The Canberra Brave, the hockey pride of the Australian capital Canberra, won the country’s premier league championship on Sunday by crushing the Melbourne Ice in the final with a score of 5-0.
Brave’s championship team included brothers of Finnish descent Kai Miettinen28, and Ricki Miettinen18, of which Kai is also the team captain.
In addition, the goalkeeper of the team who got his puck lessons at TuTo in Finland Aleksi Toivonen28, was part of the Brave’s championship team.
– There is no market party here, but some kind of event is held between the fans and the players in the local kapaka, Toivonen revealed to Urheilu after the championship celebrations died down.
Thinking about dad From Jorma Mietti60, can be heard praising the current state of puck culture in the nation’s capital, Canberra.
Miettinen moved to Australia in the late 1970s. The 15-year-old, who was interested in music, had played hockey in Finland. Miettinen remembers at the time that he thought that hockey would not be played in Australia, which is why the game equipment had to stay in Finland.
– I remember when we packed such a bigger box to Australia. There was still a little room left and my hockey equipment was still lying on the floor. I asked my father if I should take them with me. He replied: “Just take it, you never know.”
The Miettinen family’s decision was significant for Canberra, the capital of Australia, because thanks to him, the puck culture of the city later took great strides forward.
Miettinen was founding the Canberra Brave predecessor team in the early 1980s. At that time, the name of the team was Canberra Knights.
– I played for Knights for almost five seasons. However, music was my first love, and I belonged to several bands. We went to tour Australia with one band, and that became my job for about eight years. That was the end of my regular hockey career.
First, a series of fights
Miettinen would compare the country’s main league with the best players in the Finnish leagues, perhaps with the players of the Finnish league.
– If there are no good imported players, then the level drops and the players are estimated to be around the level of the third division in Finland.
Transfer players are indeed an important part of teams, which is why several Finns have also been seen playing in Australian teams over the years.
Miettinen, who has been busy with local hockey in Canberra for more than 40 years, says that spectators have always found good hockey matches, despite the fact that the sport has always received less attention behind big sports such as field hockey and rugby.
– The house is still full in every game. I would say that this city has the best puck fans in this country.
Ice hockey has a long tradition in Australia, but for a long time the sport mostly resembled boxing.
– It was an absolutely crazy thing to do! In every game, someone was trying to tile, and it was a helluva lot of fun. As one Finnish import player once said, the laws of the jungle are here. It is said that after the Canberra Knights became Brave, the whole league has calmed down considerably, Miettinen recalls.
A surprising encounter
Brave’s predecessor team, Knights, was coached at the beginning of the millennium Tommi Suutariwho originally came to Canberra for an internship.
In the early 2000s, Miettinen got to know Suutari, who was studying to become a professional coach in Vierumäki. The students were offered the opportunity to go on an internship in a hockey country or, alternatively, in a country where the sport is developing, the latter of which interested Suutari.
– I got the opportunity to go to Australia and ended up in Canberra, Suutari says about 20 years later.
– When Tommi came here, then Finnish import players started to flow here, who are still the best in their teams today, says Miettinen.
Suutari also got a place in the coaching group of the Australian women’s national ice hockey team.
– I got to know Jorma Miettien at that time, and his son Kai was playing in Canberra’s junior team at the time. Later, Kai also came to Finland to play.
Suutari remembers how in his time, in the early 2000s, the Canberra ice rink didn’t have plexiglass yet, so the crowd could help the home team by grabbing the opponents’ shirts during the game.
Suutari, who currently lives in Finland, says that the framework changed for the better in Australia over the years.
– Fine halls and professional organizations have been built there. It’s been a light year since those days.
When Suutari followed the local hockey, he quickly noticed that the locals were very proud of their own hockey team.
– Being a fan of one’s own sport there is something that we here in Finland should follow as a model, Suutari states.
The snow surprised the Australian boys
Both of Miettinen’s sons were born in Australia. Kai Miettinen followed hockey to his father’s country of birth for the 2011–12 season. The venue turned out to be the Uudenkaupunki ice hockey team UJK piloted by Suutari.
The younger brother Ricki Miettinen also has experience playing in Finland. The shoemaker took him in last season. The cobbler is also Rick’s godfather.
Suutari says that around a dozen 17-18-year-old Australian hockey juniors have stayed with him while they were playing hockey in Finland.
– Young Australians have never seen snow, so anything can happen.
– For example, Ricki and I once went to my cabin to do snow work, and Ricki thought about how it was so hard to plow. The godson had filled the snow hole with snow, and instead of pushing the hole, he had taken the snow hole in his lap and poured the snow into the bank. I taught him that there is also an easier style for collaging, says Suutari.
Jorma Miettinen remembers well Rick’s recent visit to Finland.
– When Ricki left for Finland for the first time and had arrived at the airport, he said that a drop had entered the lens because he had waited so long to get there. They say it felt so familiar to him. My sons love Finland.
While in Finland the ice hockey series starts in September and ends in April-May, in Australia the season starts in April and ends in August-September.
In 2023, there were a total of 22 ice rinks and almost 8,000 registered ice hockey players in Australia. The men’s and women’s national teams play at the World Cup level in Division II.