This season’s Tappara is one of the best teams in league history. The victorious CHL sky revealed why the ax is also swinging at the top of Europe, writes Urheilu’s news manager Pekka Aalto.
Pekka AaltoYle Sports news manager
It was a match! On Thursday, Tappara and the Pelicans offered one of the most amazing league games in recent years. The SM league returned its charm this season and the fifth final was the finishing touch. A league of roulette.
Tappara, who took the championship by half-force, did a trick this season, the likes of which has not been seen before in Finnish club hockey. The Tampere club won the CHL and Finnish championships in the same season.
A similar double has never been even close before.
Kärpät got to the smell in 2016, but the CHL sky ended with a final loss and Jussi Tapolan Tappara knocked the freshmen off the board in the league’s seventh semifinal. That match is the most significant of the ax camp’s entire 10-year dynasty. An away win in Oulu opened the championship path after three silver springs.
Samainen Tapola won his fourth championship in Tampere on Thursday. Less than a decade was enough for Tapola to become one of the best coaches in league history. Six championships Hannu Jortikka may they still hold the first place, but Tapola will come right next.
In the case of Tappara this season, you can even stop to think whether there has ever been a tougher team in the history of the league. The comparison is difficult and perhaps pointless, but interesting.
There is at least one team ahead of Tappara – the 1998 HIFK was superior in terms of roster and performance. But this season’s Tappara knocks on medal positions. Tampere won the regular season and lost only twice in the playoffs.
HIFK used to have Johan Davidssonbut Tapparalla pecked with two Davidssons, of which Marcus solved the gold.
The difference to HIFK in 1998 is that Tappara will hardly become a thousand-game NHL player or multiple Stanley Cup winners.
For this season, Jussi Tapola got his hands on a cheeky material by the league’s standards, but it has been seen before that nothing can be done with just a name list. The job has to work in the rink. And this also happened under Tapola’s leadership.
Tappara was clearly the league’s most versatile team. Its greatest strength was that Tappara could play any kind of puck at a high level. This tells about the abilities of the coaching and the quality of the players.
Imaginations often follow the present moment. For some time now, Tappara has not been just a bundle that avoids risks and protects the city center. It has proven that it can also win with an active game. For the past couple of seasons, Tappara has often taken the initiative and its five have started to stay together even at a high tempo. The best proof of this is the CHL championship, for which it wasn’t enough to simply win.
It may be that Tappara was even better last season than now, but the new champion team is unbeatable in special situations.
The power duo’s game of chairs ends
The recipe for success would work at Takuu in the future as well, but the winds of change are blowing in Tappara. They are blowing more strongly now than in more than a decade. Jukka Rautakorpi already left at the end of last season for JYP and Tapola is rumored to be at the helm of the German club Mannheim. There has also been speculation about HIFK-pesti.
Fortunately for the opponents, the duo’s game of chairs ends this season. It has been heard in hockey circles that Rautakorpi would have been willing to play one more time as Tappara manager after Tapola, but this option was ditched a long time ago.
After the power duo, a Swede will take the reins in Tappara Rikard Grönborg. According to all logic, his pesti will be announced next week. Grönborg is at least coming to help Juha Juujärviwho has extensive knowledge of Tappara.
Hiring a foreign chief pilot is once again a good bet by the Tappara management. Of course, Grönborg finds himself in a pressured position, but not as pressured as any domestic coach would have been in Tappara.
Loose talk about entertainment
There has been speculation in the public that Tappara’s club bosses wanted a change – according to loose talk, a “more entertaining” game. The main reason for this has been speculated to be the appeal of Ilves in the eyes of the public. The speculations are probably wrong, even though Ilves has been ahead of Tampere in terms of audience numbers and hype.
In Tappara, the focus is mainly on the profit column.
This will not change in the future, because winnings are the best entertainment and also guarantee the best financial result. It may be that Tappara’s game will speed up under Grönborg, because the man draws from Swedish, North American and Swiss puck culture.
The key question is how much it speeds up. If the change is moderate, Grönborg’s Tappara can at best be a natural continuation of Tapola’s Tappara. If the change is drastic, there will be a clash of cultures in the fall.