Did Luko’s new coach throw his predecessor under the bus? “You can’t slack off at any point”

When Tomi Lämsa arrived in Rauma last summer, he got his gloves on.

– The very first thing was to make a rhythm change in everyday life, says Luko’s new head coach.

– We have practiced really hard. In terms of the training process, there have been clear changes in everyday life and daily activities, Lämsä continues.

However, he does not go into more detail about what it means in practice, but Lämsä believes that the club’s values ​​and training culture needed a change.

In the previous two seasons, Luko, who was the head coach, was responsible for them Marko Virtanen. Under his leadership, the seasons of the Romanian team ended in the quarterfinals.

– The bar of everyday life must be raised so that it enables success. It requires hard work from coaches, players and the entire organization. You can’t slack off at any point, Lämsä says fiercely.

Tough KHL

Lämsä captained the Finnish U20 national team last season. The World Cup tournament ended with a 2–3 quarter-final loss to Sweden. Before that, he coached Salavat Yulayev Ufa for five years in the KHL. First three years as assistant coach, then two years as head coach.

– I still had a contract on the table in the KHL, but we all know the reasons why that contract could not be redeemed, Lämsä says and refers to the war started by Russia.

However, he had time to learn a lot in the eastern neighbor.

– The KHL is an extremely ruthless but honest series. The message there is very clear: make sure the team wins. I learned what it really takes to win in the professional series.

Lämsä was last seen in the SM league in the 2014–2015 season, when he coached the Pelicans to 12th place. Now a significantly more experienced man stands behind Luko’s bench.

– I learned a lot about myself in the KHL. You were really alone there under a lot of pressure: practically you had to win or you would have had to leave.

During the Lämsä era, Ufa was one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference of the KHL, but in the playoffs, the season ended three times in the quarterfinals and once in the semifinals. In the 2019–2020 corona season, the season was not played until the end.

The story continues after the picture.

Continuum

Although Lämsä is now sharing his KHL lessons with Rauma, Luko will not be a traditional KHL bundle in terms of playing.

– In Russia, they play the way that the coaching staff has learned. They play there with longer fives and players who rip. In the SM league, on the other hand, the teams are very well coached. It creates a really tough challenge tactically, Lämsä sees.

The man is looking for an active and strong puck game. That’s exactly the kind of game Lukko played, for example, in the CHL match against Aalborg from Denmark.

– We switched with the puck and were able to keep up the offensive tension constantly. And even though we were on the puck, we didn’t slow down the game terribly.

Lukko won the game 6–2.

Lämsä wants the raucous bundle to be active even without discs.

– We strive to immediately get the puck as far away from our own goal as possible. Good defense is inside the offense. And also the other way around: when you defend well as a five, you can also attack with quality, says Lämsä.

He sees the game as a continuum, where both offensive and defensive game structures support each other.

To the medal games!

The Lahti native has been coaching since 2002. So, a lot of experience has been accumulated, even though Lämsä will only turn 44 in mid-September.

The gentleman, who also worked as a classroom teacher in his youth, has already seen so much of the puck world that he knows how to focus on the present moment.

– The KHL was such a dream come true that it brought peace. Since then, there hasn’t been such a need to get to the next level like when I was younger.

Lämsä still has an apartment in Lahti, but one can also be found in Rauma. He wants to focus fully on Lukko and does not think beyond that into the future. The contract with the Rauma club extends until the end of the 2025 season.

– The goals are here and now, that I can help the team and the players forward. When the work in these jobs goes well, opportunities will come.

What are Luko’s goals for this season?

– The first goal is to reach the 16 in the CHL and the playoff stage. In the SM league, they will certainly not be satisfied with the quarter-finals. Yes, it must be possible to improve it.

The lock season starts on September 12. in a home match against HPK.