headlines mainly because of nasty fights, when the players of the national team boycotted national team activities. In the background, issues related to valuation were revealed: for example, the players were not paid compensation for lost income while representing the national team, they had to use men’s equipment and, despite their requests, they were not presented with a plan for the development of the women’s national team.
The poorly run Olympics had already left the players of the women’s national ice hockey team without compensation from the Swedish Olympic Committee. The same discussion about the right of female ice hockey players to support money is currently being held in Finland.
However, now Sweden has managed to get back in the right direction.
Lessons have been learned from the disaster. The number of girl players increased over the years 28 percent between 2021 and 2022 (you switch to another service): From 7,000 players to 9,000 players.
In the opening group, the team led 2–0 against Finland going into the final set, but Finland’s top players Ronja Savolainen with the lead lifted the Naislejonas from adversity to victory.
On Sunday, Finland will have to do a full breakfast (the match will be played at ten o’clock local time) to return to the A group.
In Finland, last autumn’s World Cup disaster was followed by tough speeches: the chairman of the Ice Hockey Association Harri Nummelan according to the association, the situation of women’s and girls’ hockey was to be reviewed extensively, to assess the operation and situation of the women’s national team, and to outline measures for the development of girls’ and women’s hockey.
We haven’t heard much about the measures yet.
At the end of March, however, the union published Women’s League leader’s wash to apply (you will switch to another service).
Now is the time for the union to live up to its word and start really investing in women’s activities as well.
You can take a model from the Czech Republic, for example: hiring Canadian women’s coach Carla MacLeod as head coach was a great move.
Naisleijon has never had a female head coach, but good alternatives could be found from home as well: Mira Kuisma, who led HIFK to the championship in the Women’s League and currently works as an assistant coach at Naisleijon Saara Niemi or coaching in the United States Venla Court.
Someone who could restore Finland’s medal base.
Unfortunately, there has been no hope for that.
The female lionesses will face Sweden on Sunday at 5 p.m. The goal is to advance to the A group of the next World Cup. Urheilu follows the match in this article.
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