Comment | The World Cup fiasco of the Lions is only the tip of the iceberg of the problems of Finnish ice hockey

Ostrava

It was such a jerk.

The Lions’ World Cup tournament in the Czech Republic ended bitterly in the quarter-finals against Sweden. On Thursday in Ostrava, the Lions put up a manly defensive fight against the giants, but the messy survival tournament came to a deserved end.

In terms of performance, the Lions’ World Cup tournament was one of the fiascos of all time.

The expectations for the anonymous and uniform team were of course low going into the tournament, but Jukka Jalonen the last WC tournament was a very confused and broken performance from Leijon as a whole.

In the light of the statistics alone, the World Cup tournament went down in a historically bad way. The final ranking of the Lions was eighth, which is Finland’s lowest World Cup ranking since 1955.

In the tournament played in Prague and Ostrava, Leijonat won only three of their eight matches. They helped the sport against Great Britain, Norway and Denmark.

The World Cup has been played in the current format since 2012. Leijonat had won at least five matches in previous tournaments.

Jalonen’s last dance in Leijon ended in limbo. However, one flop tournament is only the tip of the iceberg.

From a broader perspective, the entire Finnish ice hockey is currently in crisis. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying to themselves.

Tournaments comes and goes, but now there is a place for a big and honest autopsy in Finnish hockey.

Gold and success have come out of doors and windows in the last ten years or so, but the trend in Finnish ice hockey is worrying.

The crafting takes a little bit at each level.

The Lions’ groping at the Czech Games sealed the fact that the last two seasons have been exceptionally weak in the adult and Junior national team.

Finland has taken only one sweaty bronze in the prestigious competitions since the 2022–23 season, when the women took the WC bronze this spring.

The crown jewel Leijonat has plowed as well as Young Lions and Little Lions.

Last season went completely without a championship medal, which is embarrassing in a big hockey country like Finland.

About the season From 2022–23, Finland’s junior national teams have played a total of four ranking competitions without a medal. The previous similar plowing period was in 2010–12.

Pikkleijonat won the World Championship bronze in 2022, but the medal before that is the world championship from 2018. The last time Nuoret Leijonat won medals was in 2022, when it won silver.

Leijonat dominated international hockey between 2019 and 2022, but Jalonen’s last two World Cup tournaments went completely under the bench.

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When the generation of barkovs, rantas and ahos in time hits the hokkari with a nail, there is a shockingly big hole ahead.

It should also be remembered that the international competition has weakened, because Russia has not participated in any of the prestigious competitions in the last two seasons due to the brutal war of aggression.

In addition to the lack of success of the teams, it is also worth noting that in the top individual competition, Finland has taken the backseat in a rough way until the mid-2010s. One clear measure of this is the NHL booking event.

Between 2019 and 2023, only one player from Finland has been booked per year in the first round of the booking event.

The last Finn to be booked among the top ten players at the NHL booking event was in 2019, when the New York Rangers picked Kaapo Kako as the second player for the entire booking event.

Debuted in the World Championships for adults Konsta Helenius18, will probably be booked in the top ten this summer, but the Finnish trend of recent years is alarming.

The Finnish generation of players of all time is currently shining in the NHL, which can be blinding.

When the generation of barkovs, rantas and ahos in time hits the hokkari with a nail, there is a shockingly big hole ahead. From the age groups born at the beginning of the 21st century, the next top individuals are not growing.

Species population has been worried for a long time that the Ice Hockey Federation has allowed the path of Finnish players to falter.

In addition to curtailing player production, the association has a place to look in the mirror in its own coaching salaries.

In recent years, the men of the association have made special coach hires for the youth national teams and the Women’s League.

Pikkuleijon and Nuori Leijon have become a shelter workplace for coaches who have failed in learning gigs in the SM league. On the other hand, Naisleijonat, which is struggling in a leadership crisis, seems to be drifting with the wind without the union’s genuine interest.

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In recent years, the reputation of Finnish ice hockey has been completely dependent on the Lions led by Jalonen.

Expert, former head coach of the Lions Raimo Summanen recently uploaded a live talk about the Finnish coaching culture. According to Summanen, coaching in Finland has been expanded too much beyond important sports skills.

“Someone can get angry about this, but there is far too much coaching in Finnish football at the moment. Forging and custom-coaching. Many coaches have to coach someone other than the players,” Summanen quipped.

This kind of thing simply cannot be allowed in the big country of the sport.

When Jalonen returned to Leijon in 2018, he boasted a new kind of confidence. Jalonen announced that he was “sure that Finland will win the world championship at least once in the next five years”.

Jalonen justified his policy with the fact that there are so many quality players in the NHL in Finland.

However, due to reasons that happened during Jalonen’s shift, the NHL’s top Finnish players could not measure their superiority in the best-against-the-best tournament, but there was an unprecedented amount of championship success – and in some places with somewhat modest players.

In his last coaching period, Leijonat, coached by Jalonen, won two World Championship golds (2019, 2022), Olympic gold (2022) and World Championship silver (2021). During these years, Jalos became a definitively untouchable figure in Finnish latäk.

Who any other pilot would have received more brutal treatment in the World Cup tournament last and this spring, if Leijonat had played as poorly.

After the championship spring of 2022, Leijon seemed to have its own kind of arrogance. Belief in one’s own abilities grew to almost smug proportions.

The “Yes, we know these things best” attitude shined through everything. Did the necessary humility against the development of other countries disappear at the same time?

That is also a valid question, why Leijonat never got a large group from the NHL during Jalonen’s time, even though there are a significant number of Finns playing for the team.

A blunt fact is that the reputation of Finnish ice hockey has been completely dependent on the Lions led by Jalonen in recent years. Jalonen is the lion coach of all time for a reason.

Now that the Leijoni’s winning machine has dropped in two straight springs, the ugly truth of Suomikiek is hitting us even harder in the face.

In the midst of the previous high of success, the Ice Hockey Federation, which fell ill with bloat, has floated in a delusion and forgotten that Finland hockey is much more than the Lions.

Now the scenes have collapsed once and for all.