29 Mar
Summer comes early for Blues and Jokerit
By Helsingin Sanomat – Finland
HIFK Helsinki only capital area team left in hockey playoffs
The clocks went forward an hour on Sunday to mark the beginning of summer time, even though it seems grotesquely early amidst all the snow still lying on the ground.
Summer also came uncomfortably early for fans of Helsinki Jokerit and Espoo Blues, as their involvement in the SM-Liiga hockey playoffs ended rather predictably at the first hurdle on Friday evening.
The so-called “wild card” round of the playoffs (also somewhat unkindly referred to as the “charity playoffs”), leading to the quarter-finals, proved to be too much for both the capital area teams.
Jokerit went down 4-2 to Tappara in Tampere, and Blues lost 2-1 at home to Kärpät of Oulu.
There was a certain continuity about the Blues defeat – Kärpät have knocked them out of the competition at various stages during the last five seasons.
As for Jokerit, they only scraped into the playoffs at the last moment and have not looked like world-beaters at any stage during the past campaign.
The weekend’s two winners will go forward to the quarter-finals and to tough encounters with the regular season winner JYP of Jyväskyla and runner-up KalPa from Kuopio.
The pairings for the last eight (with places in the semi-finals to be decided on a best-of-seven matches principle) are as follows:
JYP vs. Kärpät
KalPa vs. Tappara
Rauma Lukko vs. TPS Turku
HIFK Helsinki vs. HPK Hämeenlinna
HIFK are thus the only team from the capital area still in the competition.
