Porin Ässät ry is a sports club based in

Pori Pori (; ; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Satakunta. It is located on the west coast of the country, on the Gulf of Bothnia. The population of Pori is approximately , while the Pori sub-region, sub-region has a population of a ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. The club's only programs are

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

and

esports Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...

, but it used to have an association football program. Porin Ässät ry operates an ice hockey team in the Finnish Elite League. Porin Ässät ry also has junior teams for all age groups from U7 to U20. Porin Ässät ry also operate a women's ice hockey school and the girl's junior ice hockey department while also operating a skating school.

Sports

Men's ice hockey

Ässät's ice hockey department started in 1967 when two local clubs, RU-38 and Karhut, merged. Since 1967, Ässät has won three Finnish Championships (1971, 1978 and 2013) and one

Finnish Cup The Finnish Cup (; ) is Finland's main national cup competition in football. This yearly competition is open for all member clubs of the FA of Finland and has been played since 1955. The winner qualifies for the UEFA Europa Conference League ...

(''Suomen Cup'' in Finnish) For the 2023–24 season, Ässät plays in the

Liiga The Liiga, colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. The league comprises 16 teams from all around Finland with relegation and promotion between the Mesti ...

, the top-tier of ice hockey in Finland. Ässät women's ice hockey department was established in 1981 and it was one of the ten teams that formed the Naisten SM-sarja (now ''Naisten Liiga''). The team was disestablished in 2003, but was re-established as an ice hockey school in 2020.

Men's football

Ässät men's football section was formed in 1967. Ässät inherited RU-38's place in the

Mestaruussarja Mestaruussarja (Championship series) was the top division of Finnish football from 1930 to 1989. It was replaced by Veikkausliiga in 1990. In 1930 league format was used for the first time to decide the Finnish champion. Before that (1908-1929) ...

, where they played for two seasons before being relegated. The football club folded in 1981. Ässät managed to win one A-junior championship in 1970.

Esports

The Pata Ässät esports team was founded in 2017, when Ässät picked up players of a team called REAKT. The team started with playing

Overwatch ''Overwatch'' (abbreviated as OW) is a multimedia franchise centered on a series of multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) video games developed by Blizzard Entertainment. ''Overwatch (video game), Overwatch'' was released in 2016 with a success ...

and Counter Strike Global Offensive but dropped them and moved on to NHL video game series. PATA has not been active since 2022 when the eLiiga season ended in a 6th place. PATA has played in the Finnish Esports League and the

ESEA League E-Sports Entertainment Association League (ESEA League) is an esports competitive video gaming online league & community founded by E-Sports Entertainment Association (ESEA). The company is widely known for their anti-cheat software. ESEA features ...

. The

playoffs were played in the

NHL 20 ''NHL 20'' is an ice hockey simulation video game developed by EA Vancouver and published by EA Sports. It was released globally on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on September 13, 2019. It is the 29th installment in the NHL video game series and f ...

video game due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. PATA's player was an ex-hockey player Iiro Vehmanen. PATA beat JYP in the first round, but lost on the second round to Kärpät. Ässät finished 10th in the eLiiga 2020 regular season, and thus did not make it to the playoffs. The games were played in NHL 21. In the 2021–22 eLiiga season, Ässät finished 4th in the regular season tied with Tappara with 51 points, so it made it into the playoffs. Ässät got eliminated by Tappara in the first round in two games. The games were played in

NHL 22 ''NHL 22'' is an ice hockey simulation video game developed by EA Vancouver and published by EA Sports. It is the 31st installment in the ''NHL'' video game series and was released for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X ...

Other operations

HC Ässät Pori Oy

HC Ässät Pori Oy was made into a separate organization from Porin Ässät ry in 2000. Porin Ässät ry owns 75,6% of HC Ässät Pori Oy. HC Ässät Pori Oy owns the Porin Ässät men's ice hockey team and the Porin Ässät U20 team. HC Ässät Pori Oy previously owned parts of the Isomäki Ice Hall, an ice hockey arena in Pori, but sold it to the City of Pori because of financial troubles.

Shots restaurant

The Porin Ässät operates a restaurant and café called Shots.

Patajunnuareena Oy

Patajunnuareena Oy is a company that Porin Ässät ry owns. Patajunnuareena Oy was founded in 2007 for the building and upkeeping of the Astora Areena, an ice hockey arena located next to the Isomäki Ice Hall.

Pata Production Oy

Pata Productions Oy is a company owned by Porin Ässät ry. Its purpose is to support Ässät's ice hockey junior teams. Pata Production Oy rents metal fence elements to event organizers of different sizes. In addition, the company rents metallic ladder elements. The money the company produces goes towards the junior teams. Pata Production Oy was founded in 2012.

References

{{Porin Ässät