The finals of the Ice Hockey Championship League start on Wednesday evening in Tampere at 18:30. Puheen Jääkiekkierros follows all final matches. Wednesday’s broadcast starts at 18:10.
– Everyone else hates Tappara except our fans.
Captain of Tappara Otto Rauhala shook that model in the winter of 2020, when kirvesrinnat had the second best regular season in its history. Well, that season was cut short due to the corona pandemic.
Now, a brisk three years later, you can feel Rauhala’s words still hanging in the air.
The undersigned does not hate any league club. And it’s not worth it. But as an impartial bystander, it is easy to observe the sports romantic features of the hockey spring. There are enough of them, even if the first SM league final series between the people of Tampere was not achieved.
1. Machines versus artists
Starting from the 2012–13 season, Tappara is now playing in the finals for the eighth time, after ten chances. The current head coach started in Tappara from the 2012–13 season Jussi Tapolan and Jukka Rautakorvin period. Since then, one of them has been the head coach, and the other has been the sports director for several years.
Scorched earth tactics, trap defense, mechanization, tact, risklessness. Tapola and Rautakorpi have maintained that continuity in Tappara, for which negative fishing terms have been developed for a long time. How about winning?
– Others are jealous when we are so good and successful season after season, Rauhala continued in 2020, saying something that sounds like an obvious explanation for “Tappara-hate”.
Now that period ends. Tapola leaves Tappara, Rautakorpi is in JYP’s camp. This season, Tapola already led the blue-oranges to the CHL championship. If Tappara wins the SM league again, Tapola’s halo will be so bright that it will dazzle others.
In return, Tappara gets the youthful, active, brave, open-minded and tenacious Pelicans.
Tommi Niemelä has created a growth story in Lahti, for which it has been easy to come up with positive glowing terms.
The Pelicans team has enough young diamonds, artists. Tappara’s team has enough width so that the Vice-Captain who represented the team at the SM league playoff media conference Patrik Virta could be dropped from the lineup from the first final match.
It’s easy to judge who the heart of the majority beats for, if you don’t take into account the teams’ own supporters.
2. Trash talk stubs
When Tappara secured his place in the final, Tapola opened his verbal casket. He started talking about the Pelicans and Ilves semi-final series, where one of the controversial topics was ice fishing.
– I think the series (Tappara–HIFK) was above all tough and fair. If you think about both teams and the second series of matches, what is being talked about there: there are filmings, referee issues and more.
Tapola suggested that if the players fall into the same situation in the finals, they should be dragged in front of the media so they can be asked “what the hell are you doing?”.
When the Pelicans later secured their place in the finals, Niemelä responded to Tapola’s words.
– Tappara is a great team. CHL champion, reigning league champion and top of the regular season, whose coach has apparently watched our series quite a lot. I’m not quite sure what he saw about it, Niemelä grinned for MTV Urheilu (you switch to another service).
Tapola’s speeches were considered a media game, so that the judges in the finals would remember that the straight-faced Tappara and the fishing challenger were facing each other. Kill yourself your receipt in Aamulehti (you will switch to another service)that he just brought up the problem in the interest of the whole hockey.
– I was surprised that it was turned into my media game, and no responsibility was taken for what happened in my own game. Suddenly they started blaming the person who raised the problem, Tapola wondered.
Niemelä, on the other hand, accumulated sympathy points when the Pelicans and Ilves semi-final series ended. When the Pelicans fans threw a few silly beach balls onto the ice, Niemelä went to collect them off the ice before going to thank the people of Tampere for the match series. It was a puzzling and extraordinary act.
Whether it’s a media game or promoting the interests of Finnish hockey, it’s welcome and colorful when coaches sometimes do more than just “focus on what they’re doing and move forward”.
3. How big a surprise in the end?
The Pelicans are such a likable surprise that it is liked by the Tapparanki camp.
– In a certain way, I like Pelsua. Really good work has been done in Lahti for a long time. The level of demand was already high when I played there. The current coaching team did an excellent job even then. In that sense, it’s no surprise to me that the team is now fighting for a place in the finals, said during the semi-finals to Ilta-Sanom (you will switch to another service) Tapparan Walter Merelä.
Before the start of the season, the Pelicans were not even ranked in the playoffs. Of course, it has been emphasized about the Pelicans’ teams that their own rankings before the season looked a little different.
Still, looking at the history of the SM league, this is not completely exceptional. HPK won the championship in 2019. At that time, HPK was not even ranked in the playoffs before the start of the season. In the final, a group from Hämeenlinna knocked down three million Kärpäts.
In the spring of 2017, KalPa challenged Tappara in the final. Back then, the early favorite was better, but in the 2013 finals, Ässie’s charm knocked out Tappara.
Even in the player budgets announced before the season, the difference between Pelicans and Tappara is not as big as, for example, the final groups in 2017 and 2019.
It’s still clear that a Pelicans championship would be a huge sensation. Taking into account, for example, the fact that during the spring the question has been raised as to whether Tappara is the strongest league gang of all time.
In Niemelä’s opinion, starting as a clear underdog for the Pelicans is a “perfect situation”. For those hoping for a sensational championship, it’s just a pity that Tapola knows that very well.
– The Pelicans are at their best in terms of playing style, emotional state and atmosphere at just the right time of the season. The team can easily be compared to TPS 2010, Ässi 2013 or HPK 2019, who had a similar flow mode on in those spring, Tapola reflected to Aamulehte.
The finals of the Ice Hockey Championship League start on Wednesday evening in Tampere at 18:30. Puheen Jääkiekkierros follows all final matches. Wednesday’s broadcast starts at 18:10.