Ice Hockey / New Addiction

Finland first won the ice hockey international competition since 1995, it was also the last time Finland won, that means there had been 16 year drought in the ice hockey department. Several times it seemed rain was on the horizon (don't know why I'm using a metaphor but hey, let's work with it) with Finland getting to the finals but always turned out to be just 'coastal stuff,' 'it'll burn off' 'nothin' in it' (to qoute my Dad on the topic of false alarms in the rain department) and it always seemed to be against Sweden in those finals.

Now enough dwelling on the past, my ice hockey watching carreer started on 6th May 2011, Finland v. Germany, not only was it a close game the entire time but at full time the scores was 0-0, now this meant another 20 minutes would be played in order for someone to score...no one did so then it goes to one on one with one player v. the goalie, where the selected player (Mikko Koivu for Finland) gets three chances to score a goal, the turns alternating between the teams (so one team then the other then back again etc until the 3 goes have gone for both teams) then there was a tie so this continued, until finally Finland won 5-4!! (nail biting stuff! I almost couldn't watch at the end)

Showing the last 13 mintues of the game, may get boring at some points so dont have to watch it all but have a quick skip through if your interested :)

Finland v. I can't remember.. - went to sudden death again, Finland won!

Finland v Russia - the awkward moment when Finland wins and a Russian guy at school had been saying that day 'no way Finland will win tonight, Russia is the best no one beats them, Finland will cry after how badly they lose etc' had to rub it in a bit the next day :P

Finland v. Norway - Finland won 4-1 another nail biter

Goal highlights (goals and near misses)

Finland v. Russia (again) - a very close game with nobody scoring until Russia did but then Finland picked up their game because they have proved they can beat this team (the Russian team... yeah kinda scary, those guys are huge!!! and the red uniform makes them look even more threatening) and once we got a goal ahead of them they got really angry and acting rashly (also getting agressive at one pont there was 3 players off) intead of using strategy anymore...and the goalie also gets extremely confused when Mikael Granlund goes scoring unbelievable goals like this one:

Aaaand winning this game means GRAND FINALS HERE WE COME!!!! ...versing Sweden but I wasn't worried :P

Finland v. Sweden International Ice hockey World Championship Grand Final - I estimate 95-100% of Finns were in front of a television this night! Things were looking down when Sweden scored the first goal of the game (at this point my host dad threw his hands up in the air and went to bed despite my saying 'its too soon for us to have lost, I have a good feeling!) but Finlandcame back fighting and ended up winning 6-1!!! according to one of my friends the next morning was 'National Hangover Day' haha and needless to say my host dad was quite heartbroken for missing the rest of the game. I am so glad I was in Finland for this, there was a massive celebration in Helsinki which was televised,and the general atmosphere everywhere was buzzing, really hard to explain but it was amazing :D

Video of goals from  the game - love how excited Finnish commentators get when we score!

The team arrive back in Finland (see some of Helsinki if your interested :P one of the main streets in Helsinki, beautiful arcitecture and on your left Stockmann the Department store of Finland :P)

And here are some very popular songs in Finland at the moment:

Poju - Poika (saunoo)

poika means 'boy/son' which is the nickname for the ice hockey trophy and the songs main point is that 'our son is now in sauna, lets sing and shout and drink champagne because our son has come home' and is generally an awesome song.

And my personal favourite:

Ihanaa Leijonat Ihanaa - I love this because it takes the commentary from the 1995 world championship game Finland won and remixes it into a song (same commentator as the 2011 game as well - Antero Mertaranta, set a world record or something for words per minute in commentating - just a little fun fact for you) Ihanaa means amazing/wonderful/great/beatiful and Leijonat means Lions (Finnish team)

part of the celebration in Helsinki (same song as above)

The Video that sums it all up:

And I'd like to take this opportunity to say 'I told you so!' to those that I said 'I know (not hope or feel or wish but know) that this year Finland will win the ice hockey again!' I'm like that octopus from the soccer world series haha!

And I'd like to thank Australia for not being a part of the International Ice Hockey World Championships so I can not feel guilty for being Suomi Leijonat's (Finland Lion's) #1 fan!!!