Savonlinnan Pallokerho (SaPKo) is an ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 team from Savonlinna

Savonlinna

Savonlinna is a town and a municipality of inhabitants in the southeast of Finland, in the heart of the Saimaa lake region. The Finnish name of the town means "Castle of Savonia" and the Swedish name means "Newcastle".- History :...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, playing in the Mestis

Mestis

Mestis, , is the second-highest ice hockey league in Finland.The league was established in 2000 to replace the first division. Since 2000, Mestis has been the highest hockey league in Finland that can be reached with playing merits only; the SM-liiga was closed in 2000...

 league. It plays its home matches in Talvisalon jäähalli.

The sports club Savonlinnan Pallokerho was founded in 1929. First it consisted football and bandy

Bandy

Bandy is a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.The rules of the game have many similarities to those of association football: the game is played on a rectangle of ice the same size as a football field. Each team has 11 players,...

 sections, but since the 1960s ice hockey has been the main sport.

In 1960s SaPKo played four seasons in the highest tier of Finnish ice hockey SM-sarja but was relegated to Suomi-sarja in 1971. In 1974 the new First Division was formed and SaPKo was one of the teams participating. SaPKo soon established itself as the team of I-divisioona expect few visits to Second Division. In 1968 SaPKo worked its way to the final of Finnish Cup, but lost the final to KooVee 10-2.

Later bigger success came in the season 1994/1995 when SaPKo had very good regular season with players like Team Canada captain Brian Tutt

Brian Tutt

Brian Tutt is a former Canadian ice hockey player who played briefly for the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League, playing seven games for the team during the 1989-90 NHL season, scoring one goal...

 and was close to promotion to the SM-liiga

SM-liiga

The SM-liiga is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. As of March 2008, it is ranked by the IIHF as the second strongest league in Europe. It was created in 1975 to replace the SM-sarja, which was fundamentally an amateur league. The SM-liiga is not directly overseen by the Finnish Ice...

. It played tight promotion playoffs against Ilves

Ilves

Ilves is a Finnish sports club nowadays mostly known for their youth work. The ice hockey team plays in the SM-liiga at the Tampereen jäähalli in Hakametsä...

 but failed to promote. After the success started downtrend which culminated to relegation to Suomi-sarja. At the end of the 2005/2006 season SaPKo finally gained promotion back to the second tier, Mestis

Mestis

Mestis, , is the second-highest ice hockey league in Finland.The league was established in 2000 to replace the first division. Since 2000, Mestis has been the highest hockey league in Finland that can be reached with playing merits only; the SM-liiga was closed in 2000...

.

Notable players

• Arto Heiskanen
• Jarkko Immonen
  Jarkko Immonen
  Jarkko Immonen is a Finnish professional ice hockey forward currently playing for Ak Bars Kazan of the Kontinental Hockey League .-Playing career:...
  
  
• Gennadi Kurdin
• Jukka-Pekka Laamanen
• Ville Leino
  Ville Leino
  Ville Leino is a Finnish professional ice hockey forward who plays for the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League .-Finland:Leino started playing hockey at age 17 for his hometown team SaPKo in the Suomi-sarja...
  
  
• Steve MacDonald
  Steve Macdonald
  Steve Macdonald is a filk musician from Michigan, who also appears at Renaissance Faires as "Gallamor the Bard". He served for several years as the Pegasus Award Evangelista, and was responsible for many changes in the award process that led to much greater participation among the voting base...
  
  
• Randy Maxwell
• Jarmo Myllys
  Jarmo Myllys
  Jarmo Myllys is a retired Finnish professional ice hockey goaltender. He was drafted by the Minnesota North Stars as their ninth-round pick, #172 overall, in the 1987 NHL Entry Draft...
  
  
• Tuukka Rask
  Tuukka Rask
  Tuukka Mikael Rask is a Finnish professional ice hockey goaltender currently playing for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League . Rask was drafted 21st overall in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs...
  
  
• Seppo Repo
  Seppo Repo
  Seppo Hannu Antero Repo is a retired professional ice hockey player who played in the SM-liiga. He played for Jokerit, SaPKo, and TPS. He was inducted into the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame in 1990.-External links:...
  
  
• Antti Tirkkonen
• Pekka Tirkkonen
• Paavo Tirkkonen
• Tommi Turunen
• Seppo Aksila
• Brian Tutt
  Brian Tutt
  Brian Tutt is a former Canadian ice hockey player who played briefly for the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League, playing seven games for the team during the 1989-90 NHL season, scoring one goal...
  
  
• Viktor Tyumenev
  Viktor Tyumenev
  Viktor Nikolaevich Tyumenev is a retired ice hockey player who played in the Soviet Hockey League. He played for HC Spartak Moscow and Krylya Sovetov Moscow. He also played for the Soviet team during the 1979 Challenge Cup against the NHL All-Stars...
  
  

Retired numbers

• 2 Paavo Tirkkonen
• 3 Jyrki Turunen
• 5 Ahti Ruohoaho
• 10 Raimo Turkulainen