HabsCast Hockey Blog

The NHL all star game, Selänne with the Cup, and the Nordic Trophy Tournament.

(Text and Photos: Meriadec Sillanpää)
Hockey Summer In Finland (Oulu)

Amongst all sports fans, hockey fans are the ones that have the shortest period to wait for the next season. Throughout the year Finland is filled with events for hockey fans (during the summer too). Even though the Finnish Elite League Championship(SM- Liiga) finals end in April, the Ice hockey World Championships begin the next month .This is followed by the exciting Stanley Cup Finals in June when we watch all the Finnish players battling for the Cup (even without the Finnish players, we still watch the games). Then comes the “calm” period of the summer when there is no big action going on in the Hockey world except big trades in the Finnish League and NHL. Luckily, the hockey madness comes back again in August when many Finnish teams play in small tournaments. The most significant one being the Nordic Trophy Tournament (pictures of this tournament coming up in Part III) .In this tournament, the most prestigious teams of Finland and Sweden play against each other for being the “Lords of the North”. The SM-liiga regular season games come back in September and the official Hockey season begins again. NHL comes to life in October…So for hockey fans, there is always something to look for every month or 2 months in the worst case.

The Hockey summer in Finland this year was particularly good as Teemu Selänne came back to present the Stanley Cup, an NHL all-star game was organized on the home ice of HIFK Helsinki and the Nordic Trophy was very good this time.

The pictures taken during this hockey summer in Finland will be divided into three posts:
I) The NHL all star game (Icebreakers vs HIFK)
II) Teemu Selänne with the Cup
III) Nordic Trophy Tournament

The Night with the NHL stars Game:

After over 7 hours of train travelling from Oulu to Helsinki (of course the train was late), I finally arrive to Helsinki and manage to watch the end of the first period of the Icebreakers team (a team full of swedish and North American stars that play for charity) vs. the local HIFK Helsinki (accompanied by some HIFK veterans playing in the NHL). There were traffic jams in every street near the Helsingin Jäähalli. Even outside the rink, we could hear the fans cheer. Indeed, it was a great game, except that all the stars didn’t want to play too rough before the real season, so we had to wait for the rough plays until the ending minutes of the third period. The All stars team won 4-7.There were some nice goals included a nice goal by Jarkko Ruutu, the skills competition between the two teams, a shoot out competition and finally a Signature session with the fans. The waiting line for the signatures went all around the hall. I managed to talk with the players for a couple of seconds before the security guards asked us to move on for the other fans. The players look a lot different when they are out of the ice. Jarkko Ruutu had the same funny personality outside the ice as he has on the ice. The teams managed to collect 75 000 euros for the Children’s Hospitals and other charity organizations. It was nice to see the veteran stars from the local leagues to come and play together. This was one of the most entertaining hockey nights one can have.

Here you see the photos taken during the charity match (for children’s hospitals) between the local HIFK Helsinki team and the Icebreaker team which consists of hockey stars : Peter Forsberg, Markus Näslund, The Sedin twins, two Niklas Backströms (one Finnish another Swedish), Jarkko Ruutu and Tuomo Ruutu, Toni Lydman, Tony Salmelainen, Fredrik Modin, Simon Gagne, and many other players. This game took place in the Helsingin Jäähalli (HIFK Helsinki home-ice).

Part II will be posted in the next two weeks…To all hockey fans out there, Greetings From Europe! … GO HABS GO!!!

The HIFK players prepare the skills competition during the first intermission.

Simon Gagne coming back to the bench. HIFK in red, Icebreakers in white and blue.

Goalie Number 33-Ahlqvist from HIFK and Peter Forsberg battling for the puck in the corner.

Number 30 - Fredrik Modin / Number 25 - Niklas Bäckström (Swedish) / Number 24 - Jermu Porthen (With puck)

Modin (Behind goal), Ahlqvist (Waiting to make save) and Jarkko Ruutu (Arriving on far left)

Nice block by Ahlqvist (33) and Bäckström (25) waiting for the pass from Forsberg (21)

Digg - StumbleUpon - Reddit - Del.icio.us - Technorati - Email - Etc...

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!