Jokerit Vs

Helsingin Jokerit (English: Jokers or Jesters) are a professional ice hockey team based in Helsinki, Finland. The team won six league championships as a member of the Finnish SM-liiga (1973, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, and 2002). Jokerit plays its home games at Helsinki Halli. The team was a part of the Bobrov Division of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) Western Conference from the 2014–15 season, making Finland the first Nordic country to have a team in the league.

On February 24, 2022, Jokerit announced it would withdraw from the 2022 KHL playoffs due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Multiple team sponsors including the arena's title sponsor Hartwall announced intentions to end their agreements. On April 5, 2022, Jokerit subsequently announced ending their participation in the KHL completely. And on April 20, 2022, they announced that they are seeking to return to SM-liiga for the 2023–24 season.

History

The beginning

Jokerit would not have existed without the debt-incumbent ice hockey branch of Töölön Vesa amateur sports club, who were faced with having to discontinue their resource-demanding ice hockey activities in 1967. Master-builder Aimo Mäkinen seized the opportunity to establish a semi-professional sports club of his own, and for the price of half of Vesa's ice hockey debts the new ice hockey club inherited everything, including junior players and the vacant position in second highest Finnish series, Suomi-sarja.

Officially, Jokerit were established on 27 October 1967, at their constitutional meeting. The club's sole owner Mäkinen chose to wield sovereign power, becoming in practice also the board and managing director. The insignia, a winking jester, was adapted from jokers of various card decks and drawn by graphic designer Jorma Hinkka. Their home venue was Helsinki Ice Hall.

Mäkinen did not intend his new club to loiter in the lower series. Even though dramatic changes in the line-up did not appear directly, only a few players from Töölön Vesa saw prolonged employment: Timo Turunen would be the most distinguished, remaining even today as the club's all-time goal scoring leader. With him, Pentti Hiiros and Timo Kyntölä would form ''nallipyssyketju'' ("cap gun line", referring to their lack of height – Hiiros was the tallest at 172 cm) until 1975, when the latter retired.

Promotion to SM-sarja

Promotion to the highest level, SM-sarja, took place two years later. Immediately after the promotion was secured, Mäkinen began an aggressive acquisition of star players. Among them were the national team regulars defenceman Ilpo Koskela with forwards Henry Leppä and Timo Sutinen, whose relationship with the club lasted long.

Other, later reinforcements worthy of a mention were forward Jouko Öystilä and defenceman Timo Saari, and finally, head coach Matti Lampainen. In 1969, the IIHF had loosened amateur rules by permitting bodychecking anywhere in the rink (old rules allowed bodychecking only in defensive end). SM-sarja underwent a tactical revolution as physical, mean play became a means to success. Lampainen, however, reckoned physical play unsuitable for the line-up at hand (consider nallipyssyketju). He guided the team, with success, towards a play that demanded technique and clever tactics. This became the trademark of Jokerit that stuck all the way to the late 1990s and resulted in the way Jokerit played as being branded as "neitikiekko", which roughly translates as "playing like women".

To his credit, Mäkinen also enhanced the club's junior organization by launching a competition of their own, called ''Kanada-sarja'', with 500 participating junior players, a figure that cumulatively tripled in a few years. Kanada-sarja didn't survive the 1970s, but Jokerit benefited from it through a steady flow of emerging talent including Jari Kurri, and by gaining a strong popular base in the outer urban zones of Helsinki.

Despite winning Finnish championship silver in 1971 and gold in 1973, Jokerit didn't manage to be financially profitable during Mäkinen's period in charge. He started downsizing the team's budget by methodically replacing departing stars with junior players. Success slowly declined and Jokerit only just managed to avoid relegation from the Finnish elite-level league several times. This, combined with Mäkinen's controversial manner of management – the emphasis being place on non-physical play – led to the club facing an uncertain and turbulent future.

Success and financial troubles

When a replacement candidate turned up in 1980, Mäkinen retired from the ownership, though he went on in the club's junior organization up to the 1990s. New owners, ''Jokeriklubin Tuki Ry'', were a conventional association supervised by its board.

Under new management, the club didn't instantly shake off its wobbliness, but then they peaked for one season. Having signed mainly outcasts of other clubs, they suddenly hit jackpot: for the 1982–1983 season, the club signed Soviet Union's national team defenceman Nikolai Makarov. As a result, Jokerit had a near-perfect season and advanced all the way to the SM-Liiga finals, where they were comprehensively beaten by local rival HIFK.

However, the management ran into unexpected financial problems, and the brief success soon withered. Only a few years later, they had to avert bankruptcy twice, which struck a blow to their credibility, as a mass desertion of the players ensued. The first line was a shambles as wing Risto Kerminen departed and center Jari Lindroos almost did, but though he had signed elsewhere, the contract was illegitimately nullified. Few others, apart from the longtime goaltender Rauli Sohlman, remained. Jokerit faced the imminent relegation in 1987.

In the middle of the bleakest hour of their history, with Jokeriklubin Tuki Ry seeking to discontinue their association, new blood was rushed into Jokerit. In 1988, their 20-year-olds won the Finnish junior championship with several prospective stars: defenceman Waltteri Immonen would be captain of the team 1991–1999; Mika Strömberg the club's all-time best-scoring defenceman; Ari Sulander the main goaltender 1993–1998; forward Keijo Säilynoja a goal scorer and a penalty-shot specialist; and Teemu Selänne the NHL record-breaker.

Now that the club was spiced with such promising, new willing owners turned up to save them. They established ''Jokeri-Hockey Oy'' and became the first limited company based sports club in Finland. Kalervo Kummola, who played the leading role assembling the company, sat in its board up to 2002.

The team, reinforced with the junior champions, orchestrated a quick promotion back to the top level, now called SM-liiga. But once again, despite the phenomenal boost in popularity supported by the prominent scorer Selänne and other young star players, the owners ran into severe financial problems, caused by incompetent management and disagreements within the board.

The Harkimo era

In 1991, an investor withdrew and board member Harry "Hjallis" Harkimo got credentials to a double majority of shares. He appointed himself the chairman of the board, discontinued all managerial positions and nominated his wife Leena Harkimo the managing director (who held the task up to her election to the Parliament of Finland in 1999). This proved to be the final stroke of luck the club needed: the disagreements vanished once and for all and Harry Harkimo established himself as an efficient businessman, being able to conduct a rapid recovery of the economy. In a few years, Jokerit were the wealthiest Finnish sports club.

Thus, they were able to reinforce the team with first class talent. Several successful acquisitions were signed, most memorably Otakar Janecký, who manned the first line center for several seasons, becoming the club's all-time best point scorer; Petri Varis, who became the club's best goal scorer of the 1990s; and forward Antti Törmänen. Together with the above-mentioned junior champions they formed a core of a dynasty of thriving times: Jokerit won the Finnish championship in 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1997, the European Cup in 1995 and 1996, plus Finnish silver once and European bronze once.

Harkimo further converted the club from semi-professionalism towards his ideal of professional sports entertainment, which was unmistakably adopted from the NHL. His efforts yielded Jokerit their own home venue, Hartwall Arena, in 1997 – first such privately owned in Europe. Ownership was reformed into ''Jokerit HC Oyj'', a public limited company. They focused on the new European Hockey League expecting it to evolve into a competition more money-making than SM-Liiga, and sought various other ways to expand. Most of these plans did not meet with success, but the new venue turned out to be a gold-mine for the club's business. Meanwhile, Harry Harkimo tried to create an elite team to the British Ice Hockey Superleague, the Newcastle Jesters, but the team was not as successful as hoped, so he sold the franchise back to the League.

As they set foot at Hartwall Arena, the club signed several star reinforcements seen to be required to win the two professional leagues and to replace the now slightly aged core. However, despite having sparkling line-ups, their performance fluctuated, ending up winning "only" Finnish bronze in 1998. To make matters worse, their closest rival, HIFK won the SM-Liiga title in 1998, the first year that Jokerit had occupied the new Hartwall Arena. The club went on to making a losing appearance in the finals in 2000, and repeatedly failed to achieve success in the European Hockey League (which turned out as a major flop in itself).

Into the next millennium

In the 2000s, the management have regained what the supporters consider more reasonable an attitude by concentrating back on SM-Liiga, but the line-ups have had a notable turnover rate between seasons – a distinct core has not developed or been preserved.

For the 1999–2000 season, Jokerit had a good team. The team featured good players like German international Jan Benda, Russian Dmitri Kvartalnov, Czech Miroslav Hlinka

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