Karpat the hockey engine

The highly profitable team from northern Finland has been ruling the SM-liiga during recent years.

OULU, Finland - What do you call three championships, one silver and one bronze medal in the last five years? Karpat calls it a dynasty. Or, actually, they don't. Everybody else does.

Winning three championships in four years is impressive enough, but consider this: ten years ago, the team was playing second-tier Division I hockey, and 15 years ago even third-tier Division II hockey after having gone bankrupt in 1994.

Today, Karpat is a Finnish hockey powerhouse that not only leads the pack in the Finnish SM-liiga, again, but also churns out big Euros year after year. Last season, the club made a record profit of almost €900,000.

The pesky underdog from the North has done many little things right since 1996. One of them was hiring Juha Junno as the new CEO in 1997. Junno, in turn, chose Juhani Tamminen a year later to be the coach that would take the club back to the top. While the first attempt failed, in 2000, Karpat went all the way - and has not stopped since.

"I'm from the region, south of Oulu, so Karpat was 'my team', so to speak. It was a shame to see the club down in the gutter, but there were plans and the future looked good. I haven't regretted the decision to come here," says Junno, who was previously CEO and coach of KalPa Kuopio.

That's hardly a surprise. Karpat has succeeded in nearly everything they have taken on since their promotion back to SM-liiga.

"The secret is hard work by a lot of people, a true team spirit, and a feeling of working together for a good cause," Junno says.

The success in the rink has resulted into success beside of it into a good circle. According to several surveys in recent years, Karpat is the most popular sports team in Finland, which makes the club's claim of being the team for "half the country" all the more credible.

Working for hockey in northern Finland is not only smart marketing, it's the core of Karpat, which is owned by the Karppa-foundation, founded to promote and support the game in the region. Last year, for example, they donated three sets of goalie equipment to all clubs in the region, and each year, the representatives of all clubs in the Oulu and Lapland counties gather to a development conference.

"We're working to improve our cooperation with the Rovaniemi and Kajaani clubs. In fact, our farm team in Kajaani won the Division I championship last season, which was a nice double," reveals Junno with a tiny bit of cockiness.

Maybe it's just excitement because in the next moment he's sure to emphasise that the competition is tough, and that "you have to run fast just to stay in one place".

Right now, Karpat looks like a train that cannot be stopped. Juha Junno is in his 11th year at the helm of the club, and his eye in building the team is still sharp. The first championship coach Kari Heikkila was replaced with a hometown hero: Kari Jalonen, a former Karpat star player, who is currently in his fourth season as the team's head coach. When Niklas Backstrom left the team for the NHL, Karpat chose the unproven Tuomas Tarkki as the team's new goalie, and won the championship. The club's youth program keeps on cranking high out quality players to follow in the footsteps of Jalonen, Reijo Ruotsalainen, Janne Niinimaa, Hannes Hyvonen, Lasse Kukkonen, Joni Pitkanen, Jussi Jokinen and Jari Viuhkola.

The next step for Karpat is to stay at the top of European and world hockey. The team is entering its third ECC tournament in January, and the sights have been set to winning it this time. Karpat has been in the final twice against Russian opponents, but is still looking for a victory.

Karpat was one of the founders of the Nordic Trophy, a preseason tournament with both Finnish and Swedish teams. Also a tournament that Karpat has won twice. Nota bene in two years - the only two years the tournament is existing up to now. You get the picture?

"Our next challenge will be the renovation of the arena, or possibly the building of a new one. We recently finished the building of a practice rink here, and are now working on the club offices," says Junno.

"In ten years, we will hopefully be involved with the Champions Hockey League, maybe we will be playing in a new arena. Hockey is going to be even more international then but the Finnish SM-liiga is still our number one priority," he adds.

As things are going on in Oulu, don't their fans become insatiable? "We haven't let the success get into our heads here. Our goal is to be in the top three as often as possible, but no team can always win. Some years we'll be struggling to make the playoffs, but that's the charm of sports," Junno says.

So is winning.

Notebook:

• Espoo Blues is sizzling hot, with an eight-game winning streak in the Finnish Elite League.
• Tappara Tampere’s Janne Ojanen took over the second place in the Finnish Elite League’s all time scoring standings, with only Arto Javanainen ahead of him now.

 
RISTO PAKARINEN

THE HOME OF HOCKEY