Sports are losing on the ice, and apparently it doesn’t matter at all.
Three telling periods of ice hockey were played in Tampere this evening.
Ilves–Sport finished 5–1, and it was certainly not the winning team that was most in the limelight. Sport fielded a b-team – and there are reasons for that, so to speak.
Monday’s match was the first since the club management on Kopparön publicly threw in the towelgave up all that can be spelled sporting pride and grabbed the instruction manual on how to highly effectively destroy one’s own brand and turn one’s back on supporters and sponsors.
The bottom teams of domestic ice hockey have engaged in shameless selling of star players for years. It has become a sad tradition in a stagnant series as the chances of reaching the spring playoffs are buried.
Save what can be saved?
In Sport’s case, one wonders. Partly because the hope for a play-off place was still alive, contrary to how the situation usually looks when clubs give up, partly because the husband of rapid dismantling of credibility and reputation is hard to beat.
Sport has fallen flat in the league
This autumn, it has been nine years since Vasa was dotted on the league map. It feels incredibly distant, but then Sport was a relatively fresh and brash newcomer with a dedicated and loud short side that had sung the team to league qualification for several spring seasons.
In addition, the league would be injected with Ostrobothnia as a market area.
In the highest league, Sport’s contribution has fallen flat. At the same time that Jukurit and KooKoo have at least sputtered at times with smarter sporting solutions, Sport has never been enough in the rink and financially it has been poor year after year.
The latest financial statements have shone red with total losses of several hundred thousand euros and right now a share issue is underway to hunt for new money for a project with a different direction and more Sportfostrade players in the league team.
Jens Lööke moved to Björklöven.
Photo: Tomi Natri / All Over Press
Jens Lööke, FM league in ice hockey, ice hockey, Vasa Sport
It feels distant days like these, when the club management has drawn its conclusions to put a band-aid on an open wound and try to squeeze out all the pennies it is possible to find.
The wallet must gape almost completely empty when you choose to ignite the last streak of playoff hope to save a few months’ wages for the Swedish first chain, the first goalkeeper and the best defenders. The effort in Tampere was just as tame and whimsical as one could expect with those conditions.
– Everyone knows that there is also a financial side, and everyone understands that you don’t do this if it looked different there. I’m not so stupid that I claim that it would be good if we take away our best players, but I understand this solution, says coach Risto Dufva to MTV.
Highlighted the system error
Sports are not just cold, black and white probability numbers on a piece of paper that Sports management prints out. It’s also feelings – and the reactions of the last 24 hours say a lot.
Sports supporter group Ultras06 sent out a tweet on their account today with a picture of several years on their neck. Sports fans had written on banners that one would rather experience an anxiety-filled qualifier than play in a closed series.
When reading about domestic ice hockey, the consensus seems to be that the hermetically sealed hockey league must be blown up. The current model is completely free of mobility in the league system and it is a constant topic of conversation, but the path to a change with fewer league teams and qualifying games is viscous as the league clubs decide.
If you want to look positively at Sport’s contribution to the league season, it is easy to find: the club’s management at least managed to highlight the systemic failure with impressive effect.
In the position Sport was in – second last in the series, but still with clear opportunities to move up the table – the natural reaction would be to look for reinforcements as the transfer window closes or at least keep what is in the squad.
Now a club with a cash crisis chose to, at least in terms of image, put the puck in their own goal and strengthen the image that Vasa does not belong on the ice hockey league map.
