Mikko Manner’s painful Swedish lessons – don’t want to be labeled as the Finnish loser: "When the players are scared, you have to build their confidence"

Mikko Manner is a valued coach in Brynäs, even if he has not managed to turn the team’s results around for the better. He loves the challenge and feels proud of the trust he has received in the long-standing club in Sweden.

It is an early Tuesday morning in January. Snow drifts fall from the dark sky as Brynästrainer Mikko Manner faithfully cycles to the ice rink in Gävle.

In the hall, Manner has time to discuss the team’s challenging position and plan the day’s training session before the players arrive at the workplace.

– I love going to the ice rink every morning. Sure, it would be easier to love it when you win. But you have to come here more often when you lose – show character, show leadership and stand for the common values, Manner tells Sportliv’s team, which follows the coach’s working day from early morning.

A few days earlier, Brynäs IF suffered another loss. This time after extra time against league leaders Växjö.

If the results do not turn for the better, Brynäs risks ending up fighting for their place in the SHL, just as they did two years ago. The team does not want to experience that again.

Manner, who came to Brynäs after the heavy spring of 2021, gathers the players for a video meeting before ice training. Before going into details from the Växjö match, he reminds the players that they performed well even if the result was not favorable this time.

– When things go badly, when there is fear there, you need to build up self-confidence. I just hope the hockey gods help us too, because we deserve better results. But we can’t blame anyone else. Only we can save ourselves, Manner explains his way of thinking to Sportliv.

During the time in Sweden, Manner has had to grow on a personal level. He has had to get used to losses and setbacks. It hasn’t been easy, but he loves the challenge.

– I was a bad loser. But now I’ve lost so much that maybe I’m starting to find the way to become a better trainer.

See the short documentary about Mikko Manner in Sportliv:

The dream of being able to train in Sweden is coming true

Mikko Manner has his roots in Vaasa and Sport, but as a coach he made a big splash in Oulu and Kärpät. There he served as assistant coach for four years before becoming head coach and won FM gold right away in the first season in 2017-18.

In addition to his position as head coach, he has served as assistant coach for Jukka Jalonen in the national team since spring 2017. In that role, he has been part of winning an Olympic gold and a couple of World Cup golds.

It was successful on all fronts for Manner until his last season with Kärpät. After winning the regular season three years in a row, a seventh-place finish felt like a disaster. Manner had won so much that he had difficulty dealing with the losses, and was not always able to act as calmly and composedly in front of the team as he would have liked.

He has worked on that actively in his constant quest to become a better version of himself.

– If I make mistakes, if the emotions take over me and the frustration comes when the results are not what you want, I am the first to raise my hand. I apologize if I have built up a bit of panic and was unable to calm down.

After the heavy 2020-21 season, the Manner family moved back to Vaasa after several years in Oulu. Mikko felt it was time to blow off steam and take a gap year from the role of head coach.

But then Brynäs IF got in touch.

– In this work, if you say no, you may never get the opportunity again. I had dreamed that my next job would be abroad, and Sweden was my first option.

Manner says that it is a great honor to work for Brynäs IF. The historic club from the hockey city of Gävle is one of Sweden’s most successful of all time. The biggest glory days were during the 1960s and 70s when the Salming brothers played there. Later, Brynäs has nurtured players such as Anders “Masken” Carlsson and Nicklas Bäckström.

Before Manner came to Gävle, Brynäs had missed the playoffs three years in a row, and finally came close to leaving the top league. The Finn took over a scrappy team that had just survived an unpleasant relegation qualifier against HV71.

Manner’s difficult mission is to make Brynäs one of the series’ best teams again. He has not agreed to that in the blink of an eye.

– The bad results make me feel a little bad, because I really don’t want to be the guy who ruins the nice club history. I want to be the one to build it back up, says Manner with an intense glow in his eyes.

During the first season in Brynäs, the team improved with three positions in the table compared to the previous season. After tenth place in the regular season, Brynäs went out in the first playoff round against Örebro.

The results in the second season have not been better. Despite that, Manner was offered an extended contract already in November.

He is grateful for the trust he has received from Brynäs club management.

– I think they trust that we are on the right track. They see how we work. We are humble, work hard and take care of each other.

Although things have gone badly for Brynäs, Manner has become a well-liked person in the SHL. Thanks to his self-sacrificing attitude and his peculiar “rally Swedish” he has become something of a cult figure. He is very popular in Gävle.

When Manner signed a contract extension with Brynäs in November, svenskafans.se wrote that he “charmed the whole of Hockey Sweden with his Rally Sweden and humility”.

– I have been received super well. I do not know why. I can only be grateful for the support all the supporters and all the people have given me. They deserve a better position in the league table.

Manner’s Modern Leadership

Due to the weak results, Mikko Manner’s leadership has been put to the test in Brynäs. But even though the setbacks have been hard to swallow, Manner has always stuck to his modern leadership style.

He doesn’t want to be an old-school authoritarian leader who tries to get the team to perform using threats and punishment. He is demanding, but at the same time he wants the players to feel safe. In that way, he believes the team can achieve the best results in the long run.

– My philosophy includes that I protect my team. In the media, I blame myself every time. My ego is such that I don’t need to blame anyone else if we have lost. I take responsibility, explains Manner and continues.

– But inside the dressing room we have to be honest. There it sometimes happens that a player can take it too personally when I’m very honest with him. Everyone’s personalities are different, and as a coach you have to try to find the right strings to pull.

Manner wants all players in the team to be able to be themselves and at the same time trust each other. He has experienced such an environment in the national team, where he has seen how fine results such an environment can produce.

– If the players have good confidence and learn that it is not dangerous to raise your hand in the dressing room and say they did wrong, then what happens? Everyone else starts appreciating your behavior and starts helping you.

– If we find that feeling and balance, we can be something more than we are.

According to Manner’s philosophy, players should be allowed to be themselves, provided they stay within certain mutually agreed upon boundaries.

Manner describes himself as a policeman when it comes to the team’s values. And he’s the first to raise his hand if he doesn’t keep his cool during a game where things aren’t going the team’s way. He doesn’t want to spread panic in the squad.

– That’s perhaps where we had our biggest problem together. That the heart takes over. Will and feeling take over.

According to Manner, those too strong emotions lead to some players being paralyzed while others try too hard, which in turn leads to personal mistakes and unnecessary sending offs.

Likes the series system in Sweden: “It’s real competition”

In Sweden, Manner has enjoyed the sports culture that differs from the Finnish one. Gävle is a hockey-mad city, which can be seen and heard in the home games. But also otherwise, the ball sports culture in Sweden is different from that in Finland.

– The passion around the law and the associations is special here. I’ve always dreamed of being a player or coach in a series where it’s heaven or hell – where you can be hero or zero.

In addition to the nice atmosphere at the matches, Manner is impressed by the nice ice rinks in Sweden. Every match feels like a big event.

A contributing factor is also the series system. In an open league, the games are important even for the teams that have lost the chance to achieve success in the playoffs – yes, maybe even more important because the teams really want to avoid relegation.

According to Manner, the series system is the basis for people caring about their teams through thick and thin. It has also led to the series under the SHL, the Allsvenskan, being meaningful and doing well.

– In the Allsvenskan, for example, there are clubs such as Djurgården, MoDo and Björklöven. Thirteen thousand people visited AIK–Djurgården. It’s something nice, really nice. It’s real competition.

Since Brynäs rose to Sweden’s highest league in 1960, the team has never been relegated. When Sportliv visits Gävle, the team is in twelfth place in the table. When the regular season is over, the 13th and 14th teams are forced to play relegation qualifiers.

But Brynäs still has everything in his own hands. With a successful playoff run, the team can still play playoff games in the spring. Mikko Manner is under great pressure and knows that the team has extremely important weeks ahead of them.

– The biggest dream right now is to be a coach who can help this team to the top. I don’t want to be the Finnish coach who came to Sweden and was a loser.

Speaking of longer-term future plans, Manner highlights a likely scenario where he returns to Vaasa, where his family lives while he works in Gävle.

– Someday it might be time to move back to Finland and Vaasa, and try to help Vasa Sport in some role, on the junior side or within the club management.

– But I hope I don’t have to return to Finland soon. I hope I can continue to develop myself abroad and continue to get better.