The Finn Kai Suikkanen worked as a trainer in the EBEL/ICEHL for many years. Now the 66-year-old is facing a new challenge.
As a player, suiccans made it into the NHL: he played two games for the Buffalo Sabres, but his North America adventure ended after a little more than two seasons, which he largely spent in the American Hockey League. There the striker showed a lot of 161 points in 152 games. With Finland he won the silver medal at the 1988 Olympic Games, in 1991 the player career ended, in 2003 he was on the gang as a coach for the first time.
In 2017, Suikkanen landed for the first time in the Erste Bank Ice Hockey League at the time, where he replaced Pat Curcio as head coach at HCB South Tyrol Alperia at the end of November. Cooperation ended in March 2019. Then the same game in October: Suikkanen replaced Jussi Tupamäki at the Dornbirn Bulldogs, where he stayed there until the end of the season 2022.
For the first time in the Slovak league
In recent years he has trained the Augsburg Panther, Kaltern and most recently the Alps Hockey League Club from Cortina. Now the experienced Finn is going into a league that was previously “unknown”. Yesterday he was officially introduced as the successor to Peteris Skudra at the Slovak first division club HC Presov. There they reacted to a little satisfactory start of the season, because only two of the first eight season games were won – at the moment you only rank in the penultimate place.
Image: CDM/Blende47
