TPS’s guardian Ville Vahalahti was involved in the final goal when TPS and Tappara last met in the final. Tappara’s masseuse Veli-Matti Pohjonen recalls the rising years of the millennium with warmth.
The finals of the Finnish Ice Hockey League start today in Tampere. Puhheen’s Hockey Tour conveys matches and moods on site.
TPS and Tappara will start the battle for the championship of the Finnish Hockey League on Wednesday. At the same time, it will be decided which will be the toughest club ever in the Finnish Championship.
The clubs have the most championships in the history of the Finnish Championship League in its current form, ie since 1976 – both have ten songs. The mutual finals are exactly 2–2. The most recent battle was won by TPS in 2001, when Kalle Sahlstedt finished Ville Vahalahti preliminary work.
Vahalahti says that he remembers mostly individual events and moments from the final series. However, Sahlstedt’s solution has been memorized.
– It was an unreal situation. It wasn’t even a goal, Vahalahti recalls.
– The puck went to the end and Kalle followed. It was so out of the paint that Jussi Markkanen went to poke the puck around the corner. I haven’t checked the video to see if I pulled past the puck or if Kalle had a bang first, but he scored when Jussi wasn’t on goal. After that, he didn’t know where to skate, Vahalahti continues.
You can watch the match story of the fourth final in the Sports Box match and Sahlstedt’s hit in the video from ‘s Live Archive below.
In 21 years, many things have changed, but both teams also have familiar faces. Vahalahti currently works as TPS’s guardian and is also studying for a coach’s degree in Vierumäki.
Tappara’s masseuse Veli-Matti Pohjonen will start with the team in the 11th final series. Pohjonen, who has been working in Tappara since 1995, was in the first final series against TPS in 2001.
– We had been on the sail since the mid-1990s, but then Jukka Rautakorpi stepped into team coaching and we rose at the turn of the millennium. 2001 was the culmination and we suddenly realized we were in the finals, Pohjonen recalls.
– It was a great time and a great team, Pohjonen recalls and mentions, among other things, the name Alexander Barkov seniorin, Tendon and Marko Ojasen, Jussi Tarvainen and Jussi Markkanen.
Vahalahti scored 3 + 4 in ten playoff games that season. He played for the third season in the same chain with Sahlstedt and Tony Virran with. The power is the current Tappara center Patrik Virran father.
– We had a little different style team. I’m not saying we’re still relying on one field now, but then there were three top chains and a good brake chain. There was no terrible turnover, as the players of the five changed every year.
Vahalahti, 23, was able to enjoy the championship for the third time in a row. In previous years, the Jokers and HIFK crashed in the finals.
– It would blind the world of thought to whether this is really that easy. Then came a slightly longer season, even though we were once in the finals before 2010.
“The pace is accelerating”
TPS secured its final place on Saturday when it won Ilves 4–2. Tappara will have to wait a little longer for the final games, as the Tampereers decided their match against KooKoo in a home game 4-1 already on Thursday.
– We are a moderate team, but of course the pace is accelerating day by day in the words of Mati and Tepo. For a couple of days now, I’ve noticed that my temper is running low and I have to play, Pohjonen says.
Tappara has survived the worst match in the playoffs. According to Pohjonen, the players have also taken good care of themselves, and his workload has not increased significantly due to the number of games.
– Virtually everyone is fit to play, even though we have been here at a close pace. Maybe on the spiritual side you have to do a little more. The boys need to be kept together a bit so that the focus stays on the right things so they can handle the feedback well and prepare for the next dawn.
The TPS team also has players who are familiar and important to Pohjoki. He says that he communicated a lot about the TPS center that played in Tappara in 2016–2020 Juhani Jasun with.
– We agreed even before things got off to a good start, that we would see and play for a long time in the spring. We communicated after the decisive game and welcomed each other in our own way, Pohjonen says.
In the regular season, Tappara took each other’s matches with a match win of 3–1. Vahalahti says that he has not had time to follow Tappara’s grips in its playoffs. However, he recalls that Tappara played well at the end of the regular season.
Before the main games already completed, the tough team was strengthened in addition to the striker Veli-Matti Savinainen and defender Otto Leskinen.
– We get to play well to win Tappara. Everyone gets to give 110 percent in every situation that we are close to winning. Luckily I’m just a guardian, so I don’t have to think about these so terribly, Vahalahti says.
Pohjonen, on the other hand, expects a fast-paced but extremely hard series, both mentally and physically. The masseuse brings out the youth chain from TPS Mikael Pyyhtiä-Juuso Pärssinen-Markus Nurmibut also points out that on Tappara ‘s side, both Savinainen and Joona Luoto may emerge in the heat of the game.
– Let’s just say that from my point of view, we have only lost 80 surfaces in matches. We can still afford to improve, Pohjonen says.