HELSINKI – The blue and white flags will be waving, there will be enthusiastic fans, the media tribune will be packed with local reporters, the hockey fever is on in Finland. About a year ago, the hockey-crazed nation welcomed their national team back to Helsinki as national heroes, and now it’s time for them to get back to work and defend that title.

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The team’s tournament slogan is “Finnish it!” and that’s exactly what the fans expect. How the team will be able to handle the attention and pressure that will be there for sure, is one of the keys to their success.

Mikko Koivu still hasn’t gone home from a national team tournament without a medal. He now has 11 medals starting from the under-18 World Championship gold in 2000 and ending in last year’s men’s World Championshop gold.

Will he make it a dozen?

Goalies

Last year Finland went all the way with Petri Vehanen, who came to the tournament after a great season in the KHL. The 34-year-old is back to defend the title, but will most likely have to settle for the backup’s role this time around.

The net is the Kari Lehtonen’s to lose. The 28-year-old Dallas Star was on the team in 2003 when Finland hosted the World Championship, but didn’t get to play. In 2007, though, he played in the final which Finland lost to Canada, 4-2.

Lehtonen, once a prodigy, has battled with and through injuries between 2007 and now, but has returned to the top. He won 32 games in the NHL this season, and posted a 92.2 save percentage, eighth best in the league, and the best of all NHL goaltenders in the tournament.

Finland’s third goalie is Karri Rämö.

Defence

Five of last year’s gold medal team’s defencemen will return to defend the title. That should be an advantage for the team, as far as systems are concerned. The players know what the coach expects from them, and they know how to play with each other.

That’s also what they have to do, with no NHLers here to help them. In fact, only six Finnish defencemen played in the NHL this season. Jukka Jalonen found his core players in the KHL (5), and in the Finnish and Swedish leagues. The Finnish defense isn’t flashy, but they will get the job done by committee.

Ossi Väänänen was a leader on last year’s team, and the same is expected of him this year.

Offence

Last year’s team was “Mikko Koivu’s team” as head coach Jukka Jalonen famously put it. The Minnesota Wild centre is back to center Finland’s top line, but with two NHLers on his wings. With Tuomo Ruutu out due to an injury, the Detroit Red Wings Valtteri Filppula will play on Koivu’s one side, and Ruutu’s Carolina Hurricanes teammate Jussi Jokinen on the other.

Returning from last year is Finland’s second line with Jarkko Immonen, Mikael Granlund, and Jussi Pesonen, who scored a combined 13 goals in nine games last year, Immonen being the tournament’s leading goal scorer with nine goals in nine games. Repeating that will be difficult, but if Granlund and Immonen can find the same (powerplay) chemistry again, anything is possible.

If not, it will be a frustrating tournament for the Finns.

Coach

Jukka Jalonen has had a good run as the head coach of Team Finland. In his four tournaments, Finland has won an Olympic bronze medal, and a World Championship gold. Last year’s gold medal was more than welcome for him, as the pressure was starting to mount after two quarterfinal exits in his first two World Championships.

Jalonen has succeeded in getting the players to buy into his system, and he’s shown that he’s not afraid to make tough decisions as far as his roster is concerned. For example, cutting the 1995 World Championship hero Ville Peltonen, 38, surely wasn’t easy.

Projected results

As we know, no home team has won the World Championship since 1986 when the Soviets won gold in Moscow. But it’s also true that only one team has successfully defended its world championship: the Soviet Union in 1979. Finland will be the eighth team to enter a World Championship as the defending champion.

Repeating is a big, big dream, but Finland hasn’t ever even won a medal in a tournament it’s hosted. They should get to the semifinal at home, and after that … if the Finns learned anything last year, it’s that anything is possible. A lucky bounce here, another there can turn an entire game around. Or a tournament.

RISTO PAKARINEN