This is how KeuPa became Mesti

It’s been almost 10 years already.

Keuruu Pallo moved up to Mesti for the 2014–2015 season after winning the Finnish series championship.

However, the boom began with despair. At that time, KeuPa’s representative team played under the association, whose board told the players before the start of the season in August that there was no money.

– When we returned from the summer holidays back to the lathe, there were a couple of players on the field, but no coach, club legend Taneli Maasalo remembers.

Fundraising began. Within 24 hours, Maasalo and the other players started calling practically all the people they knew who had any business activity.

The players sold them various support packages and season tickets. 17,000 euros were collected and the board gave the green light to participate in the Suomi series.

A coach was also found when he came to Keuruu to do a big day’s work for hockey Kari Rautakorpi promised to be the head coach.

A roller coaster

However, the season did not start terribly well and there were several losses.

Around Christmas, the course changed.

In the last moments of the regular season, the team secured a place in the playoffs and faced RoK, who won the regular season, in the first round.

KeuPa sensationally progressed to the next round with a 2–0 match win. Bewe TuusKi fell in the semi-finals with the same numbers.

Forssa Palloseura was the opponent in the final.

– We were amazed, we are now in the finals and we knew the winner would go to Mestis. But at no point was that a goal for us, but we thought we’d try to go all the way.

KeuPa won the championship 3–1.

– It was an incomprehensible moment. It was a Wednesday evening and there were more than 1,000 people in the ice rink in Keuruu. People were standing almost even in our changing shed, not everyone who wanted could even fit in the hall.

The following week, KeuPa realized that the club could move up to Mestis. To the second highest series level in Finland, if the background company can be built into a credible condition.

The executive director at the time was surprised by the mestizo application Olli RaaskaMaasalo and worked as an intern at the office at the time Juuso Mörsky.

– As village crazies, we decided that heck yes, we’ll do this.

The printing drum started.

On May Day Eve, the trio started piling the papers and attachments needed for the application into one pile of paper.

– In the end, without lying, we got a piece of paper 40 centimeters high. At that time, we didn’t dare to send it electronically, and we probably didn’t have the skills to do it either, so we printed terribly pink papers and put them in a big envelope.

The only problem was that the post office in Keuruu had time to close.

– We called to say that such an important mail is coming, would you be able to wait, we have the last prints going on. From there it was promised that they could wait for its blood.

About 30-60 minutes after the mail should have gone out into the world, the postman was still waiting in his car.

– We hit him with the almost half-meter pinky in the hand and said that hopefully he will make it to Helsinki. Yes, it was in time and after a while came the announcement that we had been accepted into Mesti.

Challenges

Keuruu is a small town, where it is difficult to run a hockey club profitably. For example Central Finland according to the rookie season in Mestis, the club’s budget was 350,000.

– The financial statement showed a loss of more than 40,000 euros, Raaska said at the time.

KeuPa has had financial challenges during the Mestis era, and in 2016, for example, the club had a cash crisis.

After the corona hit the world in 2020, there was a new difficult situation.

KeuPa decided to lay off the players and coaches in December. It was not certain whether the suspension of the season would continue until the summer.

If it was, KeuPan would have had to pay the players’ salaries until then without layoffs.

– It was necessary for the continuation of operations, otherwise the money would have run out. There were still some of my old playing friends there (during the layoffs), says Mörsky, the club’s CEO.

KeuPa saved tens of thousands of euros and the season continued in February. Financially, it was not the best solution.

– Mestis clubs were allowed to decide and look at their money whether to continue the season. At that point, we made the decision on sporting grounds.

The cumulative loss of the limited company during Mestis is 40,000 euros. Losses per accounting period have been around 15,000–30,000, but the last 3–4 accounting periods have been profitable.

In terms of turnover, KeuPa is in the middle caste of Mesti, last fiscal year’s turnover was 460,000 euros. In order for the club to be able to develop its activities, it should be over 500,000. The player budget is 20–30 percent of this amount.

Still standing

The community in Keuruu has been behind KeuPa all these years and has also saved the club several times.

The importance of the club is big for the locals and Keuruuk is known precisely from Keupa.

– They know what they are and what they want to be. On top of that, a child’s belief that they can succeed, coached by KeuPassa Ville Nieminen states.

– When you go to the booth, there is a smell, it doesn’t even smell, but there is a sense of community and a strong belief in doing sports and hockey.

KeuPa has already played in Mestis for eight seasons.

– After all, it is exceptional that such a small town plays ice hockey at that level – However, we are among the 30 best ice hockey teams by the standards of the whole of Finland, Maasalo says and continues:

– But whenever it’s a small town, the number of people is limited. It is not a given that the Mestis hockey team can be run in such a small place.