Yle: Now Jouko Myrrä speaks – this is how he learned about his dismissal
KooKoo announced big news on Wednesday when it fired head coach Jouko Myrrä and assistant coach Tuukka Poikonen.
Just last spring, KooKoo, which achieved silver, has had a terrible start to its Liiga season. It has lost all ten of its matches and collected only one point.
On Tuesday, KooKoo ended its long losing streak by winning a CHL match in Austria against Klagenfurt. However, Myrrä and Poikonen were let go immediately after returning from the CHL trip on Wednesday evening.
– We came back this evening by bus from Helsinki-Vantaa airport, meaning we returned from the CHL trip. We were called to the office around eight, where there were CEO Sakari Välimaa and sports director Antti Tuomenoksa. They told us that my and Tuukka’s jobs were over, Myrrä describes the situation in an interview with Yle.
Myrrä says he suspected bad news upon receiving the call to meet with the club management.
– Of course, it always raises a few questions, at this time and in this situation, so rarely do any good news come from there.
Myrrä describes the dismissal conversation as brief and emotionless.
– The CEO said that we had only gotten one point from ten games. The sports director said that the game has not developed in his eyes, and that was it. There was nothing more significant, neither in one direction nor the other. No emotions, no embellishments, and no thanks.
Myrrä says he respects the club’s decision, even though it hurts.
– As a coach, you can’t really do anything else. The standings don’t lie. I have failed in my job because we haven’t won a single game. We couldn’t play the kind of hockey that would have led us to wins. Those individual good periods or a couple of decent games where points should have come, we managed to lose those as well.
Myrrä and Poikonen were able to thank and say goodbye to the team.
– The players were quiet. We thanked them for their great work and wished them well. I shook hands and hugged the leadership first, starting with Miska Siikonen, and then the rest of the team. The players didn’t really have anything to say to the coaches. It was a quiet moment.
KooKoo’s new head coach will be Kai Suikkanen and assistant coach Marko Virtanen.
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