When Helsinki Jokerit pulled out of the KHL, there was a time when it seemed like all hope was lost for the team. Now, a new ownership group has the team back on its feet.
When Helsinki Jokerit pulled out of the KHL, there was a time when it seemed like all hope was lost for the team. Now, a new ownership group has the team back on its feet.
Helsinki Jokerit is one of the most iconic brands in Finland.
Even beyond the hockey-crazed nation though, the winking jester logo is still recognizable all across the hockey world.
But the Jokers, even with all their fame, were almost lost to history.
Since its founding in 1967, Jokerit enjoyed a long streak of success within SM-Liiga, Finland’s highest level of hockey.
Over its history, Jokerit won six league championships and developed some of the world’s greatest Finnish ice hockey talent such as Jari Kurri and Teemu Selanne – the only two Finnish NHLers in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
However, Jokerit’s history hasn’t always been based in Finland.
In 2013, the Jokers shocked the Finnish hockey scene by leaving Liiga to join the KHL.
Jokerit’s owner at the time, Finnish businessman and politician Harry Harkimo, saw the expansion to the KHL as a large financial opportunity and sold a 49% stake in the team as well as the rights to Hartwell Arena (now Helsinki Halli), Jokerit’s home rink, to Russian oligarchs Gennady Timchenko and Arkady, Boris and Roman Rotenberg
The Jokers would play seven seasons in the KHL until 2022, when following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Jokerit Helsinki’s then owner, former player Jari Kurri, made the decision to leave the league.
Initially, it was just a withdrawal from the playoffs which were slated to start just three days after the invasion began, but a few months later and following widespread pushback from fans, shareholders and sponsors, the team announced that they were leaving the KHL for good.
Jokerit looked to rejoin Liiga that following season, but the Finnish Ice Hockey Association denied their request and subsequently imposed a two-year suspension on entry into Liiga.
Jokerit was now a team without a league.
Kurri, who had reacquired 100% stake in the team following the withdrawal, wanted to sell and after a few opportunities fell through, things started to look bleak for the iconic team.
With no league, no home, no team, Jokerit was on the verge of becoming just a memory.
However, a new opportunity rose from the ashes.
Mikko Saarni, Finnish businessman and former hockey player, was recruited to join another ownership attempt as a consultant, but before he knew it, he was leading a new ownership group
“I was asked to be a consultant for Jokerit a year before,” Saarni said in a phone call with The Hockey News back in September of 2023. “I started to do that and then one thing led to another and at the end of the process, in January (2023), I became the chairman and the majority owner of Jokerit.”
No stranger to hockey, the Tampere native was a member of the U16 Finnish national junior team in 1993 and after injuries forced him off the ice, he turned his savvy to player development and the business world.
Saarni had been involved in various hockey academies and one of his first companies, Universal Players Global, provides Finnish and European students with the opportunity to combine education, athletics and hobbies with international experience.
Once he was named Chairman, Saarni knew he had to work fast, but he already had a plan for who to contact first.
That first phone call?
Long-time Jokerit captain and former NHLer, Ossi Väänänen.
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“I talked to him around December, and I didn't know Mikko before, but after that phone call, I believed everything he was saying,” Väänänen recalled on a phone call with The Hockey News back in September of 2023. “His vision, how Jokerit should look like, what direction we want to take the club to, everything kind of matched and it was easy to buy what he was saying. After that phone call, it was a very strong feeling in me that I wanted to be involved. It's my home team where I grew up. I always played pro here with Jokerit when I was in Finland, so I have a close relationship with the club.
“When it came time for an opportunity for me to be on board with this and to be an owner, I felt like it was kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity. These opportunities don't come across often where I had a chance to hop in with my old club as an owner and try to lift the club back to the glory days.”
And that vision for Jokerit?
“The plan that I have in mind for Jokerit is really focused on our own player production,” Saarni said. “We want to put the focus on bringing our own guys to the top level and we're going to emphasize that a lot and actually put a lot of resources and money into their coaching and all the things related to all the individuals that we have in the youth organization.”
According to Saarni, Jokerit’s goal is to be a true homegrown talent pipeline that produces at least 50% of their own talent from the clubs junior teams.
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The Finnish junior system is a fair bit different than that in North America as players tend to stay with one club throughout their development.
Currently, the Jokerit organization encompasses around 700 players from U20 all the way down to the 'Learn to Skate' programs, so it's one of the largest talent pools in Finland.
But even with that large pool, a 50% promise is still a lofty goal, but it’s that sort of big dream that brought some key names to the table.
With Väänänen on board, the former captain happily took the baton as he already had an idea on how to help build up the new ownership group.
Väänänen had two players in mind who perfectly personified Jokerit’s new vision of developing homegrown talent to the highest level: Teuvo Teräväinen and Esa Lindell.
“I played with both of those guys, with Teuvo and with Esa, in Jokerit when they came up to the main club as young kids and so I knew the guys beforehand and I knew what kind of persons they are,” Väänänen said. “They’re good guys. Really good guys and I also know that they really care about the club and that it's important for them. Esa and Teuvo, both of them really, our message spoke to them when it comes to juniors because they've been through it so they know it's really important. Right off the first phone call with the guys, they were very interested and they wanted to be on board. So after that, it was just to go through all the details, what it means, and all that kind of stuff. But mentally, they were on board right away.”
Teräväinen and Lindell, both Helsinki natives, not only grew up watching and idolizing Jokerit, but worked their way up through the Jokers’ junior system together as well.
“Ossi called both me and Teuvo a couple of times,” Lindell recalled in a phone interview with The Hockey News in back in October. “I spoke with Teuvo a couple of times during the spring last year and then when things started to move on, we spoke with Mikko as well and there were some meetings with all of us. It took about a month maybe, but me and Teuvo were interested right away to get in though. Just the chance to help our team. I’ve always cheered for them back home too, so it was a cool thing to get asked into that."
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“Just the opportunity to get the team back on their feet and winning and then to give the young players the chance to have the same junior path that me, Teuvo and Ossi had when we grew up. I would say those three things were the biggest impactors for why I wanted to get into it.”
“There had been a lot of negativity in the Finnish news about Jokerit and the KHL and everything,” Teräväinen told The Hockey News. “Then the KHL stuff happened and they went back, but they didn’t have a team for a couple of years. They needed to do something. When I heard for the first time that I could be part of it, it was a good feeling. I wanted to help. It’s my team. It’s the one I grew up and played with. They helped me a lot to become the player I am right now. So I wanted to help the team to get back on track. Right away I felt good about it.”
And according to Saarni, the impact of their investment goes beyond the financials.
“Obviously, they both invested into it, but it's not about the money,” Saarni said. “It wasn't financial. It was more the fact that they are great examples of a product that has gone through the Jokerit youth program all the way up to the top and then to the NHL and have been impact players in the NHL as well. I think they're great role models for our youth players in that sense.
“Also, it's important for us to get the updated information from the top level to kind of know what it takes. The game is getting better and better all the time, faster and faster, and the requirements for a hockey player now are different than 10 years ago, or 20 years ago. So getting that feedback from those guys, from the best league in the world is great for us. So I think those two things were the biggest reasons why we wanted them to be a part of this.”
It’s been a bit strange for the current NHLers to not only be playing for a team, but owning one as well, however both are still primarily focused on their current playing careers.
“I always dreamed of being a hockey player,” Teräväinen said. “I never dreamed of anything like this, but it’s my team that I grew up playing with, so I wanted to be a part of it and help the team get back to where it was. It’s been pretty fun. I haven’t been too involved yet because I have my own hockey career, but it’s something that’s nice to be a part of. Right now I’m focused more on my career, so I don’t have to do too much right now, but it could be something I will do after my career.”
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“It’s pretty great,” Lindell said. “Fun. It’s been only positive so far. I have to admit, one thing I was thinking about before getting in is that I’m not a big media fan or person and I’m not out there doing any social stuff, but it’s been only positive. It will be interesting to see once our games are done, what’s next ahead of us, but I would think hockey is involved and Jokerit would be a good thing.”
Despite cutting all ties to the KHL, Jokerit still has a strenuous path ahead of them before the Finnish Ice Hockey Association will allow them back into the fold.
“It's been very interesting to begin with,” Väänänen said. “I kind of knew to expect it, but the biggest surprise for me has maybe been dealing with the hockey scene overall here in Finland when it comes to permissions to play. The situation that we were in, is something that we've never seen before where a team joins the KHL and not many people liked it to begin with and then the war starts and that move looks really bad and Jokerit got a lot of crap for it. The Finnish Ice Hockey Federation was very tough on us, understandably, but we have to be very transparent and show everything, that we have no connections to previous owners or people that were involved with the KHL Jokerit.
“We did everything by the book, as we should, and like we wanted to do it, but the tightness of it was kind of a surprise. But we're here, we're playing right now, so we’re good at the moment. But at points, it was really difficult for us to get all the things that they wanted to in order with the schedule we had.”
“We had to go through a very strict process with the association,” Saarni said. “Being very open about our plans and always keeping them involved and all that because of the history of Jokerit which was fine for us. We then applied for the Mestis license and followed all the requirements that were given to us. It was a lot of work, but at the end of the day we got it done and we're extremely happy about it”
Despite the hiatus, the passion of Jokerit’s fanbase has not diminished, even with the Jokers having to start their return home in Mestis – Finland’s second league – due to stipulations by the FIHA that forbade them from playing in Liiga until at least 2025.
That fan support was one of the things the team was worried about because the fires back home didn’t just start from the Ukrainian War, but from the initial flight to the KHL and the sale of the team to Russians and Russian-backed interests.
But in their opening game, a crowd of 8,200 strong set a Mestis record for attendance and the craze hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down.
“We all knew that the fans were there, but it's been better than anybody expected,” Saarni said. “And of course, when you have a fan base like Jokerit has, you want to deliver for the fans as well and I think we have a winning team put together that can win games. So far we've been successful with that. We’re young, but so far, so good and I also believe that as the team goes along, we're getting better and better because our players are young and talented and we're training them as a full, professional hockey team. So the results will be there and we can make the fans happy.”
“We've been kind of overwhelmed with the support we've gotten,” Väänänen said. “We got a lot of fans in our games, more fans than a lot of the main league teams even though we are in the lower tier at the moment. So the fanbase is really solid.”
And that passion is clear even on the other side of the world.
“It’s been great,” Lindell said about the fanbase’s reception. “The reason I wanted to get on board with the whole situation was seeing all the fans, players and everyone around the team with all the positive hype. The hype is big around the team and I feel it’s just growing. All the hype in the second division league back home is big. One of the places Jokerit played, they made records in attendance and stuff so it’s been cool to follow.”
“It’s been good,” Teräväinen repeated. “Everyone is excited, but the fans especially are really excited that Jokerit is back. It looks good but we still have a lot of things to work on, so it will be a good ride.”
Even beyond the fan support, Jokerit is just getting richer in terms of NHL support too as long-timer veteran Valtteri Filppula joined this season not only as captain of the team, but also as a part of the new ownership group too.
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Filppula is also forgoing his player salary, doing this all just for the love of his old club.
“It was important for us to be able to offer Valtteri a comprehensive package that will continue even after his playing career," Saarni said in a team press release. "We are committing to each other for many years to come. We will take it year-by-year, and at least for the first season, Valtteri’s role is as a player. His commitment to the Jokers is also indicated by the fact that his inclusion will not burden our player budget at all in the coming season.”
While the path forward for the Jokers is so much clearer now, the journey is still far from over.
The team still has at least one more season to play in Mestis and before they can rejoin Liiga, they have to get approval from the FIHA.
“Our plan is to play in Mestis this season,” Saarni said. “We are expecting that we can apply to Liga for 2025-26, but of course, now, during this time, we need to fulfill all the requirements that Liiga has, but I'm confident that we will be able to meet those requirements whatever they may give us and we will apply as soon as possible.”
But from where they were only a few years earlier to now, shows just how committed the new ownership group is to reviving the Jokerit brand fully back to its former glory.
And with how much support they've gotten, it's only a matter of time before the Jokers make it back to the top.