This is what the crisis JYP is looking for

Principal owner of Kriisi-JYP Jukka Seppänen has said in public that, among other things Jukka Rautakorvin with the kicks, the club aims for a competitive advantage.

How can a hockey league club operating with medium-sized financial resources in Finland gain a competitive advantage compared to large ones?

– There is a lot of talk about how to get a competitive advantage with the way you play, but there are more important things in the background, says Iltalehti’s ice hockey expert Pekka Virta – and speaking in this story on a general level.

He lists three main points.

– Common ways of working, flexibility in discipline and a visible way of playing.

Boldly different

Virta was creating success in Kuopio in the 2000s and 2010s after the dark Mestis persecution of the people of Savoia. Lukon Virta, who has operated behind major clubs for years, coached to the Finnish championship.

– A common goal is created and every key person commits to it.

It is important for the equation that the majority of the working community are boys from their own village.

– If not clearly better than the club’s own junior, it will not be taken.

He takes KalPa for example.

– We train in our own way from the national team down, have our own culture and produce players of the same quality. Kuopio’s strength is that there is a large area around it, so KalPa has a suction from smaller clubs.

Although KalPa’s bet for medals has not been enough after Virtra’s head coach period, the Savo team has been stable and a model student of the so-called middle caste.

– It’s a competitive advantage when you find your own way of working. The change of players is thought out, and auxiliary and star players from outside adapt to the style. Coach selections are made according to the club’s operating culture. For example Masi Keinänen has worked at KalPa in the background for 30 years.

Kalpa-ness has been underlined until these days by the slogan developed by Virtra.

– Truly unique, boldly different and proudly from Savoie.

Tapola’s example

The ability to withstand the storm is essential for the ice hockey club.

– The more it storms, the less we rock our own boat. There must be strong leaders who calm the situation when the team takes losses, Virta estimates.

– That’s what was done in Tappara, when Jussi Tapola was difficult at the beginning of his head coaching career. Manager Mikki Leinonen calmed the situation down when he announced that Tapola was not going anywhere, but now let’s focus on our own work, the expert specifies.

In Tapola’s opening season in 2014–15, Tappara lost seven of the first ten matches. Three wins came by a goal difference. In rounds 20–30, the axe-breasts lost ten out of eleven matches.

Tapola was allowed to continue and later won, among other things, four Finnish championships.

Flexibility to discipline

In team football, it is difficult to commit the core players of the team for a period longer than one or two seasons. But if it succeeds, there is a thank you at the end.

– For the last year and a half, Luko’s operations were refined, and new things were not learned all the time, Virta recalls.

In the 2020–21 gold medal season, the team from the canal city used the fewest players of all league clubs, scored the most goals and conceded the fewest.

– The ideal situation was that players were not bought for the sake of buying. If a player did worse, work was done calmly.

It is especially difficult for successful teams to hold on to their star players.

– If the turnover cannot be controlled, the management and the coaching team must make sure that their own habits and their own identity are preserved.

In Jyväskylä, the identity has been missing. Since the 2018–19 season, the club has had a total of seven different head coaches. The player turbulence has also been fierce. Starting from the 2018–19 season, the annual number of players is 37, 35, 42, 51, 36 and 36.