A draw, with it the third consecutive Finnish championship and the Jari Kurri award for the best player in the playoffs.
Better Tappara goalkeeper Christian Heljangon so far, the last match in the club could not have been. In the next season, Heljango’s career will continue elsewhere.
– Eight years. I would never have believed how much this club would mean to me and how much I would get here. I’m going to miss you. I hope I can come back someday, Heljanko said emotionally on the ice of the Tampere arena in an interview with Jääkiekkokierros.
The Swedish head coach who won the championship in his first season Rikard Grönborg didn’t hesitate when asked which players he wants to bring up from the team.
– Huge thanks to Christian Heljango. “He gave us a chance to win every game,” Grönborg said.
It was Grönborg and the changes he brought that made this Tappara championship special. The style of play changed a lot last summer compared to the one who won the previous two championships as head coach Jussi Tapolan to hockey. Criticism also came during the season, but the regular season win and the SM gold will go down in history.
– The club dared to reform. In principle, we started from scratch, although there were also old players. The result was always good, but we didn’t always play that well. We were really efficient in the regular season and rude in the moments when we had to be, Heljanko said.
– Maybe during the autumn, in a certain way, the old players, myself included, didn’t always buy all the stuff. But hockey can be played in many ways. When everyone throws themselves into the game, there are many ways to win. This was a big win for Finnish ice hockey in the way that we were able to win with a slightly different game.
Grönborg coached the championship now, but what on earth is Tappara’s supremacy in the SM league based on on a larger scale? The club has played in the medal games of the SM league for twelve consecutive years now.
– Maybe it’s Tappara’s thing that we tolerate and don’t cry about things we can’t control. We bite the bullet and move on. It’s unbelievable that one club has been at the top for so long. The work continues, we will not be satisfied with this here, summed up Heljanko.
Grönborg, who has seen and experienced a lot in hockey in his previous coaching career, emphasized the importance of the entire organization on many occasions in interviews with Urheilu.
– There is a reason why this organization is so successful. I came here to learn about the culture of winning, and I learned so much from everyone. From players, coaches, club employees. This is an incredible organization. I’m super proud to be a part of this, Grönborg stated.
– We had a vision of how we want to play and what kind of leadership they want from me when we sat down with Tappara a year and a half ago. That’s what I’ve been trying to do all year. Everyone was ready to make a change.
Grönborg is only the fourth foreign head coach to win the men’s hockey Finnish championship. Foreign head coaches are usually a rarity, because before Grönborg, the previous one had coached the Jokers in 2009 Glen Hanlon. The previous foreign coach who reached the SM gold was Curt Lundmark In Jokers in the spring of 1997.
Grönborg is used to winning in his coaching career, but so far only in the national team. He has three adult world championships and one under-20 World Championship gold.
Now also the Finnish championship. In Zürich Lions in Switzerland, he unsuccessfully chased the championship for four seasons before moving to Tappara.
Heljanko will no longer play in Tappara’s goal next season, but Grönborg will stand behind the bench. In covering Tappara, other SM league clubs will have even more work to do in the future. What does Grönborg think about the future of Tappara?
– We have already worked with next season’s plan. We continue to build on the existing one, but we have learned a lot. I have learned a lot. We want an even better situation next year. Of course, we are fine-tuning the way we play and we are looking for players who are there to help.
Now it’s time to celebrate the championship in Tappara, but Heljanko doesn’t think that the coaching party will last long.
– In Tappara, you can’t settle for anything. I know that in a few days those coaches will already start thinking about how to be ready here next fall. The summer will be short, so there is probably already a panic over there, whether the guys will be in good enough shape in the fall.
Heljanko and Grönborg were interviewed by Vesa Winberg, Jussi Paasi and Jussi Saarinen.