It’s been a decent winter for Erä. Far from spectacular but still acceptable. With six weeks and eight games to go in the regular season, Erä’s present standing is number five with at least six teams fighting for the home advantage.
SSV (30 points) and Classic (29) seem to be deciding the top position between themselves but Koovee (25), Oilers (24), Erä (24) and SPV (23) have it more than tight.
Somehow yet lacking the effortless offensive power of the two previous seasons Erä has been relying on its defense. Merely 76 goals against is the best number of the whole league and World Champion goalie Jani Naumanen is leading the saves percentage statistics. Still, it’s offense and goals that Erä is known of, and the team has only scored 105 of them when Oilers have 150 and Classic 149.
Now it’s up to Erä’s ability to put their act together for the rest of the season. SSV with its four consecutive titles have shown that you don’t have to keep winning throughout the year to be best when it counts.
But that is no excuse. Erä’s got what it takes but the team hasn’t proved it yet.
Finnish floorball clubs are not used to having World Champions on the team. Sure feels good, though. Goalie Jani Naumanen, defenceman Markus Bollström, center Jani Kukkola and forward Mika Moilanen had the honor of being members of Petteri Nykky’s team that beat Sweden in the WFC final. (Erä’s head coach Petteri Bergman did his part, too. As the commentator of the national broadcasting company YLE’s live broadcasts.)
Jani Kukkola now has two men’s and one U19 WFC title which is more than anyone else in Finland has. Jani Naumanen’s got two men’s titles whereas Markus Bollström has one men’s and one U19. For Mika Moilanen, this is his first gold medal.
Still, most of the words above are pretty much pointless. The spirit that brought Finland the title was not of me’s, clubs or numbers of achievements. The spirit was one of a team living the moment and enjoying what it was doing. As outside of the rink it was the spirit of no members of different clubs from different towns but a team of human beings working to achieve a goal together.
That was what it was all about. And it was great.
Today’s The Day.
Finnish Salibandyliiga takes off with last year’s finalistis Erä and SSV clashing on Vantaan Energia Areena and with Nelonen Sport Pro TV cameras present. (There’s Classic and FBT Pori playing in Tampere tonight, too, but that’s another matter).
No less than eight times did Erä and SSV take on each other last season and we all know the result. Both took four wins but SSV took the ones that count, winning the EFC final in overtime and the deciding Salibandyliiga final on penalties.
The ranking to start with is the same as it’s been. SSV as number favourite for the title and Erä close by, but still second.
The Contender.
After these two, there’s basicly SPV and Classic that people believe can have a shot for it. Veikkaus, the national betting company, agrees. SSV’s got 2,70 to win against Erä’s 2,80.
Will Erä finally be able to take the final step, everyone asks. Everyone’s ahead of things. First, there’s 26 games of regular season to be played against good opponents.
Every night counts. Every shift, every play, every move, every ball.
You get the point.
Hard work, concentration and joy come first. The result follows.
It must be an honour to become a part of floorball history. Even if it means missing the EuroFloorball Cup final round with the slightest margin possible.
There it is, our fate in a bowl
Drawing the lot.
While IFF officials Michael Lachenmaier and Kaarina Salomaa made the preparations, Erä and Storvreta players went through the traditional after-game handshakes. The bowl with two balls and pieces of paper got its share of glimpses as the players passed by.
The chairman of the jury moved the balls around a bit, grabbed one and took out the roll of paper to be displayed. Storvreta IBK, it said, and that was it.
”I had no idea when they were going to go through it”, Erä head coach Petteri Bergman said afterwards. ”Only when the Storvreta players started celebrating, I realized it had been decided”. The same most likely applied to the audience.
”We came here to proceed to the final tournament but not like this”, Storvreta’s Mika Kohonen said, the gentleman that he always is. ”They should just have put the ball in the middle and let us players decide it”.
No gestures of bitterness or frustration by the home team, though. ”We knew the rules beforehand and that’s how it went this time”, winger Jaakko Rissanen said, with a shrug. After the press conference, Erä players and coaches did not linger complaining about the rules. The talk was about how they should have taken advantage of their scoring opportunities that were plenty.
Sami Lehtinen and Joel Kanebjörk have done their part
After losing last year’s EFC final in overtime and the Finnish league’s fifth final on penalties and now this, Erä knows all about small margins. But they also know that this was the only one decided by pure luck. ”I hope they are right when they say that you first have to lose enough to then be ready to win”, Petteri Bergman said.
Erä was not able to make it through the qualification for the third time in a row but there were a lot of good things to be happy about in their game. A clear win against Tigers Langnau, a tie against the Swedish champions in a game that was there to be won. Even when Mika Kohonen took the last word claiming that he and the team can do a lot better than this. Still, Erä gave their home crowd solid goaltending, fast plays and a strong mental presence. With defender Jussi Kosola and winger Jani Helenius now gaining experience in Switzerland, Mika Moilanen and Juho Kantola as the new kids in town raised expectations with their goals and assists.
The Finnish league season opener at home against Finnish and European Champions SSV is now two and a half weeks away.
Smiles are scarce as Tom Strömsten and the rest of the team congratulate the opponent.
Appearing in both Salibandyliiga and EuroFloorball Cup final games and winning the Finnish Cup means Erä did its best season ever.
It ended bitterly, though, as Erä saw the Finnish Championship title slip away with the slightest margin possible. Game 5 in a best-of-five series, an overtime and a penalty shootout were needed to see whether Erä or SSV would be the strongest.
Erä wasn’t.
Tommi Aro opened scoring in the shootout but Juho Järvinen and Kari-Matti Ratsula put SSV ahead. After Markus Bollström’s shot hit the post and bounced out alongside the goalline, Markus Huhtimo had to score. ”Mahu” decided to pull an ambitious ”Zorro” but this time his patent trick did not succeed.
The decisive game pulled a crowd of 3,047 out of whom about 3,000 gave their support to Erä. Heart-warming, to put it modestly, even in a moment of defeat.
It’s time for Salibandyliiga final series against SSV. Starting at 1830 hrs on Vantaan Energia Areena on Thursday.
Against mighty SSV. European Champions, Finnish Champions with three straight Finnish titles and 24 straight play ff wins. But hey, who wants to play a bad opponent anyway.
Erä’s ready. Battle-hardened by the two play off series against Nokian KrP and SPV that were tighter than the numbers would let out. Hungrier than last year, when reaching the finals for the first time tasted a bit too sweet, after all. With a long season’s worth more tight games, big wins to boost your self-confidence, a couple of of bitter losses to helå maintain focus.
Erä’s ready.
Now it’s time to put useless thoughts and worries aside, concentrate on the mission and enjoy the best times of a player’s life. These are the games that a player will tell his grandchildren about one day.
Looking forward to a hell of a series.
MOSAN OMAT is
a webzine covering Tapanilan Erä Floorball — by Tapanilan Erä Floorball.
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