Too bad Jalonen got fired. I personally enjoy seeing finnish players and coaches representing foreign national teams and wish all the best for them. Jalonen winning bronze with the czechs last year was great, them winning gold on home ice with Jalonen as a coach would have felt like Finland winning.
But I understand if you pay money for someone, you expect him to be succesfull so it doesnt really surprise me that they got rid of him.
He was a nice guy but the hockey under him was terrible, by far the worst I have ever seen our team play. Last year we also looked terrible and for the first time in history lost to AUSTRIA (!). We only got bronze because Pastrnak joined the team halfway through the tournament, and we were generally reasonably stacked. Still played ugly, defensive hockey though.
Then this year, we lost for the first time ever against Latvia and looked like a defensive pub team. We finished 8th, the worst in the history of Czech hockey. Kari managed many negative records in his two years.
He came across as a nice, decent man and he was very much liked as a person by Czech fans. Still, unfortunately he really had to go, he was just not a good coach for us. And his player selection!! Awful. Turned down many good players, including an in-form Vrana, and took old, useless players from the Czech league instead. All of us Czech fans here predicted those players would be disastrous, and they were.
And all this he did while having the team play ugly, defensive hockey that is not suitable to the Czech mentality at all. He removed all creativity and offensive energy. Just awful to watch.
