Ivo
Jaschick's
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FINLAND
Jokerit – Where are you going?
BY IVO
JASCHICK
WWW.HOCKEYTALK.BIZ
Photos of Steve Passmore and Petri Varis
by Jukka-Pekka Tirkkonen, photographer for Helsinki Jokerit (official
website)
MARCH 9, 2006 -- Last year they were in the championship finals, which they lost to the northernmost hockey town in Finland (SM-Liiga). Everything seemed to be okay in Helsinki. They made some changes to strengthen the team.
Nobody knows why, but through most of this season, the “Jokers” of Jokerit (www.jokerit.com) found themselves on the bottom of the standings. First management of the team dumped the coach, former left defender of this Helsinki team Waltteri Immonen. Installed was successful Swedish Coach Curt Lindstrom.
But this did not satisfy the club.
The management went onto the hunt again. Finally they “found” the players who should have been responsible for this situation and started to substitute them.
The official reason for dispensing with them was that their performance hasn`t been good enough, but word is that at least one player had alcohol problems and others were not working hard enough (“too lazy”).
Three big moves in net preceded Jokerit's rise to a possible playoff appearance. All three came in goal.
First, Jokerit acquired goaltender Tom Askey from their “neighbor” Helsinki IFK (both arenas are only at about two miles apart) , who played seven games for Anaheim in the NHL and five seasons in the AHL with Rochester.
Jokerit then engaged former NHL
goalie (93 games: Oilers, Blackhawks & Kings)
Steve Passmore.
“It`s a new challenge for me! I like it here and the team is much better than the standing,” says Passmore.
Last season, Passmore played for Adler Mannheim of the German DEL and sent away Karl Goehring, who did not satisfy the expectations in Helsinki.
25 year-old goaltender Mikko Ramo came back to the FNL from a brief stint in Russia.
Other changes also panned out. The substituted ten players, including the acquisition of Hannes Hyvonen, who came to Jokerit because he had not been satisfied with his employer in Fribourg-Gotteron, Switzerland.
Hyvonen has the best points per game average with .87 (+7). He has paid dividends and now the “Jokers” are fighting for the very important 10th rank – their first rival in this fight will be TPS Turku.
After the regular season the first six teams are automatically qualified for the playoffs. The teams from 7 to 10 will get the chance to play out the last two spots for the play offs. On the 10th place they will have the chance to play vs. the 7th in the standings after the preliminary round to get a play-off berth (the other game is: 8th vs. 9th – the winners of these matches are play-off teams No.7 & No.8). These qualifying games are played in best of 3 series. (So it might be that the 10th is playing the 1st and the 9th the 2nd in the Quarterfinal)
“Oldie but goldie”
Petri Varis (at 36, a very experienced former national team player) got a new two year contract before
the season.
The very experienced former national team member played for Jokerit for most of his long career. He has become an important part of Jokerit’s resurgence. It came together with the start of the year 2006 – till this time he has been not as good as he normally is – Petri had only been average.
Varis took over club leadership and at the moment he is in the race for the top spot in Jokerit’s scorer’s list.
“I think we will make the play offs – I am quite sure,” says Varis.
Between the upgrade between the pipes and Varis’ successful season lie the key reasons for Jokerit’s playoff push.
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