Team Estonia roster

Coaching staff has selected following players

Goalies

1. Mark Rajevski
2. Villem-Henrik Koitmaa
3. Kristjan Eerme

Defence

1. Dmitri Suur
2. Lauri Lahesalu
3. Kaupo Kaljuste
4. Pelle Sildre
5. Stanislav Pankov
6. Aleksandr Ossipov
7. Pavel Narvet

Forwards

1. Toivo Suursoo
2. Andrei Makrov
3. Aleksandr Petrov
4. Vassili Titarenko
5. Anton Nekrassov
6. Maksim Semjonov
7. Olle Sildre
8. Veikko Suvaoja
9. Jaanus Sorokin
10. Mihkel Vorang
11. Kaspar Karik
12. Aleksei Sibirtsev
13. Maksim Ivanov

Coaches will make final roster / playing line-up during the training camp.

The following players have also been listed as eligible to play in IIHF roster and can be called up as replacements in case of injuries etc

Kirill Kolpakov
Anton Jastrebov
Robert Rooba
Sergei Novikov (Assuming that he has Estonian passport by the time)
Igor Savvov
Denis Konõshev
Jan Rajevski

Right now we are doing final checkings on everyones availability and health status while making rapid changes based on the fact that games are now at Narva.

While we feel bad for Estonian hockey and Tallinn about this move we have to say that we are thankful for the city of Narva to support the games in such a short notice.

Ismo & Jukka

Huge disappointment

We were informed today that games will be moved to Narva instead of Tallinn. This is huge disappointment to us coaches as we had agreed to donate our time to help Estonian hockey with goal of having great training camp (including game against Finland) at Tallinn and then play tournament in front of home crowd at Saku Suurhall.

Right now we have no information what will this mean, how things will be arranged and what will happen. We feel very sorry for the Estonian hockey and especially our players. Hopefully things will be resolved at least some way during the next couple of days. Once we have all the information we have to see what will be done next.

In any case, this is not good for the great game of hockey and for Estonian hockey people.

Ismo & jukka

26 Days left...

Only 26 days left before the puck will drop at the Div-II World Championships at Tallinn. Team Estonia will be ready and we should have the best possible team if a few players will be able to recover from their injuries in time and a couple of other ones can make it back to Estonia in time after their own seasons have ended at the foreign countries where they play.

The result of the games will depend on the whole TEAM Estonia. How well can WE play as a team and how well can WE execute the playbook, i.e. follow the system designed by us coaches for OUR team. Naturally that will also require that OUR players are in better shape than before, which WE believe is the case as WE have seen good dedication and work ethics demonstrated by OUR national team candidates.

WE are looking forward for an exciting tournament and great training camp before the games.

Ismo & Jukka

It’s up to our players now…

Estonian National Hockey team candidates have all received personal training programs a few months ago to follow on top of their own club practices. Last month head coach Ismo Lehkonen also demonstrated the moves to players in a dryland training session at Savonlinnna, Finland during our weekend game and practice trip to Finland.

For us coaches it is clear that if our players take care of their training, nutrition and rest like professional athletes do and like they have been instructed, we can expect good results from the upcoming Div-II World Championships in April at Tallinn.

This additional and personal training is a must for team Estonia members in order to have the needed stamina and skating power we need to follow the game plans/system that has been designed for the team.

We have also made a decision to focus on quality on everything we do and therefore we decided not to participate at the February tournament in Lithuania as we would have not been able to get all the best Estonian players from foreign leagues to join the team for that tournament. Savonlinna already did teach us a lesson in December and we know now that we need those players from overseas in order to have a good and competitive Team Estonia!

Before we start our training camp at Tallinn in April to get ready for the games we will organize 1-2 events for the players from Estonian league, but it is really up to our players now to work hard on their own and get them ready for the upcoming World Championships so that we can have a team and results we can all be proud of!

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.