On Tuesday, the visiting teams won in the hockey league through shootout contests.
The Pelicans already won the second of last season’s finalist meetings, when Leevi Tukainen managed to surprise the Tappara keeper Juha Metsola in the winning shootout. Pelicans won 3-2.
The Pelicans took a narrow victory over the reigning Finnish champion in the October encounter as well.
Tappara continues its second streak in the League, but the lead of SaiPa, who played less in the match, shrank by just one point to three points. The Pelicans are still in 13th place in the series.
A winning start for HPK’s Olli Hällfors as a league pilot
It’s a special week in the ice hockey championship league. Leijonat is preparing for the tournament to be played in Switzerland, but in the domestic main league, we are sweating over series points.
An interesting detail of Tuesday’s meeting between the Kouvola club KooKoo and Hämeenlinna Pallokerho was the official match protocol, according to which HPK’s head coach was Mikko Manner. However, he is on this week’s national team trip. An incorrect truth will therefore remain in league history, because HPK’s commands were given by a 45-year-old from Vaasa behind the bench Olli Hällfors.
HPK’s win worth two points and only the third away win of the season with the scores of 4-3 decided the winning goal competition as the only success in the eighth pair of shots Teemu Rautiainen.
– I am in no way bitter that the victory goes to Miko’s statistics. It’s enough for me that those present tell and write that Mikko was with the national team this time, laughed Hällfors, who played 167 double-level matches in his playing career.
On Saturday, Kouvola experienced the biggest thrill of the season, when 4,702 spectators came to watch the match between neighbors KooKoo and SaiPa, a season record for Sumulaakso. HPK’s visit drew only 1,918 spectators to the hall, a record number for the season even in its smallness.