FINLAND – SM-Liiga has seen two more coaching changes, this time from high-profile teams. Over the weekend it was announced that Oulun Karpat had parted ways with their head coach and brought in Hannu Aravirta. Aravirta is a veteran coach and has several Finnish Championships on his resume as well as experience from the international scene after he served as Team Finland head coach. Under Aravirta’s reign at Team Finland, the ‘Leijonat’ (or the Lions as the team is affectionately known) won one world championship (1995 with Aravirta as an assistant coach), three world championship silvers and 1 world championship bronze medals. Aravirta also has the 1998 Olympic bronze medal in his resume with Finland. The second head coach to be fired was Jokerit head coach Hannu Jortikka. Earlier in the year Pro Hockey News published speculation that Jortikka’s tenure at Jokerit would be coming to a close after a series of dismal results. Jokerit have brought in another former Team Finland coach in Erkka Westerlund. Westerlund has one Finnish championship from 1998 with HIFK and three international medals for team Finland, 1 Olympic Silver medal from Turin, one World Championship Silver (2007) and a World Championship Bronze medal (2006). Apparently, it took General Manager, Jarmo Kekalainen, no more than 15 seconds to sack Jortikka and assistant coach Sami Ranta. Some news papers joked that the sacking happened quicker than many Jokerit roster players skate around the rink. The two coaching changes bring the total up to five for the 2010-2011 season.
Undoubtedly both new coaches will be under some fire as their star-studded teams have performed well below expectation. Aravirta’s first game at the helm of Karpat didn’t yield a desired result as Kalpa embarrassed the Karpat players with a score line of 6-2. While the two teams who many billed as the championship contenders have struggled, there is one team that has performed above expectations. JYP, who won the title in 2008-2009 season has taken a commanding 11 point lead, despite losing to HPK last night. HIFK has received some bad news on the injury front. Star forward Mikael Granlund has been out of action since 14th of October when he sustained a concussion after hitting his head in the boards. Granlund was going in to check an opposing player but lost his footing and crashed head first in to the boards. There is no current timeline for his return, but according to sources at HIFK, Granlund is likely to miss the under 20s World Championships in December. HIFK head coach, Kari Jalonen, has said that he is hopeful that Granlund would return to training during the Christmas break at the earliest. According to Jalonen, Granlund might be out of playing line-up until the New Year. At the moment the league table stands as follows:
1. JYP 25 61
2. Ässät 25 53
3. HIFK 24 49
4. KalPa 25 42
5. Lukko 25 42
6. HPK 25 42
7. Blues 25 40
8. Jokerit 23 34
9. Ilves 25 33
10. Tappara 24 31
11. Kärpät 24 27
12. Pelicans 25 22
13. SaiPa 25 21
14. TPS 24 19
Contact Janne.Virtanen@prohockeynews.com
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