Finland will meet Switzerland in the quarterfinals of the World Hockey Championships on Thursday from 5 p.m. follows the events of the match in the service.
Susanna Tapani her mouth is in a wide smile and her eyes are shining brightly as she talks about the new women’s professional league, the North American Hockey League PWHL.
– Women and girls now have something to aim for. Before it was maybe only the national team, Tapani tells Urheilu.
Tapani previously took a break from ice hockey and focused on ringette. Now the 31-year-old center tells how the professional league motivates him in a new way.
Tapani gets to work goal-oriented with his own team throughout the season. However, the biggest thing for him has been the level of the game.
The matches in the series have been of a really hard level, even and they have been important.
– I get to play with and against the best in the world. That’s the biggest thing for me.
The new league was founded at a rapid pace last summer, when a billionaire Mark Walter committed to funding the series for the next eight years. It all started in June when the PWHL bought rival PHF and launched a new franchise within a few months.
The season that started in January has gotten off to a positive start. The combined average attendance of the six clubs is currently around 5,900. Mira Jalosuo while coaching in Minnesota, there have been as many as 6,800 spectators per match.
For example, the regular season of the SM league had an average of 4,568 spectators this season.
– We don’t talk about tinkering anymore, says Jalosuo.
– The investors must have been surprised by how well this has started.
Getting viewers was the biggest question mark of the new series. Of course, the potential was known, because in Europe, for example, the audience numbers for women’s football have grown dramatically in the last ten years.
There are also positive experiences in North America, for example, in women’s college basketball, which is more popular than men’s. For example, the final game between Iowa and South Carolina averaged 18.7 million, the highest number for any basketball game in the United States in five years.
– When the product is in order, people will certainly be interested in it. Women’s sports are now booming in the United States, Jalosuo senses.
The new league is so new that the clubs do not have their own names or logos on the shirts. According to Jalosuo, in the beginning, for example, the travel conditions were still inadequate. For example, the Minnesota team went on a road trip to the airport with a few hours of sleep.
– When we gave feedback to a higher level, the travel conditions have also improved since then, says Jalosuo.
Professional activity
According to Tapan, everything has worked really well and professionally considering how quickly the series was put together. He reminds that the players have been establishing the series, so when problems are encountered, they are dealt with immediately.
– The players know how to demand and know what we deserve. There’s not much to give. Everything has worked really well.
– As a Finn, you are not used to such good things, so everything feels really great.
Anyway, Tapani praises the work done in the background of the series. Of course, he knew how to expect, based on previous national team players’ exhibition matches, that the matches would be of interest to the public.
Of course, the beginning was more difficult, because according to Tapani, even at the beginning of the year, people didn’t seem to know about the series. Only after the first games did interest and visibility begin to grow.
– Great work has been done in the background to get people interested. The games have been shown on television and there have been advertisements everywhere. Of course they have helped a lot.
Historic shop
Tapani played the first season in Minnesota, but after just nine games he was traded to Boston in the first move in the history of the series. The move wasn’t surprising in the sense that Boston had lured Tapan into their ranks already at the booking event.
According to Tapani, he was always prepared that the deal might come true. However, the timing was a surprise for him.
– As a European, I have no ties to any locality, so I had been able to prepare for this. Maybe not this early. It came completely out of the blue.
– Quite an experience too. I tried to think positively and so far I’ve liked Boston. Maybe it was meant to be, after all.
Tapani’s hand was twisted
Jalosuo had previously told Minnesota’s GM that he would be angry if the club did not book Tapani. The deal was also a blow to Jalosuo.
– It was a reminder that this is not a college, but a business. As a Finn, I would have liked to keep Susanna, but there were many problems. We had a lot of handwringing, says Jalosuo.
Tapani has played 21 games in the PWHL so far. He has scored three goals and provided five assists in the matches, but has been very reliable in the defensive direction. My habit is plus-minus – shared top spot in the statistics by Kendall Coyne Schofield with reading +12.
– He has not scored points in the same way as he himself would have liked. In the big picture, he plays well on the offensive end and defends really responsibly.
Finns forced to move to the series?
The world’s best players play in the new top league, but Tapani is the only Finn in the series so far. Next up could be the Lady Lions’ credit defender Ronja Savolainenwho has expressed interest in moving to North America.
Having Finns in the series would also be an advantage for Finnish ice hockey.
– The players would get used to this game. It would certainly help us in the World Cup as well.
– Of course, it would also be nice for me to have a Finn as a teammate. I have tried to encourage the players. Let’s see, Tapani says with a smile.
Jalosuo is even more direct when talking about Finnish ice hockey. Jalosuo says that Finns must dare to go to North America.
– If you want to win a World Cup gold medal or Olympic gold, you have to play against the best. It’s not enough to play in Europe, dominate and suddenly you should be able to beat teams with skating power.