Porin Ässät (; Finnish for Pori Aces), officially named Hockey Club Ässät Pori and colloquially known as Pata, is a professional ice hockey club based in Pori, Finland. It competes in the Liiga, the highest-ranking league of ice hockey in Finland. Since 1971, Ässät has played its games in the Isomäki Ice Hall.
The team was founded in 1967 due to a merger of two local sports clubs, Rosenlewin Urheilijat-38 and Porin Karhut. Ässät originally competed in the SM-sarja, which was replaced by the SM-liiga in 1975, making Ässät one of the ten original SM-liiga teams. Ässät was relegated to the I-Divisioona for the 1989–90 season, but it was promoted back to the SM-liiga after just one season.
Ässät has won the Kanada-malja championship three times (in 1971, 1978 and 2013); it also won the Finnish Cup once in 1967. Ässät has a total of nine medals in the upper tier of Finnish ice hockey, with four of them being silver and two of them being bronze. Ässät has been awarded the Aaro Kivilinna Memorial Trophy once in the 1979–80 season. Ässät won a European Cup bronze medal in 1979.
History
The Porin Ässät was established in June 1967 when two local sports clubs, Rosenlewin Urheilijat-38 and Porin Karhut, merged their sports operations. Although the RU-38 won the SM-sarja championship in 1967, the Rosenlew company seriously considered giving up sports activities, since it felt that hockey did not bring enough positive publicity to the company. The leaders of Karhut and RU-38 negotiated the unification of the clubs during the spring and early summer so secretly that the insiders of the teams did not get to know about the merger negotiations. Karhut benefited less economically from the merger, since the club had invested in player acquisitions to the point where its income did not cover expenses, especially after the Rosenlew club gained sponsors at Karhut's expense. As Rosenlew was abandoning its sports club, it was suggested that the RU-38 was merged into Karhut. When an agreement was finally reached, Rosenlew took over a portion of Karhut's debts and promised to support the new team financially in its early years. The new club was named Porin Ässät. The birth of the club was announced at the end of June 1967. The name of the club was given by Vilho Santala, who acted as a negotiator in uniting the clubs and was elected the first chairman of Ässät. The club's logo was designed by Vesa Antikainen. The colors of the club were red, black and white.
The early days of Ässät did not go smoothly, with a heated atmosphere developing between the formerly Karhut and RU-38 players who were now on the same team. The merger of the two top clubs also raised hopes of a very strong team, but one line of national team-level players joined different teams, and the players who left were mainly RU-38 players from the previous season. The first team of Ässät thus consisted mainly of Karhut players.
The first games of Ässät went well, and even before the start of the 1967 SM-sarja season, Ässät won the Suomen Cup championship. In the final match played in Savonlinna, Ässät beat SaPKo 7–0. Thanks to inheriting the RU-38 championship, Ässät also played in the 1968 European Cup, where it won its first two rounds before being beaten by SC Dynamo Berlin in the quarter-finals.
In its first season in the 1967–68 SM-sarja, Ässät placed fourth with Rauli Virtanen's coaching. The new club did not receive unreserved support from the people of Pori, as the number of spectators decreased by 10,000 from the last season of Karhut. In the second season of Ässät attendance started to rise, with the numbers rising to the same level as Karhut had. Lasse Heikkilä, the former coach of Karhut, became the coach for the second season and served as the team's coach until 1974 and later in 1976–1981. In the 1968–69 season, Ässät were again fourth. For the following season, 1969–70, Ässät suffered two heavy losses when Veli-Pekka Ketola and Alpo Suhonen left for Jokerit for a year. Ässät finished sixth in the series. For the season 1970–71, Ässät got a high-class returnee from Helsinki when Veli-Pekka Ketola returned to Pori after playing for one season in Jokerit. Alpo Suhonen also returned to Ässät after Ketola. Ketola's return to his home club gave rise to a huge training enthusiasm in other players as well, and coach Lasse Heikkilä took the team on a training trip to Moscow before the start of the season. The trip to the Soviet Union started training very early, by the standards of the time, because there was no ice on Pori in early autumn. In the 1970–71 season Ässät finished third in the regular season after Jokerit and HIFK. In the final series, everything fell into place, Ässät lost only one of their ten matches and overtook the Helsinki clubs ahead. The gold medals were finally secured by a five-point difference to the Jokerit who came in second. The first championship came under the leadership of the forward trio Erkki Väkiparta – Veli-Pekka Ketola – Tapio Koskinen. Other lines behind No. 1 were also able to provide to the team. There were also big names in the defense, such as Antti Heikkilä and Pekka Rautakallio. Veli-pekka Ketola was the highest point scorer in the SM-sarja during the 1970–71 season with 42 points, of which 25 were goals and 17 were assists. Ässät's captain during the season was Raimo Kilpiö. Ässät's number one goalie was Jorma Valtonen who played every game of the season. Valtonen finished the season with a .922 save percentage.
For the 1975–76 season, Ässät joined the newly formed SM-liiga, making it one of the original ten clubs in the league. Not much was expected from the team. The worst loss was Pekka Rautakallio's departure to North America. However, promising young players joined Ässät; Tapio Levo filled the gap left by Rautakallio. The net was blocked by the young Antero Kivelä. The young Ässät team showed their potential in the series by beating the clubs that were predicted to be at top of the series. It was worst experienced by the future champion TPS, who Ässät beat 14–0. However, the access for Ässät to the top four in the playoffs was only decided in the final round against Lukko. In the semi-finals, Ässät challenged Tappara, who advanced to the finals 2–0. In the bronze matches against HIFK, Ässät's hunger for victory was greater and the team took the bronze winning the series 2–0.
The 1977–78 season again raised hopes of success when Pekka Rautakallio and Veli-Pekka Ketola returned to Ässät from North America. In addition, promising young people played in the club, such as Arto Javanainen, Kari Makkonen, Tapio Levo and Harry Nikander. Ässät finished second in the regular season after Tappara and defeated TPS 3–2 in the semi-finals. The final series against Tappara did not start promisingly, as Tappara won the first match in Tampere 8–0. However, Ässät won the rest of the games, and the club achieved its second Finnish Championship. The last match at the Porin jäähalli (now Isomäki Areena) was estimated to have been attended by more than 13,000 spectators, even though only 8,600 spectators should have been allowed into the arena at that time. There were more spectators in the arena than in any other previous hockey match played in Finland. In the early years of the SM-liiga in the second half of the 1970s, Ässät was one of the league's absolute top teams. The most important player on the team was the captain, center Veli-Pekka Ketola, who had returned from the North American WHA League. Ketola broke the point record in the playoffs at the time.
The season that followed the championship, 1978–79, went as expected for Ässät in the regular season. The team won it by five points to Tappara. In the semi-finals, Ässät knocked out HIFK with a win of 3-0 and advanced to the final against Tappara. Last year's finalists struggled again for the championship. The final series became a thrilling play. Tappara won the first two matches, Ässät the next two and the final series thus stretched to the fifth, decisive match. The match played in Pori ended with Tappara's 2–5 victory, so Ässät was left with silver. Ässät finished 3rd in the 1978–79 IIHF European Cup.
In the following season, 1979–80, Ässät were nowhere near the previous season in the regular season, finishing fourth. In the semi-finals, TPS was defeated by Ässät 3–1, winning the finals for the third time in a row. HIFK came up against Ässät. HIFK took the championship 3–0, so Ässät were silver medallists again.
After the silver seasons, Ässät suffered bad losses when Veli-Pekka Ketola went back to North America. Tapio Levo also joined the NHL. In addition, Risto Tuomi and Veli-Matti Ruisma went to the Swedish league and Erkki Väkiparta retired. In the following seasons, Ässät placed in the middle caste of the SM-Liiga. For the 1983–84 season, the team received well-known returnees when Tapio Levo returned from the NHL and Risto Tuomi and Harry Nikander from Sweden. The team was also strengthened by its own juniors, from whom more top players of the future were emerging; In addition to Javanainen and Levo, Kari Takko and Christian Ruuttu, among others. The team placed second in the regular season and beat Oulun Kärpät 3–2 in the semi-finals. In the finals, the opponent was again Tappara. The series was close. Ässät won the first match in overtime but Tappara took the next three. The overtime goal of the decisive match secured Tappara the championship with 3–1 victories.
Ässät was relegated to the I-Divisioona after the 1988–89 season. Ässät won 37 of their 44 games in the 1989–90 I-Divisioona season, and played against JoKP in the SM-liiga qualification series, beating them and being promoted back to the league. In the 1990s, one of Ässät's achievements was a bronze medal in 1995, beating rival team Rauman Lukko in the bronze game.
After the 1997–98 season, Ässät's playing success no longer carried the team into the playoffs, and the following years were quite a toddler at every level of the organization. Bankruptcy was not far off, and senior officials were arrested on suspicion of tax evasion, although charges were subsequently dropped. The base quotation was the season 2000–01, when Ässät were the last in the league.
Ässät played in the 2006 SM-liiga finals, but got beaten by HPK Hämeenlinna.
Ässät and Sport met in the 2009 SM-liiga qualifiers. Sport played in the second tier Mestis, and Ässät played in the SM-liiga. Ässät beat sport in seven games, winning the last game 3–0. After the series, Ässät fined Sport for €2,000 for broken benches in the arena. The biggest scandal happened when Sport's coach Juhani Tamminen commented on the series and the whole league system in a press conference. Tamminen blamed the league for Sport's loss in the series, calling it unfair. Tamminen had also threatened Ässät's assistant coach Pasi Kaukoranta by telling him that he will rip his head off after Kaukoranta had allegedly provoked him. Tamminen was fined €2,500 by the league.