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[Top] With Jokerit, Helsinki, undated. [Beneath] Asst. Coach, Australian National Senior Team, 2017


CAREER SUMMARY

Birth
1980
Helsinki Finland

Clubs
Jääkissat, SM-Liiga Jokerit, Allsvenskan Almtuna IS, Metsis Kiekko-Vantaa, Järvenpää Haukkojen, Haukat, Suomi-sarja HC Kerava, Mestis HC Salamat, AIHL Canberra Knights, UAE Al Ain Theebs, AIHL CBR Brave, WASL Blackhawks

Goodall Cups
Nil

World Championships
2016, '17 (NST Asst Coach) 2017 (NJT Head Coach) Ice Hockey

Level 3 coach
Represented Finland

BORN JANUARY 23RD 1980 IN HELSINKI, he played hockey in scrimmages with friends for a few years then joined Jääkissat in the local leagues at the age of 11. His farm club was Jokerit where he played forward in 156 games, through to the highest junior ranks in Finland. First representing his country as a 15 year-old Junior in 1995, he reached the Jnr A SM-liiga with his club in 1998-9, and in 2000 he also played 17 games in the Liiga with Jokerit seniors finishing with Silver. He won the SM bronze medal in 1996 and '98, and the Finnish A-Youth Championships in 1999 and 2000.

Now a 192cm tall, 96 kg forward, he was late to enrol at Uppsala University in the 2001-02 season. He moved instead to Almtuna IS in Allsvenskan, the second highest level in Sweden, where he played 29 regular season games and the rest of the season in Mestis with Kiekko-Vantaa. Over the years that followed, he also played for Järvenpää Haukkojen (formerly KJT) and Haukat in Metsis, then HC Kerava in the Suomi-sarja (2007, ’08), finishing with a handful of games for HC Salamat in Mestis. He spent 6 years as a pro in Finland and one season in Sweden. Some of his teammates made it all the way to the NHL or European pro-leagues.

He says he stopped playing seriously in 2006, but was still active. After retiring, he completed a Bachelor Degree in Sports and Leisure Management at Vierumaki Sports Institute, while coaching Finnish junior teams from Midgets to Peewee and learn-to-play programs. Towards the end of his studies, he spent a year working in Canada for a private training centre, focused on skill development. In the European summer of 2008, at the age of 28, he moved to Australia and joined the Canberra Knights in the AIHL, planning to stay for only one season.

There he met the Canberra girl he later married and stayed for 5 seasons with the Knights (2008 to ’13), including roles as player-assistant coach in 2009, and player-coach in 2012-13. In and out of Australia for years, he only spent the winters in Canberra, but completed a Level 3 coaching accreditation. In 2013-14, he was Head Coach of Al Ain Theebs in the United Arab Emirates league, and worked for the UAE ice hockey association in Abu Dhabi as the head instructor of their ice hockey school.

In 2014, he was appointed foundation Head Coach of the CBR Brave in the Capital, producing a win percentage of 55 percent from his single season. He played 10 games for the club in 2016 and 3 in 2017 taking his AIHL game total to 63 for 24 goals 40 assists, a scoring average of about 1 point per game. All up, he has played over 420 career games.

The summer of 2015 was the first he spent here, working as a hockey skills coach at the Cockburn Ice Arena in Perth, where he was also Assistant Coach of the Blackhawks, the Cockburn Hawks Super League team. In 2016, he was Assistant Coach of the Australian National Senior Team after relegation to Division IIB, and he returned in 2017 winning Silver in Division IIA. That year, he was also Head Coach of the National Junior Team (U20) in Spain where a winless Australia was relegated to Division III.

01. Historical Notes

02. Citation Details

Ross Carpenter, 'Luoma, Matti (1980 - )', Legends of Australian Ice, Melbourne, Australia, http://icelegendsaustralia.com/legends-2/bio-luoma.html, accessed online .

03. Select Bibliography

04. Citations
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