Transferring knowledge

For the last 10 days one of our key players and leaders of Estonian national team, Olle Sildre, has been spending his time at Kouvola Finland. Coach Lehkonen invited Sildre to Kouvola to practice with his team KooKoo at Finnish Mestis pro league with main goal to teach Olle the methods that Ika is using with his team both on and off the ice. With this knowledge Sildre can now go back to Estonia and pass the info to his teammates and use the drills and techniques himself as the national team players work out together with Sildre on their own between the national team gathering / events.

Sildre will also translate the dryland programs used by Ika for his Estonian team mates to follow.

Due to injuries and bad flu wave at KooKoo Sildre also got an opportunity to sign a 3 game contract. Ika knew what to expect, but a lot of other people were skeptic about 36-year olds capability to still play at this level. In 3 games against to top teams of the league Sildre proved that he can still play at very high level and be a leader at the locker room. In the 2 games against D-team and 1 game against Vantaa Sildre did keep up with the pace of the game and also collected 2 assist and served 1 minor penalty. According to Lehkonen it is very much a possibility that Sildre could still don KooKoo’s jersey this season if team phases another injury wave.

Overall this was a very good experience and encouragement for the Estonian national team program and all Estonian players. It shows that with hard work talented Estonian players can take the next step and elevate their game. Key is how ever to become a serious professional athlete and live & workout as that status requires. Sildre has always stayed in good shape, but this season his training has been raised to a different level in intensity since late August when Estonian national team new coaches started the project and showed the players what it means to be serious and professional athlete. During those 3 games at KooKoo Sildre demonstrated what 3 months of serious work can do to elevate the game. If all Estonian players keep on working like Sildre and follow coaches instructions they can expect very good results at the end of their project in April when Div-II world championships are being played at Tallinn, Estonia.

Small steps…good progress

It was great for us coaches to be able to participate at the Continental Cup at Poland with ”re-enforced” Tartu Kalev-Välk team. Those 3 games gave us a lot of good knowledge about our players from Estonian league (yes, our team had most of the top players from 3 Estonian league teams). Some players made a good impression on us and will be part of the final Team Estonia at the World Championships in Tallinn next spring. These key players showed great efforts when we did come back from 2-0 deficit during the last 2 minutes of the game against Lithuanian Energija and ended up winning them 2-3 in overtime. This result shows that Estonian league players can play this game.

On the other hand some players showed to us that they were not 100% committed to the team and therefore they will not be invited back to any national team events this season. This was also good information for us and will enable us to focus our efforts on those players that really want to play for Team Estonia.

Naturally majority of the key players for the national team will be coming from various foreign leagues, but local league players do compliment them well and together we will make this a successful team.

We have a lot of work ahead of us and that requires also extra efforts from all candidates. We are confident that our players will be putting those extra efforts in with programs we are providing for them and extra workouts we are arranging at Estonia as often as either one of us coaches can be present. Our goal is to be the best and hardest skating team at our World Championships.

We are also looking forward to our upcoming game at Finland against SaPKo on 19.12.2009. This will be special event that will end SaPKo’s anniversary year, so we expect to be playing in front of sell out audience.

Sisu on kõik!

Jukka & Ismo

Hockey is hockey...

..and we love the game. That’s why we are involved in it. Of course I enjoyed the big win my team ZSC Lions got at Victoria Cup over Chicago Blackhawks, but I have to say that I also enjoyed watching local Estonian league game last Saturday 10.10 when I saw Viru Sputnik taking nice 4-3 win over visiting Kalev-Välk team in the game that was played at Kohtla-Järve.

National team candidates showed some good moves in that game and what I liked most was the effort en enthusiasm how the players approached the game. Our national team players have the needed passion for the game and it is our job with Ismo to help these players to perform the best they can to quality for Div-I level at World championships!

Yesterday we did have our first real hard dryland workouts together with National team candidates. I am sure some things may have been a bit surprising for the players who are now discovering the intensity of the pro level workouts needed to improve their game and become real athletes.

Couple of hours break was all we gave to players before then hitting the ice at Jeti Jäähall for another high tempo workout. Those players that made it to our ice practice did show us good effort. After the workout they must have a had a quite good idea on what kind of a shape they are at and what do they need to do to be part of the best and hardest skating team in the upcoming Div-II World championships.

For next weekend we are trying to arrange extra “captain’s practices” and then in 2 weeks Ismo and I have great opportunity to coach Kalev-Välk team at Continental cup @ Poland. We will have a large number of the national team candidates in that team and therefore we are taking this opportunity to coach the team for that tournament.

Activities are starting

After the succesful National team kickoff at Tallinn on 29.8 we have been planning for new activities for the National team candidates. While we are still looking for possible dates for head coach Ismo Lehkonen to run workout's at Estonia in September we have already set dates for Jukka Ropponen to run practices at Tallinn on 11.10. Before that Jukka will also be observing games on previous day.

Then 23-25.10 will be an important weekend for candidates that play at Estonian league. We will travel to Krakow, Poland to play at Continetal Cup. This will be an excelelnt opportunity to really see who can play at International level and who is in shape and who's not.

We are also almost ready announce an event in Finland for December. At this event we will be playing against one of the Finnish pro teams.

These events will help a lot on our way towards the home tournament at April 2010, but still the most important thing is how well the candidates follow their personal programs and instructions they have all received and how well they work with their teams during the season.

There is talent

Best part of the kickoff event last Saturday at Tallinn was that Ismo Lehkonen and I both came to same conclusion: Team Estonia has some good hockey talent.

So it seems that if we get all players committed to the program and get them to top shape we should have a good team. As we agreed with the team this will take a lot of work from everyone and players have to change their behaviour, training regime, lifestyle etc to be part of this team and reach the goals we have together.

So the first event was very positive and now we have to follow up with programs, additional national team training sessions, trip to Poland for continental cup etc... Lot's of work ahead and that's not only for players, but coaches and management alike.

We are looking forward to this season and a proud team Estonia.

Jukka & Ismo

And it’s time to begin the journey

With Journey I mean our new assignment with Ismo "Ika" Lehkonen to guide Estonian national hockey team during this upcoming season. We are both looking very much forward to help our neighbors and be part of making hockey more popular sport in the country. We do also realize that it is an honor whenever one has been offered a chance to represent a country in an official capacity. With this in our minds we will do the best we can and our goal is to bring Estonia back to Div-1 level at World Championships.

Right now we are collecting all possible information and Ahtikullervo Jögi from Jäähoki Liit is helping us in this task. As the information, game videos of team Estonia and opponents etc becomes available Ika and I will be able to build our plans, playbooks etc.

Right now Jäähoki Liit is working to arrange a minicamp to Tallinn at 29.8. This will be great as it will provide as a chance to get to know a lot of the potential national team players and also run them through some of the systems we are looking to use with the team. Since the team is scattered around hockey playing Europe during the season we also have to make sure we give players the needed training programs and provide them help as needed when they are with their teams. We really need to have players at top shape before the World Championships begin at Tallinn and when players will report to the training camp. Hopefully before that we can have another camp during one of the breaks in the leagues or during the Christmas holidays.

Anyway, we are really looking forward to work with team Estonia and it’s players. Ika and I will be updating this blog every now and then and tell you about the progress with the team and how things are going.

Jukka Ropponen

Getting close finally (I hope)...

One way or the other Goaliepro and myself will be involved in helping Estonian hockey and especially focus on the area of raising the level of goalie coaching at the country. This week I will meet with Riho Soonik of Eesti Jäähoki Liit to go through possible arrangements and try to agree how we can get started.

It's too bad that we could not meet the original deadline of August 2, but unfortunately some issues that were not in our control (Goaliepro's & Jäähoki Liit's)did hold up the process.

As a hockey and goaltending enthusiast this will be a pleasure for me to help Estonians, especially since I do visit the country often in business and it is really fast and easy to get there from Finland.

Hopefully we will have some details for you soon. Anyway, I am sure this will be fun and beneficial for goalies and Estonian hockey overall.

Jukka

Ps. Check out the interview of Estonian goalie coach Christian Adami at Goaliepro's annual summer camp (in Finnish).

Getting there...

Plans are starting to come together and soon we will have something to announce officially as we are working on agreement with Estonian ice hockey federation (Eesti Jäähoki Liit). What we are working on is an arrangement where Goaliepro can help Estonian hockey and Estonian goalie development programs.

Stay tuned, we are targeting August 2 as the date to reveal our plans.

Jukka Ropponen

Project Estonia

This is the blog for the upcoming hockey related project