The prediction of Leijoni’s new head coach was unbelievably correct in EPN’s MM studio – four facts about Antti Pennase

The Finnish Ice Hockey Federation confirmed on Thursday, as expected, that Antti Pennanen44, is the Lions’ next head coach.

Read more: Confirmation! Antti Pennanen as Leijoni’s head coach

Jukka Jalonen is still coaching this season’s Leijon. Pennanen will pilot Tampere Ilve until the end of the season, and will start in the national team next summer. The contract is for 2+1 years.

Urheilu reviewed Pennanen’s career through four stories.

1. Therapy turned the tide

Antti Pennanen has been a potential name for Leijoni’s head coach for years. Pennanen’s rise to become the number one coach in Finnish sports has not been just a meteoric rise.

At the turn of the 2000s, Pennanen played five matches in the SM league in HPK as an A-junior, and after his junior years, a season from Mest in Hyvinkää Ahmoi, after which he moved on to coach HPK’s juniors.

In May 2011, Pennanen moved to HIFK as assistant coach of the SM league team. Pesti ended with layoffs in January 2013.

– In retrospect, I was very good at the game, and that’s probably why I was hired there. But everything else that comes with coaching, I wasn’t ready yet, Pennanen stated as Radio Suomen’s Sunday guest in February 2021.

Around the time of the kick-off, Pennane experienced some degree of burnout. According to Pennanen, there was also luck in the accident.

– It was also the most important experience, because that’s when I started working with a therapist. Conscious spiritual growth began.

Pennanen got hooked on therapy. He felt that learning to understand oneself is infinitely interesting.

At the beginning of his coaching career, Pennanen was interested in physiology, biomechanics, physical training and sports skills. However, he understood that it is not enough if he wants to be a good coach.

– In terms of tactics, I was probably one of the top coaches in Finland from 2005 to 2015. But fortunately, the awareness and understanding of coaching deepened again, Pennanen said.

On top of this came an understanding of how he leads himself. The methods of operation have since changed since HPK’s junior coaching years.

– If I see an angry coach, I see a fearful coach. As Antti was then. That hatred is not healthy hatred, with which a person protects his boundaries, but the kind of hatred that breaks, Pennanen told Urheilu in March 2020.

– There is always some fear behind anger. Behind my anger were my own fears, which players sometimes had to face. You weren’t aware of them at the time, but the deeper you have gone with yourself, the more aware you become of those mechanisms.

2. Tuulettaja-Pennanen

Even though the last match at Ilves in Tampere has not gone exactly as expected, Pennanen will become the head coach of the Lions with quite a CV. Two Mestis championships in Jukurei, SM league championship in HPK. In national team hockey, World Cup gold as assistant coach of the Young Lions and Lions. World Championship silver and bronze as the head coach of the Young Lions.

The 2016 World Youth Championships at home have been etched in the minds of many Finns, when, among other things, Sebastian Aho, Patrick Laine and Jesse Puljujärvi drove the people wild. Jukka Jalonen’s and Antti Pennanen’s ventilations from the World Cup final against Russia have also been drawn on the retinas.

– It truly came from the heart in that moment, Pennanen has later stated to Iltalehti.

– It was my first time there and I was very nervous. I was so delighted and happy with those goals.

3. Oracle-Pennanen

Antti Pennanen has also impressed with his hockey knowledge. At the time of the 2017 World Cup, Pennase became a social hit when he completely correctly calculated the number of goals and scoring positions of the Lions in ‘s World Cup studios. For example, Oraakkeli-Pennanen hit the correct numbers in the game between Finland and Slovenia. Even in the Norway game, Pennanen made an almost perfect prediction.

Pennanen also shook the Finnish hockey crowd at the World Cup in question, when he compared the discussion circle of the sport to football.

– Football is of course a different kind of game than ice hockey, but the game and the discussion about it are more versatile than the discussion in Finnish hockey, Pennanen described.

4. Kriitikko-Pennanen

Antti Pennanen has also become known for the fact that he has not hesitated to take a stand when necessary on the pain points of Finnish hockey. For example, Pennanen has hoped that the proceeds from the World Cup home games would be directed to children and young people, because ice hockey is considered an expensive sport.

– I would set out to fight against the high cost of the sport, and that hockey would not become the wrong kind of sport in terms of image. I would work to ensure that responsibility starts to be seen more strongly in childhood and adolescence, Pennanen suggested in an interview with .

He has also been concerned about the declining number of hockey enthusiasts and the coach-led movement of children.

Pennase sometimes has the feeling that the top sports phase in Finland starts already at the age of 10.

– Everyone has to make sure that 20 hours of versatile exercise per week is realized. It brings NHL players and Olympic champions. This more than 20 hours is a blissful thing. All activities can be built on top of it. If the number of hours does not come true, the dream of a top athlete will not come true either, he has told Urheilu.