Petri Kettunen has been the head coach of Finland’s Men’s national team, but now he is facing a new challenge as the head coach of Czech Republic. He is looking forward to lead the team in The World Games in Wroclaw.
Petri Kettunen with team Finland in WFC 2014 in Gothenburg.
What does The World Games mean to you?
It’s a new experience in our sports. I was there in 1997 in Lahti (when floorball was played in The World Games as an exhibition sport) as a player and now I’m going to be there as a coach with the Czech national team. It’s going to be a big big experience and it will be nice to feel it again.
How does it feel to be one of the first floorball teams in the tournament?
It’s a big step for our sport and maybe some bigger events are coming for us in the future. We just have to be good in Wroclaw: be interesting, play as good as possible and also get the spectators interested.
What do you think The World Games can do to floorball?
It can be a next step for the future, that we can someday go to the Olympics, but there are many things we need to do in our sport in every country before that. But it is one step forward.
Now that you only have 14 players and the playing time is 3×15 how will it change the game?
I don’t know because we don’t have that experience yet. But of course, it will change it somehow. The players need to have good physique since they play a full tournament with only 12 field players and 3 goalkeepers. This means that every player has quite many playing minutes, they have to be physically and mentally well prepared. I hope the games will have good intense and good tempo, but we will see.
You used to coach team Finland, does it give you an advance when you play against them?
No, I just feel that I now have more experience and that’s the main thing now as I work with the Czech federation. Finland are a strong team, they are the world champions. Sweden are also very strong and of course there’s also Switzerland. But we have to concentrate on our things and our game and hopefully we can take some steps forward.
You led Finland to gold in December, will you now lead the Czech to gold in Wroclaw?
It’s hard to day. We will just take it day-by-day, minute-by-minute and see what happens.
The World Games will be played in Wroclaw, Poland 20th-30th of July. The Floorball competition will be held over 4 days, from 27th – 30th July, and will involve 6 men´s teams divided into two groups of 3. Group A consists of Finland, Czech Republic and Poland and Group B consists of Sweden, Switzerland and USA.
More information about The World Games can be found here: www.floorball.org/pages/EN/The-World-Games-2017
