Hockey Punks begin their season on Saturday

Hockey Punks-Mototoja start their new Baltic ice hockey league campaign on Saturday with a new coach, a reshaped foreign contingent and a clear desire to establish a tougher identity.

The Vilnius club's previous season began painfully, after head coach Mindaugas Kieras died one week before the opening game. The team produced some strong results, including an away win over Riga's Mogo, who later became champions. But it did not achieve its main goals. Hockey Punks-Mototoja missed the Baltic League's top six, which would have secured a place in the next stage, and then lost the decisive fifth game of the Lithuanian championship final to Elektrėnai Energija.

The main change this season is the arrival of 44-year-old Finnish coach Elmo Aittola. He has worked in Finland, Slovakia, Poland, Denmark and Norway, and will be assisted by Lithuanian coach Dovydas Kulevičius. None of last season's foreign players remain in the current squad. The club has instead brought in Finnish forward Lauri Huhdanpaa, who recently played in Poland's top division, and compatriot Otto Karvinenas.

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The first games of the season always have a distinctive, raw energy. They set the tone and mark the beginning of a long, demanding hockey season.

Karvinenas has played 348 games in Finland's elite league and was called up several years ago for national-team Euro Hockey Tour windows. He is also known in Finland for physical play and fights, suggesting that the new season may bring plenty of edge for Hockey Punks supporters.

Saturday's opponents combine candidates for Latvia's under-18 national team with leading players from Daugavpils. Latvia's U18 team stunned the field last season by beating the United States in the world championship quarterfinals, and eight of its players appeared in the Baltic league. Aittola said the opening game would be about building his own team. He wants Hockey Punks to play for the logo on the front of their jerseys and become the hardest-working, most difficult opponent in the league.

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We are building our identity as a team. We will fight for the logo on the front of our jerseys and want to be the hardest-working team in the league, the team that is hardest to play against.