The Ice Hockey Federation must demand a proper analysis of the WC tournament from the coaching management. In the 2024 Games, there will hardly be two Jalos in the position of head coach, writes Urheilu’s news manager Pekka Aalto.
It’s been a couple of days now that the lions’ bobbled in the yard from the medal games have been melted. It feels the same as right after the game, so nothing at all. The disappointment after the Canada loss was the same as the Lions’ game, i.e. half-heartedly twisted. Of course, the team had everything on the line on Thursday, but there weren’t very moving reactions or stories about the loss.
It would be important to hear from the point of view of Suomi-kiko Jukka Jalonen a thorough analysis of why the game and the result fell through the cracks this time. At the same time, the level and detail of the analysis could tell what kind of flame the man is going into his last contract season with.
During the tournament, it was difficult to decide whether Jalonen was confident, cold or tired, if you think about Finland’s game and chain formations.
There was a bit of stale air around the Lions, even though they had been brought along Mikko Rantanen such a superstar and a few other fascinating players as well. The old recipe for success still gave some opportunities to fight for, say, the World Cup gold, but in the decisive game the margins now turned against Finland: a little impatience and inefficiency backfired. The skill gap of the kits was also a problem.
How many from Jalo for next year’s World Cup?
What next? The most daring ones are already painting a scenario where the number of Jalos in the replacement pens drops to zero in the next two years. The commander-in-chief of the future World Cup host Czech Republic Kari Jalonen the bench is humming properly, but in Finland the fate of Jukka Jalonen is hardly even thought about. The latter is allowed one or two huts.
Jalonen has gotten out of difficult situations before, such as once in Ilves, HPK and later in the national team, for example, in connection with the 2010 value tournaments. He can do it even now.
It would still be good to give some kind of signal about being awake.
The aforementioned analysis is required from Jalos, but the core question is: who in the Ice Hockey Federation has the expertise or authority to critically review the analysis with Jalos?
In addition to that, it would be necessary to ventilate the Lions’ coaching group. Mikko Manner and Ari-Pekka Selin get sidetracked. The perfect duo to replace them would be Jussi Tapola and Tuomas Tuokkolawho managed to develop our game in Tappara this season as well and once again swept the other league clubs off the board.
Tapola was invited to Adler Mannheim, but the German club finally chose the Swedish pilot. The Swiss Bern has also been after him. Even if Tapola continues his career in the club team, could he somehow be involved in the national team?
This season, it seemed that the EHT games have little to do with success in the World Cup. All four EHT teams, i.e. Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic and Switzerland, were beaten in the quarterfinals. The hiccuping of the game style and the experimentation of the players that lasted the whole season did not lead to anything in the result game.
Perhaps Tapola could join the coaching team fully only during the World Cup tournament.
And how do you know that, even if Tapola were to be baked into Jalonen’s successor. Otherwise, Jalonen won one race by Doug Shedden as second pilot and then took over the main responsibility. The end result wasn’t too bad.