What was a sparse game schedule for Luleå during January became even sparser when Gothenburg withdrew from the SDHL last fall and two meetings with the team disappeared during this period.

Luleå has now not played a match since January 6, and the next away meeting with Leksand is only on Sunday, January 29.

"Shit boring but useful"

- Shit boring, but still useful in a way.

We can file on small details and have driven very hard physics.

It is rare that you can drive hard off ice during the season.

At the same time, you long to play a match again, says Ronja Savolainen.

Coach Jens Själin came in mid-season due to a sudden coaching change, and in that way Savolainen believes the break came with perfect timing.

- He wants to teach us a lot of small details, has a lot of ideas and sees the game in a completely different way than I have experienced with other coaches.

It looks better with every training that has been and Jens thinks so too.

I hope we take it to the last games and the playoffs.

Dissatisfied with the game

Luleå leads the table after 24 games played with 68 points out of a possible 72.

The team's hard training can therefore seem alarming to the opponents and Ronja Savolainen believes that Luleå has a lot to improve in the hunt for its sixth gold in eight years.

- I don't think we have played a single match that was wow-good.

We have started the games well, the first 30 minutes, but the second 30 minutes have been very bad.

Although we have the strength to win when we do bad games so we want to have 60 minutes or more if it comes to that where we play at our highest level.

I hope we have learned a lot in these three weeks and hope that the opponents think we are dangerous after this.

CLIP: SVT's expert Maria Rooth sums up SDHL after half the series - paying tribute to Luleå (December 22):

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Maria Rooth praises Luleå: "The table lies a little - there should be an even bigger gap"