Estonian hockey wants to fly high

07 Mar 2012 | Davide Tuniz

A club in Mestis and then the KHL: this is the project of Tero Taskila, Estonian Air CEO, to revitalize domestic hockey.

Thirty-eight year-old Tero Taskila made his mark when he was commercial director at Latvian airBaltic, turning the company into one of the most successful airlines of North Europe. Now he has become the CEO of Estonian Air and, in recent weeks, he closed a deal with the organizing committee of the upcoming IIHF World Championship in Helsinki and Stockholm to be the tournament's official airline partner.

Under the agreement, Estonian Air is entitled to use the official emblem of the championship, logos and mascot of all partners of the contract period and will participate in a event to promote World Championship in 18 towns.

But Taskila also has ambitious plans also for domestic hockey, along with investment banker Joakim Helenius. "The idea is simple," explains Taskila. "Putting together a top-level ice hockey club in Estonia that would make Estonia known in international hockey leagues and attract hockey tourists to our country."

Joakim Helenius, active in international finance since 1981 as Vice President of Goldman Sachs International, then Executive Director of Merill Lynch International Bank and co-founder of Hansa Investments bank (today Trigon Group) in 1992, is even more ambitious: "Estonia has no teams in any sport that are known to foreigners. We want to raise the level of Estonian ice hockey to that of our neighbours and to make it the most popular team sport in Estonia."

It is planned that the new hockey club will start its operations this season. "Talks with players, other investors and the Finnish Federation are already started. If everything goes according to plan, the team should start competing in Mestis, Finnish second division, next season with a budget of at least 650 000 Euros," explains Helenius.

But Mestis is just a stop over for the flying high Estonian. "In the 2015-16 season, the team must play in Russia's Kontinental Hockey League and in the international Euro Hockey League, if created," assures Taskila.

The Estonian Ice Hockey Association secretary Riho Soonik welcomes the idea. "We really hope that this attempt will be successful."

But he also has enough experience to stay down to earth. "The idea is good, even if not new: when it was tried in the past it was remained just an idea," he remembers. "Panter Purikad played some time ago at a lower level of the Finnish hockey but the club campaign was disastrous due to lack of financial resources. The level of competition in Finland is very high, so it will be very important to assembly a good roster and of course, hockey is not the cheapest sport in the world."

Another negative experience was in the 2007-08 season, when businessman Heldur Sepma created a professional team, Big Diamond Tartu, to compete in the Latvian League, but the team folded after that season.

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