In this episode of The Coach's Road Podcast we explore the journey of Klagenfurter AC Head Coach Petri Matikainen. As a player Petri grew up playing in Finland and moved to play in Canada's OHL for two years. After winning a championship in the OHL and the U20 World Championship with Finland, Petri moved back to Finland to play with Tappara where he won a Liiga title. Petri finished his playing career with two years in Berlin and two years with Klagenfurter AC. After playing Petri received a Bachelor's in sports coaching in Vierumäki from 2002-2006. He started coaching in 2003 as an Assistant coach for the Finnish U20 National Team winning a Bronze medal with them. In the 2004-2005 he coached the Lahti Pelicans then moved to be an Assistant Coach for the Espoo Blues for 2 years. He became the Head Coach of the Blues in 2007 and worked there until 2011 where he won Liiga's Coach of the Year twice. In 2011 he took over the IFK Helsinki team for one season. From 2010-2012 he also served as the Assistant coach for the Finnish Men's National Team and won a World Championship in 2011. In 2012 he moved to Avangard Omsk of the KHL where he spent a little over a season before moving to Graz 99ers in the EBEL in Austria. In 2014 he took the Head Coaching job in HC Slovan Bratislava of the KHL for one season then returned to Finland to coach the Pelicans once again from 2015-2018. In 2018, Petri moved to his current role as Head Coach of Klagenfurter AC in EBEL/IceHL where he won the league in 2018-19.
Specifically we talk with Petri about his core values, coaching philosophy, winning habits and team environment. He has had quite a journey so far and we are thankful for the stories and ideas he shared with us today.
Petri mentions Jürgen Klopp and Vince Lombardi as a couple of coaches that he studies and suggests Mika Waltari's book The Egyptian.
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