One of the most respected coaches in hockey was on a road trip through Germany earlier this season, scouting players for a national program you won’t see at 4 Nations Face-Off, or at the 2025 IIHF World Championship.
Jukka Jalonen is a sports icon in Finland, celebrated for leading his homeland to its first Olympic hockey gold medal in 2022. He’s one of two coaches ever to win gold at the Olympics, World Championship (2011, 2019, 2022), and IIHF World Junior Championship (2016).
But Jalonen doesn’t coach Finland’s national team anymore. He left the position last summer, sensing it was time for a new challenge.
He found one.
Jalonen, 62, now is the coach of Italy’s men’s national team, which never has medaled in the top division of the World Championship, and has the responsibility of hosting the Olympic hockey tournament in Milan, which is now one year away.
Jalonen is tasked with building a roster to compete against NHL talent, likely without NHL players of his own. That’s why he traveled through Deutsche Eishockey Liga, the top men’s professional league in Germany, observing a Schwenninger Wild Wings game that featured key Italian defensemen Thomas Larkin and Alex Trivellato.
During the visit, Larkin asked Jalonen something many in the hockey world have wondered.
Why are you here?
“It’s a very good question,” Jalonen said during a recent interview with NHL.com. “When I noticed that I’d have a chance to coach the Italian national team, I started thinking about what it would mean to me, as a coach and as a person.
“I realized it would be a great challenge for me as a coach, a little bit [of a] different level. I had lived one year in Italy [while coaching HC Alleghe in 1998-99]. I liked the lifestyle there. I liked how the players committed themselves when we practiced and played.
“Of course the Olympics are coming. I’ve been there in Vancouver [in 2010] and Beijing. We managed to get two medals out of those tournaments. I knew it would be great in Italy. It’s our home. Home games. Home tournament. I knew our players would be very excited. Not because I went there, but for the chance to represent their country in the Olympic Games.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance. That was behind my final decision.”
Jalonen acknowledges that he might have stayed in Finland a little longer if he knew the 4 Nations Face-Off was certain to occur, or that NHL players would participate in the 2026 Olympics. Those announcements weren’t formalized until February 2024, more than six months after Jalonen made it known that he would depart his post following the 2024 World Championship.
But Jalonen also felt the time for change had arrived, after two extended tenures as coach of the national team.
Now he splits his time between his home north of Helsinki and Bolzano, Italy, which has a team, the Bolzano Foxes, in the majority-Austrian ICE Hockey League.
“What I’ve [learned] so far is that coaching is the same,” Jalonen said. “Players are the same … maybe the Italian guys are a little more family-oriented because ice hockey is not so big of a [focus for the country].
“In Finland, as you grow as a player, almost everybody thinks, ‘I would like to play in the NHL.’ In Italy it’s a whole different story. Only one or two guys [have] the goal to play in the NHL. They want to play for their country. They want to represent their country, which is very important to me.”
Jalonen has spent this season scouting Italian players in leagues throughout Europe, in person and on video, while preparing for competitions during international breaks. He’s already coached Team Italy in five games; the next event is the Sosnowiec Cup, which begins Thursday and also features Hungary, Slovenia and host Poland.
Because Italy’s Olympic berth is assured as the host nation, Jalonen’s near-term focus is finishing among the top two at the 2025 IIHF Division I Group A World Championship, to be held April 27-May 3 in Romania, and includes Great Britian, Japan, Poland, Romania and Ukraine. A top-two finish would allow Italy to play at the highest level at the 2026 IIHF World Championship.
In establishing Italy’s player pool for the Olympics, Jalonen and his staff have remained focused on players who have represented Italy in the past, as opposed to Americans and Canadians of Italian descent who qualify for Italian passports based on heritage.
“I think that’s the way it should be,” Jalonen said. “If somebody from the NHL with heritage from Italy would come to play for us and he hasn’t ever been in Italy, it’s a little bit wrong, I think, for the other guys who are playing in Italy and fighting for a spot in the Olympics.
“I can’t see that you would pick up NHL players if they haven’t played for Italy or in Italy. You never know what will happen. … Maybe we would think about one, two or three guys from there, but otherwise it’s so wrong for the guys who have played many times for Italy and in lots of tournaments.”
If Italy’s Olympic roster features players born in North America, their biographies likely will be similar to that of Phil Pietroniro, a defenseman with Kladno in top league in the Czech Republic. The 30-year-old was born in Montreal and moved to the U.S. to follow the coaching career of his father, Marco, but now is in his eighth season playing in Europe and has represented Italy internationally since the 2018-19 season.
In that way, Jalonen is prioritizing the cohesion that was a hallmark of his Finland national teams.
“Team chemistry, team spirit, that’s the key,” he said. “I found out in those five games that the Italian players want to play for each other. They want to sacrifice. They’re committed. They really want to play for their country and each other, like Finnish guys. It’s the same. That’s what I like so far.
“Our main thing with the Finnish national team was that we wanted to be a tough team to play against. We loved to play like that. I remember when we beat Russia in the Olympic final, Alexei Zhamnov was the head coach. Normally they don’t come afterward to the winners’ locker room, but he came and said to us, ‘You were so tough to play against.’ That’s what we want to be also in Italy. So far we have showed that. We’re a tough team to play against.”
One year from now, Jalonen will have an opportunity that wouldn’t be possible, or necessary, in his hockey-loving homeland.
And that’s to transform the popularity of hockey in the country in ways that will be measured in future players registered and tickets purchased.
“It’s the goal for us,” Jalonen said. “We want to make ourselves and our fans proud.”
