Ice hockey | HIFK's mountain advisor comments on wild rumors about head coach Ville Peltose

Mountain counselor Jaakko Eskola is a long-term company leader. He was the CEO of the Wärtsilä engineering company for a long time and is currently the chairman of the board of three different listed companies and the chairman of the Technology Industry.

However, Helsinki IFK arouses the most passion for his trust. Eskola has been the chairman of its background company HIFK Hockey Oy since last summer.

HIFK is naturally on the news all the time, the red shirts arouse passions for and against throughout the country.

Earlier this week, HIFK was in the headlines when Hufvudstadsbladet news citing his own sources that the club's sports boss Tobias Salmelainen would have suggested From Olli Joki to become the club's head coach, but the board would have decided otherwise and signed a two-year extension contract in the fall Ville Peltonen with.

“This is in no way true,” Eskola replies by email.

of HIFK the season has been disappointing so far. The Helsinki team, who entered the series with an expensive team, finished sixth in the regular season. In the semifinal series against the Pelicans, the team embarrassingly lost the first three games, but has since won two.

In the fourth match of the series, played in Helsinki, HIFK fans protested against Peltos and demanded a change of head coach. Under Peltonen, HIFK has never made it beyond the semifinals.

Many think that Salmelainen should also leave with the same door opening.

“Ville Peltonen is HIFK's head coach and Tobias Salmelainen is the club's sporting director. We give them complete peace of mind. We'll analyze it after it's over,” Eskola points out.

For this season, HIFK took control of the restaurant operations of the old ice rink in its home hall in Helsinki, which has boosted the club's turnover. But the combination of an expensive team and modest playoff success is not a very promising combination financially.

“As everyone knows, athletic success has a significant impact on the season's result, but HIFK's financial situation is stable in all scenarios,” Eskola writes.

Of course However, HIFK's sports director Salmelainen has told player agents, for example, that HIFK's next season's team would be several hundreds of thousands cheaper than this year's.

“We are focusing on the current season and we will return to this theme after the season ends,” Eskola is content to comment.

Other changes are happening. According to various sources, HIFK is giving up on matters outside of its core business and is running down, for example, the esports team hREDs, as well as reducing the funding received by the women's team.

“I wouldn't trust these “sources” either. We have started extensive strategy work, the results of which we will report during this spring,” Eskola says.