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