Tero Juhani Lehterä (born 21 April 1972) is a Finnish former professional

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 ...

player who played the majority of his career in the

SM-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 Mest ...

. He played for

Tappara Tappara (; Finnish language, Finnish for "Battle axe") is a Finnish professional ice hockey team playing in the SM-liiga. They play at ''Nokia Arena (Tampere), Nokia Arena'' in Tampere, Finland. The team has won 20 Finnish league championships, wh ...

Jokerit Helsingin Jokerit (, English: Joker (playing card), Jokers or Jesters of Helsinki) is a professional ice hockey team based in Helsinki, Finland, which competes in Mestis. Jokerit plays its home games at the Helsinki Ice Hall and Helsinki Halli in ...

, HPK, and

Espoo Blues Kiekko-Espoo is a Finnish professional ice hockey club founded in 2018 as a continuation of the Kiekko-Espoo team originally founded in 1984. Kiekko-Espoo men's team plays in the Liiga, where they were promoted for the 2024–25 Liiga season, 20 ...

. He also had stints in Elitserien, the IHL, Russia, Switzerland and Germany. He also won a bronze medal at the

1994 Winter Olympics The 1994 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVII Olympic Winter Games (; ) and commonly known as Lillehammer '94, were an international winter multi-sport event held from 12 to 27 February 1994 in and around Lillehammer, Norway. Hav ...

and World Championship with Finland's

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

Ice Hockey World Championships The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), first officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics. The IIHF was created in 1908 while the I ...

team A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to in ...

. Lehterä switched into coaching after retiring his hockey career. He has been the head coach of

SaiPa SAIPA (, ''SAIPA'') is an Iranian automaker headquartered in Tehran. The SAIPAC (an acronym for the French ''Société anonyme iranienne de production des automobiles Citroën'' lit. ''Iranian Limited Company for the Production of Citroën Autom ...

of the Finnish

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 ...

. He has also coached several

junior teams and worked as an assistant coach for Blues' first team during the 2015-16 season. He was supposed to become the head coach of Blues, but the team went bankrupt in 2016. He has also worked as a hockey analyst for tv channels

MTV3 MTV3 (, ) is a Finnish commercial television channel owned and operated by the media company MTV Oy, originally launched on 13 August 1957 as a programming block, becoming its own channel on 1 January 1993. It had the biggest audience share ...

and Nelonen. During the 2022/23 season in

Hockeyallsvenskan HockeyAllsvenskan (previously Allsvenskan and SuperAllsvenskan) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league, and the second-highest league in the Swedish ice hockey system, after the Swedish Hockey League, SHL. Since the 2009–10 season, t ...

he took over as headcoach for

Västerås IK Västerås IK (''Västerås Ishockey klubb'') is a professional ice hockey club from Västerås, Sweden. The team is currently playing in the second-tier league in Sweden, HockeyAllsvenskan. Västerås IK played 12 seasons in the top Swedish leagu ...

after the team had a rough start-mid season which hadn't met the high expectations that the somewhat high-end lineup had amassed. Tero succeeded in taking the team to the quarterfinals where they lost to Björklövens IF. Tero would become known as "Tero the hero" amongst the Västerås fanbase and many people still hope for his return. One of the main reasons for the instant improvement in play for Västerås was his finish style of trap play. During the 2023/24 season in Hockeyallsvenskan he coached

Östersunds IK Östersunds IK is a Sweden, Swedish professional ice hockey club from Östersund. The club was founded in 1965 and has played 21 seasons in Sweden's second-tier hockey league. In 2003, the club transferred its A-team to Jämtland Hockey and playe ...

and cemented his finish style of trap play in Hockeyallsvenskan. His nephew, Jori Lehterä, was drafted by the

St. Louis Blues The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference. Th ...

and currently plays for the

Philadelphia Flyers The Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia. The Flyers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Conference. The team play ...

. His daughter, Nea Lehterä, was in the winning team in the

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense Physical exercise, physical activity. It can be performed to motivate s ...

world championships in 2022.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lehtera, Tero 1972 births Living people EHC Basel players Espoo Blues players Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in Russia Finnish ice hockey players Florida Panthers draft picks Fort Wayne Komets players Füchse Duisburg players HC Ambrì-Piotta players HC Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk players HC Salamat players HPK players Ice hockey people from Espoo Ice hockey players at the 1994 Winter Olympics Jokerit players Malmö Redhawks players Medalists at the 1994 Winter Olympics Odense Bulldogs players Olympic ice hockey players for Finland Olympic medalists in ice hockey Tappara players Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod players