– In the evening, after the game, the cat was placed on the table with the team. In the morning, the cat was pushed into the pipe.
– It felt as if Kapaka’s poet could have rhymed Eino Leinon poetry book. It was a bit like that.
– We have sawed a hare in half or pulled a woman out of a hat in order to get performance assurance.
– Let’s go to Mikkeli for the night. The boys go to the hotel. I’m going to the spoon with the lady. Nothing more than that. We will be ready tomorrow.
Here are just some of the suttas that Risto Dufva has offered for years in the hockey SM league.
However, now Dufva’s coaching career, which has lasted more than 30 years, is coming to an end this spring with the playoffs of the SM league. Vaasan Sport, coached by Dufva, 60, made it to the top ten with a great performance.
Earlier this season, Dufva completed 900 matches in the SM league as a head coach. They have only been able to do the same Jukka Rautakorpi and Pekka Virta.
Dufva started his coaching career 33 years ago at JYP as an assistant coach and has since coached every season.
– Yes, it is a long time. When you think about it afterwards, it’s quite an achievement for me to be employed with a club for such a long time every season, Dufva recalled to at the time of his celebratory match and answered again with a hose.
– This has been dancing on a tightrope. After doing it for so long, you get used to it. Not looking down, just looking at the string.
1991: A special start to a coaching career
The coaching career started in a special way. In the early 1990s, Dufva had been a goalkeeper in JYP’s SM league team, but the then head coach Hannu Aravirta wanted Dufva to coach JYP’s league team. At that time he was 27 years old.
– It was a smart bet from Ara. I was able to participate as a player at all levels, second division, first division, league. As a player, I got what you can get, Dufva says before offering one more joke.
– I had good saves. They didn’t always hit where the puck is, he says.
– Ara might have seen this. He offered a spot on the coaching staff. Although it seems rude to say it right away, after thinking about it for a day, it was quite good. Ara directly said that I help the team best by quitting. Put on a little jacket, there’s more help there.
1994– 1995: First head coach in colorful colors
The first head coaching job was in Savonlinna in SaPKO in the first division in the season 1994–1995.
– It was a colorful year. Of course, losing your virginity in these jobs happens once. You have to go with the iron confidence given by complete ignorance, he describes.
– You didn’t understand everything, when you still don’t understand. There was more self-confidence than today. It was a really interesting year. The games started well. The best players were sold at Christmas. There was an eleven game losing streak. The best players were given up. We still got a feather up. We went all the way to the league qualification. Those were memorable games in terms of hockey from Savonlinna. We even won once in Ilves Tampere.
In the meantime, it’s also good to return to the present moment.
– When today we talk about the qualifiers, I remember that the difference was at least the same as it is today. I remember when there was information about the league qualifiers in the same context as the playoff information session. I was asked what capabilities SaPKO has to move up to the league. I said as a kid that all the capabilities are there if the game takes you there, Dufva says.
However, it was not the whole truth.
– In the same week, the chairman at the time received a message that if you didn’t practice shots directly from the pass, when you don’t have the money to take clubs from the Matkahuolto online booth before the first Ilves game has been played. Many things have become gilded over the years. It wasn’t close to the league level even then, he says.
1997–1998: In Kärpi in “fake doctor work”
In 1997 came the big screen spot. Oulu Kärpät was about to start its successful dynasty. Risto Dufva was Juha Junnon and Seppo Arponen first coaching recruitment.
– I learned from the first briefing. I went home and told my wife that now the ax has been hammered into the stone. At that time, I wasn’t a big enough name in Oulu’s very critical puck community. That’s when I learned that in coaching you have to see when it’s the right moment to go somewhere. They were waiting for a real coach, not a play coach, Dufva describes.
Even though Kärpät won the regular season of the first division in the 1997–1998 season under Dufva’s leadership, the head coach was having a bad time.
– I can sense from the environment that I’m on a fake doctor’s job there. That’s when I learned that responsibility is what you take on, he says.
1999–2006, in Jukurei, with the abc book, a kilo of pieces for the SM league
Dufva was allowed to leave Kärpi in the middle of the playoffs. For the next season, he moved to Mikkeli. He spent no less than eight years there. Under Dufva’s leadership, Jukurit rose from the second division to Mesti. There were four championships, one silver and one fourth place in six years.
– Most importantly, we got a lot of players forward. When moving up to the league was impossible, our theme was to move up to the league in pieces of a kilo. One player at a time. Probably more than 30 players from us, maybe even 40 players came to the league during that time, Dufva remembers.
At the same time, I learned a lot more. At the same time, he worked in the coaching teams of the national teams. He felt that he was constantly on the crest of the wave with the latest hockey knowledge.
In Mikkeli, Dufva also gained a broader perspective. He understood everything involved in running a SM league club. In that, he was helped by the chairman of KalPa’s successful years in the 1980s, who became the leader of Jukurie Matti Turunen.
– It would be good for a coach to be able to build with the abc book sometime in his career so that he can understand more of the whole. It is important to understand trimming and trimming. However, it is also important to understand how the club works as a whole. The SM league organization is still mostly a volunteer organization. You have to understand how a volunteer organization works, Dufva describes.
2007–2011: Successful years at JYP, a rare moment told a lot
From Jukur, Dufva returned to JYP. That’s when the greatest years of success began. According to his own words, Dufva had managed to refuse four times to join JYP. The reason was the harsh doctrine about Kärpi.
However, he understood that in the JYP management Jukka Seppänen and At Kari Tyn had a strong will to succeed. He also knew from the beginning of the 1990s that success was possible. The entire club community showed a desire to make the most of everything.
In the spring of 2009, JYP won its first Finnish championship under the leadership of Dufva.
– That has been the biggest thing for me. Goals were set in late summer 2008. Everyone was there, Players, coaching, office staff, marketing, kitchen staff, stall vendors were also represented.
– We all think about how we can do things better so that we can compete for the Finnish championship. I haven’t been able to do that anywhere. It had a very rare sense of commitment. It has remained in my mind as a great memory, Dufva describes.
2011–2016: Close to the jackpot with Luko from a cleaning contract in Tappara
Dufva was allowed to leave JYP in the fall of 2011, but ended up coaching Tappara during the same season.
– Tappara’s gig was a cleaning job. The club knew that Jukka Rautakorpi would come the following year. I was tasked with cleaning out all the excess. I tried to do it as best I could. On that side, I also cleaned myself, says Dufva.
From Tappara, he went to Rauma Lukko for four seasons.
– In Rauma, the jackpot was also very close. It always takes luck. In four years, we played twice in a decisive tie for a place in the finals. We would have been very close to the championship if we had managed to sneak into the final. Rauma had a pent-up hunger for the championship. We had bad luck. Top players were injured, Dufva states.
2019–2024: The last chapter in Sport – “This wasn’t supposed to be such a long job”
However, Dufva achieved one WC bronze with Luko. After the short-lived Jukurit, JYP and Polish league games, Vaasan Sport was on the horizon. That became the last coaching job of my career.
– I was in Katowice making a change. I was hired to make a difference. I misunderstood. It was that I should change. I decided to go away myself. Sport came a bit unexpectedly, Dufva recalls.
Pesti Sport started in November 2019. That is, the last fall before the corona pandemic.
– This wasn’t supposed to be such a long job. Luckily it came. There have been quite challenging times. We are now in our fifth year. This is the first regular season. Corona was a very tough challenge for all clubs, as well as for Sport. It rocked the economic equation.
– It’s terribly sad when we got a new great arena here and that moment slipped out of our hands when we could have used it to the maximum. The arena came, but the spectators were not allowed to come. The situation cleared up little by little, he laments.
However, the Kuparisaari ice hall was sold out for the last two home games of this season’s regular season. Dufva’s coaching career was extended by at least two more games, when Sport defeated Pori Ässät in the final game of the regular season.
– Vaasa has a long tradition of playing ball. There is something unique about the fan culture here. Finnish-Swedishness gives a special stamp. We have our own tribe here too. This is exceptional, Dufva already incensed in November and reminded that they had not then caused the unusual thing to catch fire by their own actions.
In the last few moments, however, those flames have been witnessed somewhat.
On Sunday, Dufva may be the last time in the SM league game as a coach, when KalPa can advance to the quarterfinals with a win.
Dufva’s own future is still a question mark. However, he has clear thoughts about sports.
– The undeniable fact is that some new thinking is required in the entire community if we are to take the next step. Steppi cannot succeed by changing coaches. New ideas and thoughts, and there are as good opportunities to succeed in hockey here as elsewhere in Finland, Dufva said in November.
Listen live to Sport–KalPa and the second final match of the women’s league in Areena live from 14:45.