TUTO Hockey

Turku had never seen a crowd like it before or since: on 5 October 1994, 9,199 people packed into the stands to watch TUTO beat TPS 3–1. The two clubs have shared Turku for decades.

TUTO grew out of Turun Toverit, a multi-sport club founded in 1929, though ice hockey only became its own department in 1946 and did not field a competitive side until 1950. It took until 1988 for the hockey section to break away as an independent club, and another rebrand in 2011 fixed the name as it stands today, TUTO Hockey. The club has spent most of its history one rung below the elite, in Mestis, though it reached the podium in the top-tier SM-sarja twice, in 1968 and 1970, back when the national championship still carried that name.

The clearest mark TUTO has left on the record books came in Mestis itself: the 2007–08 title. In 2017 the club also lifted the Finnish Cup, beating SaPKo 4–1 in a final.

Among those who wore the shirt, Teppo Numminen stands apart: a defenceman who went on to the IIHF Hall of Fame, he played his 1994–95 season with TUTO before a career that took him across the NHL. Jarkko Immonen, by contrast, is remembered as one of the club's own, making his professional debut with TUTO in 2000–01 before moving on. The club still leans on that habit of producing its own, with young players like Onni Rannikko and Tommi Salonen making the step up from the academy in recent years.