Ice Hockey: Jarmo Kekalainen, the new leadership of the Finnish Hockey Team
Lejonen, the Finnish men’s national ice hockey team is a member of the “Big Seven”, along with Canada, USA, Sweden, Russia, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. It is officially organised by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association.
The Finnish team has entered into its 12th season and there have been some great changes in the structure. The famous Jarmo Kekalainen has joined the Finnish hockey team as the General Manager of HIFK Helsinki. Kekalainen is a retired professional hockey player who played in the NHL with the Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators in the past.
The budget problems have barred the Finnish hockey to de-emphasize the high profile imports and European veterans. Same is the case with other high-status SM-Liiga teams. Jokerit Helsinki, HIFK and Karpat Oulu suffer from bad economics and they prefer to hire the low-profile but exclusive Finnish talent. They struggle to polish their skills and injected new ideas into their minds.
Kekalainen has carved a very good reputation in the field of hockey. He has a very smart approach and ways to find the talented players. He has gained a lot of experience during his last job as the Director of Amateur Scouting and Assistant General Manager of St. Louise Blues. Now that he has accepted the position of General Manager with Jokerit Helsinki, he has to put a lot of duty and responsibility on his work. He has the task to use his magic and bring on his skills to improve Jokerit club’s performance which has been suffering since 10th season. In the last two playoffs, the Finnish team couldn’t even reach the quarterfinals.
Keeping that in mind, Kekalainen has to formulize a strategy and bring the team to the top spot. He is confident to make it one of the best teams in Europe but the conditions have changed enormously. It is no longer possible to follow the same design Jokerit and HIFK used to win in the mid-90s and 2000. The previous wins were essentially attributed to the North American and veteran European talent. The smaller clubs such as KalPa Kuopio was also instrumental for the smooth steady triumphs of the Finnish team.
KalPa club has produced quality players in the recent years. Brian Rafalski, Olli Jokinen and Kimmo Timonen were all trained at the KalPa club. The Czech forward Jan Caloun and Miika Elomo who returned to Europe from the American Hockey League, were also included in the victorious IFK squad.
Kekalainen has great plans for Jokerit Helsinki. He is focused to re-invigorate the junior development program through first-rate coaching and selecting the smart, talented players. Kekalainen has the ability to identify the rising young talented players who are self-motivated and have the potential to win. Kekalainen has been successful with this philosophy of scouting and drafting players in the past years.
He has expressed his views on Jokerit.com, saying he needs a complete transparent system of selection. He emphasized that the players should be taught to play properly early on, otherwise it would be very difficult to teach them afterwards. He stressed the need of an organization that would be willing to spend and hire people who can actually develop the right players. Kekalainen said that he wanted to change the fundamental thinking and set a new direction for the team.
Kekalainen has a very strong vision about the future prospects of his team but it is certainly not an easy task. It would take some time to get on the right track. The strategies and plans are easy to formulize but it takes time to fully implement them. Kekalainen will officially start his work on August 15, but he has already started the process of meeting players in the club and around the league. It is a positive change in Finnish hockey and will surely bring some good results under the good leadership of Kekalainen.
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