The city of Tampere has captured 32 of Finland's national hockey championships, and half of those have been won by Tappara. The 16th title came in 2016 after a few near misses. 

by Leo Runsas

First there was TBK

Tappara were first founded under the name of TBK (Tammerfors Bollklubb). This was because the sports club was originally founded as the sports club of Tampereen Ruotsalainen Yhteiskoulu (Swedish Co-Educational School of Tampere). The club was founded on 9 December 1932. The participants of the constitutive meeting were Paul Jaeckel, Birger Calonius, Gunnar Ekholm, Lars Sandbacka and Per-Olof Hagberg. The club’s first sport was ice hockey.

The club’s first game was in 1934 against local rival Ilves’s second team. The first win came during the same year, also against Ilves’s second team.

TBK rose to the SM-sarja (Finland’s highest league at the time) for the 1942-43 season. The first medal came in 1946, when the team came in third and won bronze. TBK won five bronzes in total before they won their first Finnish championship in 1953. This was their first of three consecutive championships.

Name change and success

TBK changes its name to Tappara in 1955. This was mostly because the working agreement with TRY wasn’t producing enough players and the new Finnish name attracted more new players.

Tappara won their first championship in 1959, after previously having won bronze and silver before. The success continued during the early years of the 1960s. Tappara were among the top three and won medals 12 years in a row.

Difficulties in the '60s

Success hit a big bump during season 1964-65 when Tappara dropped to Suomen sarja (the second-highest league in Finland at the time) after winning the championship the previous season. The stay was only one year, though, because the team rose back to SM-sarja again after the following season.

In the late 1960s Tappara had great financial difficulties. They loaned Mikko J. Westerberg to the Finnish national team and hired former legend Kalevi Numminen as head coach. Under Numminen’s command the team started its rise back toward the top.

Up and down

Tappara won the Finnish championship for the first time in 11 years in 1975. Between 1974 and 1988, Tappara won eight championships. The SM-liiga (Finland’s highest league at the time) started in 1976 and Tappara was in the finals 10 times during the aforementioned period. It culminated in three consecutive championships between years 1986 and 1988.

The 1990s weren’t as successful as the '70s and '80s. The team won bronze in 1990, but had to qualify for their place in SM-liiga in 1992. Besides those two seasons, the final positions varied and no medals came to Tappara.

During the 2000s Tappara tasted success again. The team won silver in 2001 and 2002. In 2003, the long 15-year wait ended when Tappara won SM-liiga. Success avoided Tappara again for five years until in 2008 they won bronze again.

In 2012-13 Tappara would begin a series of four straight finals appearances, starting with a six-game loss to Assat Pori. In 2013-14, the first year the league name was shorted to "Liiga", Tappara had an epic battle against Kärpät Oulu, which lasted seven games with the last game decided in overtime, 1-0. The same two met again in the 2015 finals, with the two teams again needing a seventh game and overtime to decide the championship – again Kärpät won, this time 2-1 in the second overtime period. 

After three straight losses in the finals, Tappara finally claimed the elusive title No. 16 in 2015-16. Led by 15 points in 18 games by Patrik Laine, who turned 18 during the playoffs, Tappara beat IFK Helsinki in a six-game final series.  

In total, Tappara is one of the most successful teams in Finnish hockey history. In total, the team has won 39 medals in its 73 seasons in the highest Finnish league. It has 16 gold medals, 12 silvers and 11 bronzes.

Current times

Tappara play their home games in Tampereen jäähalli, an arena they share with Ilves that is often called Hakametsä. After their latest title, Tappara’s biggest returning stars are defenceman Alexander Bonsaksen and forwards Jukka Peltola and Jani Lajunen. In goal, Teemu Lassila comes from TPS Turku, taking over for the departing Tomi Karhunen.

The club has local derby with Ilves Tampere, which has a long and interesting history. Tappara also have a farm team in Mestis (Finland’s second-highest league), LeKi. They also co-operate with most of the teams in the Pirkanmaa region.

Legends

Tappara have retired five numbers. The players are defencemen Kalevi Numminen, Pekka Marjamäki and Timo Jutila, and forwards Janne Ojanen and Timo Susi. More recent stars of the team include wingers Ville Nieminen, who retired in 2015, and Laine, who was drafted 2nd overall in the NHL Draft in 2016 by the Winnipeg Jets. Mikko Leinonen, a Tampere native who was a star centre for Tappara in the '70s and later went on to play for the New York Rangers in the early '80s, is now the club's CEO and general manager.

Team facts

CHL seasons

2015-16: 1st in Group B, Round of 16
2014-15: 1st in Group E, Quarter-Finals

Click here for current information about this team.

NOTE: This article has been updated since its original publication.