Less than one month ago Ismo Lehkonen and Jukka Ropponen were appointed as new coaching duo for Estonia's national team. Internationalhockey.net correspondent Alessandro Seren Rosso got the chance to talk with Jukka Ropponen about his new and old jobs.

 Hello Jukka, who proposed you to work in Estonia and why did you accept the job? Were you looking for a new challenge?

I do visit Estonia often in business and one of my company clients is the local ice hockey federation. Riho Soonik from the federation started asking about possibilities of getting Finnish coaches for the team and that is how this idea was started. It wasn’t so much of a looking for a new challenge rather than helping our neighbours and helping fellow hockey folks.

What do you know about your new work environment? And what do you know about the team you're going to coach?

I have been doing background checking and seen some games at Estonia before, so I have at least the basic information. Ahti Kullervo Jögi from the federation has been great help in pulling all the other needed info, game tapes etc together so that Ismo and I can start our task their prepared.

How much time will you spend working for the Estonian national team? And you will prepare goalies only or will be a true assistant for Ismo Lehkonen? Will you also prepare the goalies for the U20 and U18 national teams?

Ismo and I will be the coaches and we are just going through the creation of the first draft of the team playbook etc, so we will be working together on this project. We are starting the project with minicamp at Tallinn on August 29. then we are looking ofr another camp or games during one of the brakes. Finally we will have a training camp before the WC’s and then the tournament itself. That’s the scope of what we have agreed with the federation. Naturally I am going to see games there during the season as I usually visit Tallin about once a month on business anyway.

Surely the major feature for Estonia will be the home WC Division II group to be played in April, but do you think you'll play in other tournaments?

We will need some games before the WC’s at Tallinn, but we have not defined what games, when and where yet.

Last year the team has been surprised by Serbia in the Division II WC in Novi Sad, do you think that this year you will have what it takes to regain the first division?

That’s the task we have to achieve together with the team. If Ismo and I would not believe that team Estonia can achieve that task, we would not be the right people to coach the team.

Your opponents are known already: Romania, China, Iceland, Israel, New Zealand. Which country will be the biggest treat for you?

Naturally it should be Romania that played at Div-I level last season, but in like always in hockey we should respect all our opponents while going to go to every game with the mindset that we expect to win them.

In Novi Sad Villem Koitmaa played very well, will he be the starter goalie or do you plan giving Terentjev a chance?

Estonia has several good goalies and I am going to take a look at each one of them and help them as much as I can. The one in best shape by the time that the games start will be the one playing

Do you feel like any young goalie from Estonia has a chance to get the KHL/Elitserien level?

Yes, I do. There are some very talented young players and if they get proper coaching, chance to play at high enough competition during the regular season they can go a long ways. 

You have a very big experience with the top goalies in all over the world, but at this relatively low level, how important is the goalie for his team?

You could say that it starts with the goalie and ends with the goalie. No matter what level you play, you need goaltending to win.

Since you work for ZSC Lions too, has that team a chance against the Chicago Blackhawks in the next Victoria Cup?

Naturally Chicago has advantage if you look at the roster alone, but anything is possible in 1 game contest. Adding to that our fantastic home crowd at Hallenstadion and considering the fact that we have been on the ice & playing for almost a month longer than our opponent I can say that as underdogs we still have a chance to walk away with a win.

What's your bet for the upcoming Olympic tournament?

Of course Canada, Russia and USA are the favorites, but Finland, Sweden and Czechs do have their say as well. Once it gets to those 1 game decisions anything can happen. Finland also has very strong goaltending that can really carry the team.