Tero Lehterä's straight words about the conditions of the Olympics

MILANO. The Women’s Lions started their Olympic journey with practices on Tuesday. SuomiKiekko interviewed the team’s head coach Tero Lehterä after the practices.

Now that the first practices in the Olympic rink are behind, although you had a mini-camp in Switzerland before arriving here. What are your feelings about the team?

– Feeling quite good. We went through some specific gameplay things. There’s a bit of nervousness visible, Lehterä said.

– We had a day or almost a day and a half off there and a rest day. Maybe that showed a bit in our puck handling. We came here and again put on gear and tried out gear, so maybe that was a bit visible.

– But I am quite confident. With the same type of preparation, we have been able to play really well in two tournaments at the EHT.

If we reflect on where you want the team to be, what are the clearest areas for development?

– Yes, we need to be able to compete harder. We need to be tougher in our battles.

In women’s hockey in Finland, Canada and the United States have been nearly unbeatable. What needs to be done for them to be defeated?

– Play smarter as a team, and our battling has to be at that level. We need to be extremely humble.

Do you think the gap between Canada and the United States has narrowed or widened in recent years?

– It’s very difficult for me to say anything beyond last spring’s World Championships. They have played four games against each other [this season]. Or they played two games where the Canadians hadn’t even practiced anywhere but in their own conditions.

– Based on those games, I consider the United States to be a notch tougher than the two. They have the same physicality, but they have more skating and stick skills. But as mentioned, if we can play smartly, anything can happen in a single game.

In the Olympics, games are played in a smaller rink. How does that affect the power dynamics?

– If we play smarter, it can even be an advantage for us.

– It allows us to avoid the same kind of skating races and scrambles as in a big rink. If we play correctly, it makes our defensive play in the defensive zone easier.

Do you feel any pressure as the tournament begins?

– Yes, if the thought goes beyond today. I try and have been able to live one day at a time. Of course, I have had to make plans, and now they are made until the end of the group stage. I only need to think about one day at a time.

– It’s important to remember that this event – this country – will have changing factors, and we need to be able to react to them. We must keep our focus on the things we can influence.

The Women’s Lions play the tournament largely in a temporary ice rink built in a massive exhibition center. What have the conditions been like from the team’s perspective?

– At least the facilities here are really good. There’s nothing to complain about. It’s really hard to say about the ice when we play three games, what it will be like in the evening, but right now it was really good.

– We have a good space for ourselves and there are good facilities for warm-up. I don’t know what more an athlete needs. As a coach, I have a flip chart, a laptop, videos, and a board to show from. If the walls of the rink are still being painted, it doesn’t affect us in any way. I don’t know anything about the other rink.

– We already knew in advance that it takes 45 minutes from the athlete village to this rink. I’ve traveled a lot in life and have been to Italy many times, so I know that 45 minutes can quickly turn into an hour and a half. But I’ve also been in Moscow, and 45 minutes was four hours.

– Those are things we can’t influence, and we’ve talked about them in advance. It might be that if we need to be at the rink two hours before the game, we end up being there an hour and fifteen minutes before the puck drops.

Now that you have been involved in women’s hockey this season, do you think the criticism received by the Girls’ Lions after the catastrophic World Championships was fair? Did they have a chance to succeed?

– I have to say that I saw the Girls’ Lions in Halifax for one practice and a practice game against Canada. They had no chance in the practice game against Canada, but I don’t know about the other countries there. I haven’t followed the Girls’ Lions’ play otherwise, and I won’t comment on internal matters.

Jaakko Perttilä
X: @JaakkoPerttila