On 26.9.1998 veteran defender Pertti Lehtonen´s #23
was retired in a simple pre-game ceremony. One would have
hoped for a farewell game.
A VERY SUBJECTIVE AND BRIEF LOOK BACK ON HIFK HISTORY
HIFK Helsinki, is one of the original teams in Finland having won 6 Championships over the last 40+ years. The parent club with several sporting disciplines was founded in 1897. Hockey is the #1 spectator sport in Finland nowadays as last year more than 2 mill. spectators saw an official hockey game live. (The pop. of Finland is roughly 5.5 mill.)
The first indoor hockey rink was built only in 1965, but the evolution has been rapid in the last ten years. The Bosman-ruling, by the European Comission, a ahead of the 96-97, was the last major change. It meant that a player is a free-agent at the expiry of his contract with no exceptions.
For my favourite club, HIFK, the near history, until last season, had been pitch dark as they after dominating the Helsinki hockey scene for the last decades in the early 90´ties ment that a local competitor Jokerit surpassed HIFK both with regards to both popularity and success. Jokerit became a phenomenon (they were what the Dallas Cowboys is, "Americas football team") far outmastering the traditional hockey thinking in HIFK.
Except for a surprise third spot in 91-92, HIFK did not win any honours since winning the title in 1983 and loosing once in the final. The management finally decided that new thinking was needed and they decided to change the organisational structure. This resulted in a GM beeing hired. Jarmo Kekäläinen (had a career with Clarkson University, Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators) , an outsider that only had finished his career the year before was elected to do the job. Kekäläinen´s first appearance got me and 99% of everybody else shaking their heads as he proclaimed that his firm belief was that HIFK would capture the "Canada Bowl" to celebrate the centennial year two years ahead.
But this fairytale became truth after a dismal season were Kekäläinens acquisitions including Tom Bisset and a couple of Swede´s totally misfired. The worst dissappointment was Eric Murano who was dealt away early on. There was one exception though,Olli Jokinen, who as a 17 year-old transformed from a regular 4-th liner in the bottom team in Finland via, HIFK and the Finnish National Team into a NHL-regular.
After the first year Kekäläinen went from strenght to strenght hiring Caloun, Brian Rafalski, Kimmo Timonen (Predators) and Christian Ruuttu (former- Buffalo, Chicago and Vancouver) and Johan Davidsson (Anaheim). Caloun had a very slow start missing the first 9 games with an infection that made him dizzy and fatigued. Eventually Caloun got into form and showed everubody he´s a magician on skates.
This year Jan has been tremendous seriously chasing the "unbeatable", Finnish League, points record of 93 points. With 13 games left of the regular season Jan has totaled 21+44=65 points in the 39 games he´s been in the line-up. Caloun´s is naturally number one in points in the League the #2 spot holder, fellow Czech, Tomas Vlasak is 20 points behind. In the beginning of the season HIFK signed ex-NHLer Luciano Borsato to center a line with Caloun, but Borsato has played only odd games after suffering a nagging shoulder injury. HIFK is despite this number two in the League as other players have stepped up.
Kekäläinen´s "import-export company" way of shipping players in and out during the season is something that didn´t really happen here before and many "specialists" have said its not applicable to Europe. In a sense they are right because in most cases the new players are foreign. This seasons late arrivals Scott Malone, Joe Frederick and Trevor Doyle were not good enough, but Kekäläinen had few aces in his sleeve and brought in last years play-off hero Tim Thomas from Hamilton and Jamie Baker. The final outcome is obviously not known, but a repeat of the Championship is well in reach.
Kekäläinen is not going to continue as HIFK GM once this season is over, he´s currently also part-time European Scout for Ottawa and speculation is that he´s going to be offered a full-time job with that organisation. Kekäläinen is responsible for Ottawa signing Arvedson, Dackell and Salo.