– It’s nice that you can give prizes for games even without seeing them.
Pori Ässie’s head coach Jere Härkälän39, hose for his father For Jari Härkälä61, at the lunch table of the Pori restaurant, reveals that even harsh humor is not spared between this duo.
Jari Härkälä, who also worked as the head coach of the team in the seasons 2006–2008, was the guest of honor at Ässie’s HIFK home match the night before and awarded two goalkeepers and one Ässie field player for the match that ended 0–1 in extra time.
– The goals were evenly matched 0-5 during his ice time, otherwise it was fine, says Jere Härkälä.
There is now a historic duo in Pori ice hockey together, as Jari and Jere Härkälä are the first father-son pair to take care of Ässie’s head coach.
Only one duo has made it to the top in the SM league, ie Hannu and Sami Kapanen, in the last club of Jari Härkälä’s league playing career in KalPa. In Kuopio, Härkälä played with Sami Kapanen under the coaching of Hannu Kapanen, served as the latter’s assistant coach and later also as head coach.
Jari Härkälä would like to visit his hometown more often, but due to his disability, traveling is no longer as easy and simple as before.
Jari Härkälä, who lived in Helsinki’s Vuosaari for a long time, is also a significant part of the Ässie’s history as a player. He played for the club in the 1980s as a center for six seasons, most in the middle of the second chain Kimmo Sillanpää and Jari Nyström between.
The responsibility came in a club that played at the top of the SM league until the mid-1980s, with both superior and inferior strength. The role of second center in Ässi was not taken by signing up at that time, but the competition was fierce.
– The center section in Äss mostly consisted of national team level guys. In training, you had to both take and give really hard if you wanted a place in the game.
Although Härkälä was a good player of the possession game, he often waited his turn on the bench for a long time.
– If the opponent got just the base two, “Java” (SM league’s all-time goal gun Arto Javanese) did not exchange with his adjutants at all. During Vitonen’s jähy, he could come in for about three minutes, Härkälä recalls with amusement at a table in the club restaurant before the start of the HIFK match.
He has watched almost all of Ässie’s matches on TV this season, but is now coming to the completely renovated Isoonmäki for the first time since his own pot years, 1981–1987. Now, even in international comparison, the hall is a completely appropriate arena.
– During my Ace days, we received excellent foreign aid Mark Jooris, who had a habit of putting skates on his bare feet. That habit changed quite suddenly, when in the morning it could be minus 15 in the hall.
In the spring of 2015, a venous blood clot knocked Jari Härkälä to the street in Kuopio, where his head hit so that his neck vertebra was fatally injured.
– I don’t remember anything about it, not the week before it, nor the two following. Everything disappeared.
Kuopio University Hospital’s neurosurgeons saved Härkälä from complete quadriplegia; the limbs began to feel and move.
The news was a big shock for the family. Jere Härkälä was working at the time Pekka Rautakallion in the Ässie league coaching team. He was able to see his father when he was transferred to the prestigious Validia Hospital in Helsinki for rehabilitation.
– The worst initial shock subsided when I noticed that the father has a burning motivation for his rehabilitation. He dealt with what happened in a very solution-oriented way, not feeling or lamenting. The rehab job was huge and I’m really glad he got through it. Compared to the starting points and the worst alternatives, it is a very hard defense win.
Jari Härkälä, who lives in a so-called barrier-free home with his spouse in Vuosaari, mainly uses a wheelchair, but can also move on his feet with support.
He does strength exercises all the time and lives a very disciplined life so that he doesn’t gain weight. At Validia, at the beginning of his rehabilitation, he also met twice with a psychologist.
– The first time was three quarters, the second quarter. I guess he saw that I was with what happened and ready to accept what was coming. I have approached this more as such a practical problem. Everything takes much more time than before.
The psychologist stated that practically every fellow-destined will fall ill with varying degrees of depression at some point.
– I have been waiting for mine for almost nine years now. You have to remember that at the time of the incident I was already 53 years old, had seen and experienced a lot of life. It’s a completely different story when a young guy is thrown into it from the scene of an accident, for whom life was still ahead of him yesterday, says the divorced father of two adult children.
Arto Javanainen has already moved from long-time game buddies and good friends to another reality, Harry Nikander and Arto Heiskanen.
Jere Härkälä drives with his wife and child to meet his father in Helsinki a few times a year. Most contact is made via video calls. Hockey is not the main part in them.
– The main person in the calls is practically always my five-year-old daughter Eve, but yes, we are also talking about the puddle. More, however, on a fairly general level. I have never felt that my father tried to master in any way or that my name was a burden. And his injury has not affected our relationship at all, except in practical arrangements. They have more work now.
– If I were to start lecturing Jere about the organization of the number one advantage, the phone calls would be even shorter, Jari Härkälä laughs.
Jere Härkälä ended his playing career in Äss at the age of 21 in 2006, with one league game under his belt from the 2004–2005 season. At that time, the father says that he thought about his son’s future plans in terms of schools and working life.
– I wanted to stay in the sport. Through my father’s career, I also knew the brutality of the job. During the season, there is no mundane or sacred, thoughts are always on the team and the family pays the price, says Jere Härkälä, whose spouse Carita Toiviainen is a two-time Superpesis Player of the Year.
The father did not take a stand on his son’s coaching dreams one way or the other.
– Jere was a grown man and free to make his own choices and mistakes. Don’t get me wrong: of course I am very proud that he is now head coach at a club that means so much to both of us.
Jere Härkälä started in Äss as the head of the skating school, worked for years in coaching under-16, 18 and 20-year-olds, was an assistant coach of the league team and got incentives to coach the men in Mestis. In addition, he went through the entire coaching training path of the Ice Hockey Federation and completed a professional coaching degree at the Kuortanene sports college.
However, the starting point was challenging, as the predecessor was one of the most worshiped coaches in the ice hockey history of Karhukaupunki Karri Kivi, under whose command the team even overperformed in the last spring semester and manfully challenged Ilves in the quarterfinals. In the net corners – where Jere Härkälä is not comfortable – it was speculated that the new unknown Ässä locomotive would not need a winter jacket, at least against the raw winter spirit of Pori.
Ketola’s heavy speech
The Pori totem, who joins his friend Jari Härkälä in the club restaurant Brother Pekka Ketola use a weighty speech on the subject.
– The basic problem is that the puck fan from Pori is a mu…u, who has a two-game streak. It started because Jere was not given any chance. In Pori, all ignorance is spat out raw without even a whiff of what the coaching staff and the team are even trying to get. And the most brutal treatment is if the town’s own son is put on the stake.
Ketola was clear that Jere Härkälä deserved his chance.
– It would have been completely unreasonable if he had not received it. I’m glad that he has succeeded, and with these Ässie budgets, you can’t succeed if you don’t really know how to coach.
At the time of the interview on January 11, Ässät was above the playoff line and had scored more points than in the same number of matches last season. However, in the most recent three matches, the team had scored a total of one goal.
– The game has good blanks and structures, but the finishing has now lacked relaxation. I would be more concerned if blanks and structures were missing.
As a player, Jari Härkälä achieved league silver in Ässi in 1984 and in KalPa in 1991. As a head coach, he achieved three championships in rink ball during the sport’s search years 20 years ago. Pori’s Kärppien game had at its peak 5,000 spectators in Isossamäki. Härkälä’s star player was Mikael Kotkaniemithe current famous hockey coach and NHL player Jesperi Kotkaniemi father. Jere Härkälä is happy to share his thanks for his studies.
– I have learned from such coaches as “Miku” (Kotkaniemi), “Rocky” (Rautakallio), Karri (Kivi) or Virran Pekka. I have coached Jesper and seen the importance of passion for success. Sometimes you have to remind your own players that the profession of a player is a privilege that you should be grateful for and show that gratitude every day.
Jere Härkälä’s hands have passed through the hands of Ässi at various stages, including players such as the two-time world champion Juho LammikkoOlympic champion Niko Ojamäki and world champion Oliver Kaski. Father, on the other hand, pulled school morning ice creams in Kuopio, among other things Kimmo Timonen and Olli Jokinen.
– Jere was two years old when we moved from Pori to Kuopio. One Christmas day, it was a freezing 25 degrees, but the boy and his friend went outside for two hours on the ice. When he returned, he said that the “tall boy” still remained. He was Olli Jokinen, the one I kept in touch with the most from his old teammates Kari Takon, Juha Jokiharjun and Juha Tuohimaan father-Härkälä, who keeps with him, says.
Jere Härkälä knows that he operates in a rather windy profession, where long-term goals are not exactly worth announcing publicly.
– The self-evident goal is of course to establish a job at this level. And if I now say that at some point I might be interested in some level of national team coaching, I’m sure it won’t be considered self-praise.
Aiming at Leo-Pekka Tähti
The son is happy that his father, who receives a disability pension, has also found his place in hockey again. Jari Härkälä has been the head coach of the national para ice hockey team since the turn of the decade.
– It has brought a very meaningful content to my father’s everyday life.
On the plus side, Finland is still a newcomer to the top countries.
– It is no different from normal elite sports in that the peaks are really hard there too, says Jari Härkälä.
On this trip to Porin, Jari Härkälä did not go to give the para hockey recruitment speech, which he clearly has in his plans. A legend of para sports, from Pori Leo-Pekka Star, end his career as a wheelchair athlete for the Paralympic Games in Paris next September. Perhaps the head coach is going to suggest a new career for him.
– “Lepe” visited one of our camps, and I can say that the sled was moving fast. A little training below, and he would be our body man.