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| Jussi Määttä |
Oulun Kärpät is the Finnish Champion of the year 2008, 2007, 2005 and 2004. Kärpät has now five championships, the first one came in 1981.
As other achievements in the Finnish National League Kärpät has silver medals from the years 1987 and 2003 and bronze medals from
1980, 1984, 1985 1986 and 2006. In addition Kärpät has won silver in the European Champions Cup in 2005 and 2006.
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Contacts:
League office: Urheilukatu 5 A,90100 Oulu
Tel. +358 8 815 5700
Fax +358 8 815 5701
toimisto@oulunkarpat.fi
Chairman Matti Pörhö
matti.porho(at)porho.fi
Managing Director Juha Junno
juha.junno@oulunkarpat.fi
+358 40 521 9546
Oulun Kärpät
Founding year: 1946
Years in the main league: 1960-61, 1965-66, 1967-68, 1977-89 and 2000 ->
Oulu Energia Arena: The home arena of Oulun Kärpät was built in 1975. The latest reform of the arena was completed in September 2004.
The arena has 6614 seats and ten boxes.
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| Oulun Energia |
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The History of Kärpät
The idea of Oulun Kärpät was created by a few young, athletic men in 1946. The first athletic club was established for football and bandy
but soon in 1949 the club devoted to ice hockey as its main issue. The first ice rink built in Oulu made it possible for eager sportsmen
to put up a hockey team.
The Finnish Championship League was founded in 1975 and Kärpät took their place in the league in 1977. In the 1980´s Kärpät won the club´s first
medals in the league: Oulun Kärpät was the Champion in 1981, and four bronze medals were won afterwards during the same decade.
During the late 1980´s many financial difficulties and problems in sports were disturbing the development of the club.
Because of these Kärpät fell off into the lower series in 1990. The rise towards the League begun again about ten years ago,
after the team had played a season in the third division. The last seven years Oulun Kärpät has played in the National Championship League
and has always taken its place in the play offs.
Since the year 2000 Kärpät has been the most successfull team in league, also from the ecomical point of view.
The club's economy has been well taken care of and the economic life of Northern Finland and the fans
of Kärpät are loyal to their own people and very supportive. The number of visitors in the Raksila Arena has
been lingering well above the average line for years.
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| Jukka-Pekka Moilanen |
The Finnish Champion of the year 2004.
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Since the club was established, the youthwork has been a highly valued part of the club. Most of the players in the latest championship team
have been brought into the team through the club's own junior program. More than 20 of the Kärppä youngsters are currently playing, have played
or are drafted by NHL.
The club's work for junior players has traditionally been very good, but their goal is also to develop into one of the leading educational clubs
of Europe. This is one of the reasons why Kärpät bought a minority share of the Czech club KLH Vajgar Jindrichuv Hradec. The cooperation between
the two clubs includes for example changing of the coaching teams' know-how, exchange of junior players and common training camps
Team´s successful player in NHL has been defender Reijo Ruotsalainen. He won two Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers in 1987 and 1990.
He has also Olympic silver from year 1988. He finished his career with his old club Karpat in 1998. Ruotsalainen was the coaching the team
Kärpät 2001-2004.
Well known players now playing in NHL are goalie Niklas Bäckström (Minnesota), defender Lasse Kukkonen (Philadelphia) and forward
Jussi Jokinen (Tampa Bay).
The team
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| Teemu Hostikka |
The Finnish Champion of the year 2005.
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In Spring 2008 the team Kärpät won the club´s fifth Finnish Championship.
The team has won the Championship also in 2007, 2005, 2004 and 1981. In 2006
the team gained third place.
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| Jussi Määttä |
The Finnish Champion of the year 2007.
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With the championships an opportunity of playing in the European Champions Cup organized by IIHF opened up for the team. In their first
ECC-tournament in January 2005 Kärpät lost the gold medal to Avangard Omski after the extra time. In January 2006 Kärpät fought even harder,
but lost the shiniest medal to HC Dynamo Moscow after the penalty shootings. In the third time in St. Petersburg the team didn´t reach the final.
The new big challange of the club is the new Champions Hockey league in season 2008-2009. The 12-team CHL will feature the national champions from
the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland. There will also played the winner of the regular season from the
Czech Republic,
Finland, Russia and Sweden and one team qualificated from teams from German, Slovakia and Switzerland.
Oulun Kärpät is playing moving and fast ice-hockey, and there are many very highly skilled players in the team. The fans and the friends of
hockey enjoy watching this exceptionally entertaining style of playing the game.
The backbone of Kärpät is the strong core of young players brought up by the club's own junior program. Now Kärpät has three foreign players:
Jonas Andersson from Sweden, Daniel Corso from Canada and Justin Forrest from USA.
The head coach of Kärpät is Matti Alatalo and the assistant coach is Mikko Haapakoski. Man responsible for the weight training of the team is
Jukka Latva-Rasku and the responsible of video analysis is Petri Karjalainen. The goal keepers are being trained by Ari Hilli who is also the
sports manager of the club.
The most succesfull player in the team is defender Ilkka Mikkola. The captain of the team has won 8 championship (TPS, Jokerit; Kärpät) in
Finland - which is finnish record. This 29-years old defender has played more than 100 play off –games in his career. He started his career in
team Kärpät and made come back to his home team four years ago.
Fans and friends
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| Jussi Määttä |
The team Oulun Kärpät has an exceptional place in the hearts of all the hockey people in whole Northern Finland. The success of Kärpät means success for them all,
and it's strengthening their northern idendity. After Championship in 2004, in 2005 and in 2007 and 2008 there were wild celebrations during next few days, not only
in Oulu, but also in numerous places all around Northern Finland.
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| Jussi Määttä |
The city of Oulu
In 2005 Oulu celebrated its 400th anniversary. The sixth largest city in Finland has more than 130,000 inhabitants and spreads on 411.1 square
kilometres of land. Oulu is located on the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia and was once a great harbor city.
Oulu is known of its high- standard university and general education programmes. Oulu has the second largest university in Finland and many public
and private research institutes. Oulu has made itself known over the world for its technological know-how and knowledge. The city is pursuing the goal
of becoming the first wireless city in the world.
Oulu is a coastal city on the Northern part of the Baltic Sea with good communication links to the largest European centres and its airport
is the second busiest in Finland. In conclusion, the city is a natural gateway to the Euroarctic Barents region. The strong and well developed
infrastructure of Oulu offers flexible links both to Europe and to the Northern regions of North-West Russia.
Read more of the city of Oulu
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