TheHockey Club Lugano has completed the composition of the first team's technical staff. Luca Gianinazzi will be assisted in the upcoming season by two assistants.
In addition to 50-year-old Krister Cantoni, the 30-year-old head coach bianconero will thus be able to count for the 2023/24 season on the experience and analytical skills of Kalle Kaskinen, a Finnish coach born in Turku on 10.04.1974.
Kaskinen will replace 64-year-old Matti Alatalo, who had indicated in recent weeks that he wanted to end his coaching career at the club level. The club bianconera would like to take this opportunity to thank Matti for his valuable cooperation during the past championship.
In his career Kaskinen has alternated between stints within individual clubs and stints with the Finnish federation with experience in the 2021/22 season also as assistant coach of Kosice (Slovakia) and the Czech Republic national team at the World Championships in Helsinki and Tampere.
After several years in the youth sector of "his" TPS Turku, Kaskinen was part of the technical staff of Jokerit Helsinki in the KHL before returning to base where, between 2017 and 2020, he was head coach of TPS Turku. Between 2009 and 2014 he had instead occupied the roles of head and assistant coach of the various Finnish youth selections (U16, U17, U18, U20). In 2017 he was assistant coach of the top Finnish representative team at the World Championships in Paris and Cologne.
These are the words of the head coach bianconero Luca Gianinazzi:
"Kalle is a coach who pays great attention to detail. Thanks to his experience in the professional world and his cultural and hockeystic vision, he will know how to complete our technical staff in the best possible way. My personal thanks also go to Matti Alatalo for his support during my first year leading the first team."