The Champions Hockey League continues to travel across Europe, meeting team representatives to preview the 2019/20 season. On Monday, the CHL held it's Finnish Press Conference in the city of Tampere, and all four teams expressed their desire to take home the European Trophy this season.
After a media address by CHL CEO Martin Baumann, team representatives, consisting of Head Coaches and Players, all gave their thoughts on their Group Stage campaigns, and their aspirations for 2019/20.
Antti Pennanen (Head Coach): I’m excited that we’re playing in the CHL this season, it’s a great honour for us to be involved. It will be an extremely valuable experience for our players, but we’re not going into the competition for just this – we want to achieve something. We need to be ready to play hard and win the one-on-one battles.
Read our interview with HPK Hämeenlinna's star defenceman Petteri Nikkilä
Mikko Manner (Head Coach): It’s a great honour to be representing Finland again, and we want to make our fans proud from the start. It’s usually easier to motivate players for CHL games than in the league – new teams to face, and new opportunities to shine. At the same time however it’s often a shock for some of our players with how physical other countries play, so we will make sure we’re prepared. We’ve got SC Bern with Finnish legend Kari Jalonen, and our former player Miika Koivisto plays there. It’s a very tough group, and we’ll need to play very well if we want to qualify
Jukka Rautakorpi (Head Coach): The CHL is a big thing for us – the teams we’re going to face are very tough, and the games mean a lot. Central European teams have a different kind of fan culture than what we’re used to, and it will be exciting to see. We’ve never made it to the Quarter-Finals, so of course we want to go further than before.
Ville Nieminen (Head Coach): We’ve been waiting for these games for a long time! It’s a good opportunity for our organisation to spread its name internationally, and for our players to develop with expeiences of other hockey cultures. Our group is very tough: when we face Lausanne HC, we’ll come up against Finnish coach Ville Peltonen; we have the Czech champions [Oceláři Třinec], and Yunost Minsk are very strong at home.
Read our interview with Lahti Pelicans captain Hannes Björninen
The Scandinavian tour continues on Tuesday, as the final pre-season Press Conference will take place in Sweden.