Luukonnen: The Cosmopolite

Finn Heikki Luukkonen is a floorball coach with a unique international experience. The professional educator’s task is not merely to train teams to win games but also to develop young players as persons and human beings.

Journalists entering the Finnish U19 national team’s training camp experience something unusual. A player after another gets up, approaches and introduces himself with a handshake and a firm look in the eye. Very unlike your everyday Finnish youngster who would rather slouch in the corner and mutter something inaudible with his eyes glued on the display of his cell phone. Here there’s not a single phone in sight. It is no coincidence”, head coach Heikki Luukkonen admits. ”The players know we want them to be present both physically and mentally and give others the attention they deserve”.

An early loss of father
With this being written, its is not yet known how the Finnish team did at the WFC tournament in Helsingborg. But it is already clear they are being served more than just floorball. ”These national team players are also the carriers of the torch that can take useful things to their clubs and other players. it is a great opportunity to help them on their path of becoming better players and persons”, the head coach says. Heikki Luukkonen lost his father when he was less than a year old. That probably has to do with teachers and sports coaches being of particular significance later in his life. And him becoming both.

Like for all successful sports personalities, Luukkonen has always been athletic. ”Football, ice hockey, cross-country skiing, skiing, martial arts…”, he lists. Hockey sticks and a ball out on the street as well as school floorball with the way-too-flexible sticks were there, too. No wonder, that finding out about real floorball, was love at first sight. Young Heikki made a bit of career in legendary Turku area teams like Ciders, FBC Turku and SBS Wirmo as both player and goalie but soon his attention turned to coaching. With a background in coaching football juniors, he became a playing-coach already in the juniors. Coaching legend Mika Ahonen’s one-year´s visit in Turku brought Heikki Luukkonen into the spotlights as his assistant and after Ahonen’s departure he was called to become FBC Turku’s head coach in the second highest national level. Then, it was time to move on. ”I felt I had been in Turku for quite long and when Salibandyliiga team Gunners’ manager Kari Jussila phoned me from Tampere I joined their coaching team”.

_{Coach of the season 2010/11, Heikki Luukkonen (photo Damian Keller)}

Kicked out by Wiler
During his three Tampere years, Luukkonen met Swiss Mario Scherrer who played for Gunners for a while. After his return to Switzerland, Scherrer became the head coach of Kloten and remembered a promising Finnish talent, whom he then offered a job. Luukkonen’s two-year contract turned out to be a success. Kloten got first promoted to NLA and then reached the play-offs in their first season in the highest division. An there was even more. Being elected the Coach of the year in swiss NLA, where eight out of 14 teams were having foreign coaches like Petteri Nykky and Tomas Trnavsky was quite an honor.

Thanks to being noticed, Luukkonen had been being hired to coach the Italian national team as a side project and later SV Wiler-Ersigen as a major challenge. ”The Italian national team was my first international experience of that kind and we made it to the WFC 2010 final tournament in Helsinki.” The time with SVWE brought Luukkonen the Swiss Championship title but also a never to be forgotten disappointment. ”The traumatic overtime loss against Tatran Stresovice in the Champions Cup 2011 semifinal by an own goal has been a source of motivation and power since.”

_{(photo Damian Keller)}

A call from fellow Finn Petteri Nykky brought Heikki Luukkonen to the Swiss national team staff with the home WFC in 2012 as its climax, but after another SVWE season it was time to say goodbye to the Alps. With all kinds of offers and discussions like taking over the Swiss U19 or a job with Nykky in Finland, Heikki Luukkonen decided for Finland’s U19.

After all the good times, things suddenly got complicated with Wiler. ”After making it to the cup final and leading our quarterfinal series, I was informed my services were no longer needed.” The success coach flew back to Finland and took over Nokian KrP with a 13-game winless streak behind them and one game left in the regular season. Swiss Benjamin Reusser’s overtime goal won the game for Nokian and sealed their opponent Ilves’ relegation from the league.

Since then its been a calmer time for Luukkonen. ”With Nokian KrP, we’ve had to qualify for our place in Salibandyliiga twice but we are constantly improving.” Luukkonen has a contract with the team for next season and he also works at a Tampere school teaching a class of sixth-graders and also physical education for other classes. Yet, a new tour abroad is never a possibility. ”I have everything just fine right now but I’m not a person who plans his life that far ahead”, Luukkonen says.

The Polyglot
Even professional Finnish sports coaches have been known to send their lieutenants to press conferences in fear of having to answer in English. That would not happen to a cosmopolite like Heikki Luukkonen who is fluent in a number of languages and at home almost anywhere. ”It probably grows from my character, I have always liked to go places and meet new people”, he says. ”As a big fan of Italian football, I looked for a gymnasium where one could study Italian and that laid a good base for Spanish and Portuguese.” Luukkonen’s ex-wife was Brazilian and like most Finns, he learned English and Swedish at school. Doing his military service at a Swedish-speaking unit was a floorball maniac’s choice and the years in Switzerland were perfect for fine-tuning his German. ”Moving from a language to another always requires a bit of orientation but I’ve never been afraid of making mistakes.

The Finns dare to risk more
With his experience from Switzerland and Finland, Heikki Luukkonen has what it takes to compare sports and floorball between the two countries. ”Switzerland is a country of very tight units and lots conformity whereas in Finland, you used to build your farm as far from your neighbors as possible and wanted to be just by yourself”, he says. ”In Switzerland, people work longer days and invest in their careers which leaves less for sports. In Finland, the floorball federation has built an excellent system for young players to fit sports and studying together. Also, in Finland different sports have more co-operation than in Switzerland.”

_{(photo Damian Keller)}

Both Finns and the Swiss have been known to have it hard to believe they can beat a giant like Sweden, but a bit surprisingly, Heikki Luukkonen sees a difference here. ”I think Swiss players still concentrate on doing an acceptable standard performance and avoiding the possibility of getting embarrassed or humiliated. Finns, already having won men’s and U19 men’s WFC gold medals, now dare take the chance and give all they have without worrying what they are going to look like."