Santeri Immonen (born 29 July 1972) is a Finnish former professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

defenceman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from Goal (ice hockey), scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the l ...

and current assistant coach of SaiPa of the

Liiga The Liiga, colloquially called the Finnish Elite League in English or FM-ligan in Swedish, is the top professional ice hockey league in Finland. The league comprises 16 teams from all around Finland with relegation and promotion between the Mesti ...

Playing career

Immonen played in the SM-liiga for

Jokerit Helsingin Jokerit (, English: Joker (playing card), Jokers or Jesters of Helsinki) is a professional ice hockey team based in Helsinki, Finland, which competes in Mestis. Jokerit plays its home games at the Helsinki Ice Hall and Helsinki Halli in ...

, Ässät and

KalPa Kalevan Pallo (KalPa) is a professional ice hockey team which competes in the Finnish Liiga. They play in Kuopio, Finland at the Niiralan monttu, Olvi Areena. Team history Established in 1929 as ''Sortavalan Palloseura'' in Sortavala, the club r ...

, playing 237 regular seasons in total between 1994 and 2000. He also played in the British Ice Hockey Superleague for the Newcastle Jesters, the Swedish

HockeyAllsvenskan HockeyAllsvenskan (previously Allsvenskan and SuperAllsvenskan) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league, and the second-highest league in the Swedish ice hockey system, after the Swedish Hockey League, SHL. Since the 2009–10 season, t ...

for IK Nyköpings and the French

Ligue Magnus The Ligue Magnus, currently known as Synerglace Ligue Magnus for sponsorship reasons, is the top men's division of the French ice hockey pyramid, established in 1906. The league operated under a variety of names before taking that of its champio ...

for the Pingouins de Morzine-Avoriaz and the Bisons de Neuilly-sur-Marne.

Coaching career

His coaching career began while he was still an active player – he served as player-coach in his final two seasons with Morzine-Avoriaz, 2009–10 and 2010–11, before ending his playing career and remaining the team's head coach through the 2011–12 season. From Morzine-Avoriaz, he moved on to the Gothiques d'Amiens, serving as assistant coach through the 2013–14 season. Immonen returned to his native Finland in 2014, taking over as head coach for Forssan Palloseura (FPS) of the third-tier

Suomi-sarja The Suomi-sarja is Finland's third highest ice hockey league. Suomi-sarja has 14 teams. Suomi-sarja has been played since the 1999–2000 season. Prior to this, Finland's third league had been Division II since 1975 and before that the Provi ...

. In 2016, he accepted an assistant coaching position with the

Espoo Blues Kiekko-Espoo is a Finnish professional ice hockey club founded in 2018 as a continuation of the Kiekko-Espoo team originally founded in 1984. Kiekko-Espoo men's team plays in the Liiga, where they were promoted for the 2024–25 Liiga season, 20 ...

' under-20 junior team of the U20 SM-sarja and, in 2017, he became head coach of

's under-20 team, also of the U20 SM-sarja. In 2018, Immonen was appointed head coach of the Mestis team Rovaniemen Kiekko (RoKi).

References

External links

* 1972 births Living people Porin Ässät (men's ice hockey) players Bisons de Neuilly-sur-Marne players Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in England Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in France Finnish expatriate ice hockey players in Sweden Finnish ice hockey coaches Finnish ice hockey defencemen Jokerit players KalPa players Newcastle Jesters players Nyköpings Hockey players SaPKo players Ice hockey people from Helsinki {{finland-icehockey-bio-stub