Looking back a bit at the bigger picture of 'European Hockey', four years ago I was one of those people that looked at the new Champions Hockey League and thought "oh, here we go again, they're trying to get that back up and running." But fast-forward to now, and I really believe that it's starting to look like we have a true Champions Hockey League in Europe. Interest in Finland, where I'm working in hockey, is getting bigger and bigger, and obviously a huge help for that is if teams do well in the competition as JYP did last year.
What JYP achieved last year was so exciting. Of course we know Swedes really well and we have a love-hate thing going on there, so while it was fun they won in Växjö I would say that was more than just 'because it was in Sweden', that final was really great, with the game itself you couldn't have asked for a better way to show what the CHL is. In my work I've really enjoyed seeing teams come up to Finland from the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland etc., and that's what people are talking about here. It's pretty awesome for us to see more than just our teams, and the Swedish ones we also know a little about.
One thing that helps as a viewer these days, that we didn't have eight or so years ago, is that we all have Twitter and Messengers. So when someone scores a nice goal in Prague, we see it on our phones minutes later! It's fun to follow these others teams, also some of the 'non-traditional' hockey countries like Poland and the UK, and track players you think did well and see how they're progressing later on. It all helps to make the tournament something you can follow more than just for your team.
Finnish teams saw what JYP did, now they want that for themselves"Petteri Nokelainen
In my preparation for the new season, I speak to a lot of team managers and players here in Finland. Now after JYP winning it, and seeing that the prize money keeps going up, the CHL is becoming something that all the Finnish teams want to do really well in. Now they're playing pre-season games before the CHL so they're more prepared, and of course now teams know what to expect more than they did when it began four years ago. The new format has been a part of that too, you have to start winning very early to make the later rounds, so it makes it interesting for the viewers.
We're only a day away from the new season beginning now. Much like the players, over the last few weeks I've been doing my own preparation - the internet is such a wonderful thing to find out what sort of teams we'll be seeing! I'm also really excited to look at the young guys teams have coming up through the rosters, in Finland we're lucky that there seem to always be players ready to come in and fill spaces. This year especially we have Rasmus Kupari who's been really good in pre-season and is one of the 'break-through' guys people are looking for. Kakko at Turku is another one people are looking at, and then we have Niklas Nordgren who got a hat-trick for IFK in the CHL least year, it's going to be fun to see if he can take another step this year.
But of course the best thing is being in the studio and watching the games when they finally start, and doing what we do in the show. People often ask us to make predictions, but I'll finish be saying what I usually do: I don't know, let's just watch because it's all part of the fun!