Pelicans head coach Tommi Niemelä still can’t understand why Tappara’s first goal was allowed.
In the opening final of the Ice Hockey Championship League, Tappara put on a wild show when they clearly beat Pelicans with 5-1 goals.
The game was decided in the second period, when Tappara took control of the match after Pelicans overtime. Ben Blood’s driven into the cold by the fool, the people of Tampere scored the same number of goals in three minutes and took a 4–1 lead.
Pelicans head coach Tommi Niemelä did not melt Kristian Tanunsen goal of the opening set. A moment before the finish, he was wearing a mask Veli-Matti Savinainen the bat hit Patrik Bartos too into the mask.
The Pelicans challenged the goal, but after a long review, the hit was allowed. Niemelä was enraged by the verdict and used several strong words when talking to the judges about it.
– It’s a clear goalkeeper interference of the day. How it was accepted is still beyond me. Everyone who has ever been in goal knows that if you get hit in the neck with a stick, you won’t get the same start in the next situation, ex-goalkeeper Niemelä explained.
– Let’s talk about something, that we still got into a blocking situation. That half a second has already passed when you’ve made such a move. I still don’t understand why it was accepted.
Niemelä did not comment on the judges
Niemelä says that the judges told that Bartosak was free to start the next tackle.
When Niemelä was asked about the success of the judges, he pulled the strings.
– I am not allowed to comment on these, Niemelä began.
– It’s such a weird situation in Finland that I’m not allowed to comment, he answered when the question was repeated.
Niemelä repeated “I’m not allowed to comment” many times, when reporters asked, among other things, about a possible ukaas and a new direction from the direction of the SM league.
According to Niemelä, Pelicans played well in the second period for 17 minutes.
– Then we should have scored more goals. A top gang like Tappara gets certain plots and they hit a goal on all of them. The second batch distorted the numbers a bit. It is a fact that we have to defend them better. Especially a 6–5 goal is very upsetting.
Lukas Jasek was furious
In the second set, Pelicans’ star player From Lukas Jasek the surface burned and he left the locker room after Tappara’s third goal, smashing his bat into pieces. Jasek’s bad tackle had previously preceded Tappara’s goal, and he was also on the ice when Tappara succeeded during the postponed penalty.
– There was little in the background other than that goal, Niemelä stated.
What?
– I can’t comment either.
Is it in line with your values?
– I’m not talking about values now. That conversation has already taken place. Our team has certain values and we keep them to ourselves.
What annoyed Niemelä most of all was that, in his opinion, the result controlled the Pelicans’ players’ play.
– We had to go through it strongly. We don’t have to think about the result, but about the game. That’s our business.
Will the Pelicans’ mindset stay in the game?
The series continues on Friday in Lahti. According to Niemelä, the Pelicans have room to improve in addition to the defensive game in their own area, for example in playing on the puck. According to Niemelä, the work of those without pucks in particular was not good enough.
According to the head coach, the people of Lahti clearly need to improve their playing.
– It will probably be quite a cottage. Let’s see if everyone can keep the idea in the game. It is our challenge that thought and concentration is in playing.
– We are not satisfied with this and the series is at the beginning, Niemelä concluded.