Release from 02.08.2026

Antti Karhula is the new head coach in Bolzano

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HCB Südtirol Alperia has appointed Finnish coach Antti Karhula as its new head coach. For the 50-year-old, Bolzano marks his third stop in the win2day ICE Hockey League, following stints in Székesfehérvár and Ljubljana. Last season, Karhula was with Bad Nauheim in Germany’s DEL2. The Foxes’ coaching staff is completed by associate coach Fabio Armani, goaltending coach Daniel Goller, and strength and conditioning coach Daniel Peruzzo.

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Karhula began his coaching career in 2010 in his native Finland with the youth teams of KooKoo, after having played professionally himself, including a season with Turin in Italy’s Serie A in 2004/05. His first head coaching role came with Hermes in the Finnish Mestis, where he worked for four years while simultaneously serving as an assistant coach for the Estonian national team.

In 2018, he moved to Hungary to join Hydro Fehérvár AV19, initially as an assistant coach before being promoted to head coach in January 2020. He retained that position into the following season. Subsequent engagements took him to Banská Bystrica in Slovakia, to Olimpija Ljubljana in Slovenia (until December 2024), to Unia Oświęcim in Poland, and, most recently, briefly to EC Bad Nauheim in the DEL2.

Antti Karhula: “HCB is one of the best teams in the win2day ICE Hockey League, and Bolzano is a wonderful place to live. I can’t wait to get started. I’ve played against Bolzano many times, and the team has always been very well structured defensively. I want to maintain that aspect while also bringing in my own mentality, which places a strong emphasis on offensive build-up play and further developing that area of the game.”