At the helm of the “punks” – a specialist from Finland
Last season started very painfully for Vilnius residents when the team’s head coach Mindaugas Kieras died a week before its start.
Read more „I did the same as the employees, just without pay“: has the internship become cheap labor?
Although there were successful matches throughout the season – for example, an away win against the Riga “Mogo” ice hockey players who later became champions, none of the goals were achieved by the capital’s representatives – “Hockey Punks – Mototoja” did not reach the next stage guaranteeing the top six in the Baltic league, and in the final series for the Lithuanian championship title, they lost in the decisive fifth game to Elektrėnai “Energija”.
The main news of this season – the team is led by 44-year-old experienced specialist from Finland Elmo Aittola.
The coach has work experience in Finland, Slovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway. He will be assisted by Lithuanian Dovydas Kulevičius, who led the team last season.
There are also changes in the ranks of foreign players – so far none of last year’s “Hockey Punks – Mototoja” foreign players are in this year’s lineup, but Finnish forward Lauri Huhdanpaa, who recently played in the top Polish league, and his compatriot and also forward Otto Karvinen with an impressive CV have arrived.
The latter played 348 games in the elite Finnish league, and a few years ago was even invited to the national team of this country for the Eurotour national team competitions held during the “windows”.
Moreover, the player is known in his native country for not avoiding tough play and fights, so it seems that “Hockey Punks – Mototoja” fans will not be bored this season.
Opponents – a joint team of Riga youth and Daugavpils
Saturday’s opponents are an interesting team made up of candidates for the Latvian U18 national team and the strongest players of one of the strongest second neighbor league Daugavpils team.
Interestingly, the Latvian U18 team created a sensation last season by defeating one of the favorites, the USA team, in the quarterfinals of the World Championships. This team had as many as 8 players who played in the Baltic ice hockey league.
Read more Officers: a very large group of Somali citizens rushed into Lithuania
Vilnius head coach E. Aittola spoke more about his pupils than about the opponents before the start of the season
“The first games of the season always have a unique, raw energy – they set the tone and become the start of a long, tough ice hockey season. This is the first time this team will play together, so naturally, there is a built-up impatience and desire to finally start inside us.
It is better when the team’s emotions overflow at the start of the season than when they are completely lacking. An excess of emotions can lead to structural mistakes at the beginning of the game or additional penalty minutes, but it is much easier for coaches to fix such problems than to try to blow air into an empty balloon.
We are creating our identity as a team. We will fight for the logo on the front of the jerseys and want to be the hardest working team in the league – the team that is the hardest to play against. We clearly know where we want to go, and we can only reach that place by playing and acting together.
Now all our attention is only on the next shift. From it, we begin to grow together, step by step building ourselves as a team, because only in this way can we achieve our goals.
The season is a long journey, so it is good to finally start it. And hard work will sooner or later bear fruit.”
Saturday’s game starts at “Pramogų arena” at 16:30.
Tickets can be purchased at www.hockeypunks.lt or at the Pramogų arena box office before the game. To avoid queues, the organizers recommend arriving earlier.
