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Breaking the Ice: Finland's Passion for Hockey
| Article
# : |
11708 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1994 |
2,291 Words |
| Author
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Jukka Aarnio
Jukka Aarnio is a public relations executive and free-lance
writer based in Helsinki. His article "Pesapallo: Finnish
Baseball; An Old Tradition in a New Form" appeared in the
April 1992 Culture section of THE WORLD & I. |
It is typical of Finnish sports culture that fans have only recently began to appreciate achievements in team sports. Although spectator sports like ice hockey, pesapallo (Finnish baseball), and soccer are very popular, the country's great sports heroes have been people like runner Lasse Viren and ski jumper Matti Nykanen. Among sports journalists, skiing and track and field are considered "real" sports. Winning the European championship in women's javelin means more than succeeding in the National Hockey League (NHL) or winning the Stanley Cup. Significantly, Finnish sports reporters have never selected a player from a team sport as sportsman of the year.
Attitudes toward auto racing and team sports still divide Finns. Debates comparing the athletic prowess of Formula 1 drivers and hockey greats like Jari Kurri and Teemu Selanne can be quite lively.
Such attitudes are changing gradually. Younger generations understand the value of team sports. As part of Finnish urban culture, ice hockey has been at the forefront of this change. Ice hockey is the hobby of forty thousand active players, most of them juniors. It and soccer are clearly the most popular sports in Finland. Below the Finnish League there are six national and regional lower-level divisions and also divisions for juniors and women.
Hockey is by far the most popular spectator sport, with about 1.5 million fans attending games every year. The Finnish media monitor all developments: TV channels show a league match every week, commercial radio stations air local games, and the state broadcast company covers every playoff round. The sport is followed in the national and local press.
Ice hockey's development in Finland began in 1899, when a professor, Leonard Borgstrom, cleared a skating rink near Helsinki. He organized a game that was a mixture of ice hockey and bandy, a sport similar to hockey that is played with eleven on a team and a ball instead of a puck. The hybrid game did not catch on.
After hockey's establishment as a Winter Olympics contest in 1920, Finnish reporters became familiar with the game, which led to more interest in the sport. In 1928, Finnish teams competed internationally in matches against Swedish teams, and national championships ten years later, the Finnish team took seventh place, defeating Norway and Belgium. By the mid-1950s, Finland was participating in major tournaments such as the Olympics and world championships on an annual basis.
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