Ice hockey tour on Friday at Areena from 18:15. Fourth semifinals KalPa–Tappara and Kärpät–Pelicans.
Finnish ice hockey’s reigning champion Tappara plans to fly to Kuopio on Friday to play a semi-final match against KalPa. The plan was confirmed to Urheilu by Tappara’s CEO on Thursday Mika Aro.
Tappara flies 295 kilometers from Tampere to Kuopio, because the semifinals continue the very next day, Saturday, in Tampere.
If Tappara wins on Friday, it will have the chance to grab a place in the finals for this spring’s final matches on Saturday.
Tappara also flew to Kuopio last weekend on a private plane, when in the same way the program included semi-final games on consecutive days in Tampere and Kuopio.
Flying solution has drawn criticism. Aro reminds Urheilu that in the regular season they only went to games by bus and train.
– When there is a lot of stress during the spring and hopefully the games would continue for a long time, we ended up flying to Kuopio. In these games on consecutive days, the first game can last a very long time and the next day the puck drops on the ice at 5:00 p.m., says Aro.
When Tappara flew to Kuopio for the SM league finals in 2017, Tappara’s team manager at the time Petri Tuononen told Urheilu that the solution saves time “a couple of hours”.
Last week, Tappara’s flight from Tampere to Kuopio took 31 minutes. The journey between Tampere and Kuopio by highway takes about 3 hours and 45 minutes.
Tappara will fly back to Tampere on Friday immediately after the end of the game.
– The less we sit still and the better night’s sleep we get, the better chance the players have to recover, says Aro.
Tappara’s solution has attracted attention especially because Tappara is in its responsibility program committed to consider the environment in all its activities and to maintain environmental issues in its communications.
Tappara boss Aro says the club takes environmental issues seriously, but also sports seriously.
– Now is the time when the rankings and championships are decided. We want to optimize our opportunities here, Aro describes.
How does the CEO respond to the criticism that words do not match actions with flying?
– I would see that we consider environmental issues as a whole. We have done a lot to reduce the large environmental burden caused by hockey, i.e. public travel. Our arena is located in the city center and we compensate for trips there, says Aro.
According to the managing director, free public transport is included in the 250,000 match tickets sold by Tappara this season. According to him, the opportunity has been used 80,000 times this season.
The researcher wonders
University lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä who studied the environmental effects and travel time of domestic flights Stefan Baumeister does not swallow the arguments of the Tappara boss.
According to Baumeister, the emissions of flights within Finland are on average 18 times higher than the same journey by bus or train. He considers Tappara’s decision to fly quite bad from an environmental point of view.
– Tappara does not fully comply with its environmental program, where they say they are trying to avoid emissions. In that sense, this is really questionable, Baumeister points out.
Baumeister calculates that flying to Tappara can only save an hour in travel time compared to traveling by bus or train, when the trips to the airports and the time spent there are added to the flight itself.
– This time saving does not justify 18 times the emissions, says Baumeister and believes that with an extra private flight, the emissions can be even higher than average compared to a scheduled flight.
He also wonders about the issue from a stress point of view.
– You can also rest on a train or bus. It’s not very stressful. There is, for example, more legroom in a train or bus than in an airplane, says Baumeister.
In his own work, Baumeister has seen many situations like Tappara’s, where words do not match actions.
– This should get better. Strong public disapproval is good in that sense, because it is the only way to turn words into action, Baumeister describes.
Tappara has therefore not made a similar solution for the first time. Seven years ago, in the finals of the SM league, the topic did not become a topic of conversation in a similar way.
For example, Urheilu cheerfully reported about Tappara’s flying, how “Kalakukko-airways will fly the boys to Kuopio”. Because of consecutive game days, KalPakin flew to one final match in Tampere.
Baumeister sees with the recent noise that a certain kind of change has taken place in society.
– Everyone is more aware of the climate crisis. We see its effects ourselves every day in everyday life. This kind of activity is frowned upon more strongly, Baumeister estimates.
What kind of solutions could be found so that there would be no need to fly between Tampere and Kuopio less than 300 kilometers away?
– It’s about the schedule and the whole thing in general. Now let’s go like this. We and elsewhere will certainly evaluate after the season whether we can go more sensibly and whether it has been beneficial. Let’s see how it goes next time, Tappara boss Aro replies.
Listen to all SM league playoff matches live from ! Ice hockey tour on Friday live at Areena from 18:15. In the program, the fourth semifinals KalPa–Tappara (wins 1–2) and Kärpät–Pelicans (wins 0–3).