TUTO Hockey Mestis

History

The club was founded in 1929 as Turun Toverit. In 1946 the club formed an ice hockey team, which started to play competitively in 1950. In 1988 the team adopted the name TuTo Hockey, while the team is commonly known simply as TuTo. The team name echoes its origins as a team founded by left-leaning moderate social democrats.

From 1965 to 1975 the team played in SM-sarja and enjoyed moderate success in the late 1960s. in 1975 the team placed last in SM-sarja and was thus relegated to newly formed I-divisioona. However, the team never participated in I-divisioona and sold its players to its local rival TPS. The team continued playing in lower divisions.

In 1983 TuTo was promoted to I-divisioona. After playing for over ten seasons in I-divisioona, TuTo, coached by Juhani Tamminen, was promoted to SM-liiga in 1994. Team's tenure in SM-liiga was, however, rather short-lived as the team was relegated back to I-divisioona only after two seasons in SM-liiga.

In 2000 I-divisioona was renamed to Mestis due to the closure of SM-liiga, which prevented promotion and relegation between the two leagues. During the decade, TuTo both endured relegation in 2004 and was crowned the league champion in 2008.

After peaking in 2008, the core of the team dispersed to other teams as the top players were signed by SM-liiga teams. Furthermore, during the triumphant 2007-08 season, the team board had a disagreement regarding the development and ownership of the team, which led to the resignation of two board members, including the team chairman. Subsequently, one of the key actors behind the team's success, coach Ismo Lehkonen announced that he would not continue as the team coach in 2008-09. Lehkonen returned to coach the team in 2013-14.

TuTo has traditionally been a rival team to TPS. However, due to the teams playing on different levels, TuTo has loaned some of its rival's players at times. In 2009 the teams entered into an affiliation agreement, which displeased some of the fans.

In 2011, after a troublesome season, the team ownership changed, capital was infused and a new chairman was elected. The team ownership change once more in 2014.

Behind the name

The original name of the team was Turun Toverit, shortened to TuTo. The word 'Toverit', comrades in English, echoes working class roots.

Team colours and jerseys

The team colours of TuTo are white, blue and red. The team has traditionally worn jerseys with a TUTO wordmark instead of a team logo in front of the jersey, but this changed in 2011 when the team adopted its current logo. Since season 1999-00 the team has worn jerseys that are very similar to the New York Rangers jerseys in design and colors. For a long time TUTO played its home games in white jerseys, unlike the other teams in Mestis, but this changed when TUTO started to use the team logo on the jerseys.