Former SC Bern coach Antti Tormanen was glad to beat his former team behind the bench of IFK Helsinki on Friday night. This coming Friday his club travels to Bern, where he will face them again in the familiar confines of PostFinance Arena.

by Sami Iilomo

ESPOO – On Friday IFK Helsinki faced SC Bern in Group A's first game. The game took place in Espoo, home of the Blues, HIFK's local rival. HIFK head coach Antti Tormanen said that they would have rather played in their home arena but it wasn't available because there was a Chinese circus performing there. Nevertheless, HIFK won the game 3–1 after a confident performance. The game included lots of penalties and  special-teams play but only four goals.

After the game, Bern travelled to Sweden where they were defeated in a shootout by Linkoping HC. With only one point from two games, this puts the Swiss club in a position where they will probably have to win both home games to advance, starting this coming Friday against Tormanen and IFK Helsinki. For Tormanen's club, it will be the start of a two-game weekend, where as they will also visit Linkoping on Sunday. After the weekend, the standings of Group A should start to look a little clearer.   

Tormanen was relieved and happy about the victory against his previous team – he coached Bern for three seasons from 2011 to 2014. He also has his eyes on Friday's contest in the Swiss capital.

What are your thoughts on the win over Bern?

It was a hard, tough game. We came out skating well and got two goals very early in the game. We had opportunities to score even a few more goals, but we took some penalties and let SC Bern back in the game. In the second period we had the power plays but Bern had the best chances. It was a tight game until the very end. We were playing with only 18 players named in the lineup, including some young guys.

18 minutes on the power play and no goals. What do you think about your special teams?

On the power play we weren’t playing our best. Bern was pressuring hard and we even had some great scoring chances. When we couldn't score, their pressure made us look lousy. They had some power play chances too, even a 5-on-3, and they have lots of experienced guys but they scored only once. Of course it is a brutal fact that we should've done a lot better job.

How did it feel to beat Bern?

It was nice, of course. It was exciting to face the team that I coached earlier in my career. This was the first game for me against Bern.

Are there any of your old players still there? Or did you have time to catch up with them before or after the bout?

Yes. There are over 10 of my old players on the team. A few of them are injured and weren’t playing but I think there were eight players in the game that I have coached. So half of the team is familiar to me, even they changed almost all of their foreign players after last season. Also the assistant coach Lars Leuenberger was also my assistant. We had a short time to talk with the guys.

What kind of game are you expecting this Friday at Bern?

Bern is going to come even harder than they did this time. They have players who drive to the net with force and they will really want to win after this loss.

There were about a dozen Bern fans and they were pretty loud and fanatic and some paper was thrown on the ice. Is it like that always in Bern?

Oh, yes. Games last a long time and it's an entertainment. In Bern it was usual that if referees made a call that the crowd didn't like there was all sorts of stuff thrown on the ice. Not just one part of the rink as today but the whole rink. And the same again after the next face off. 

It did affect on our guys who are not used to this kind of stuff. It's just part of the game there and you have to get used to it. This was basically nothing and it's interesting to see what is going to happen next week.