These days, sports news travel at lightning speed on Twitter, but I have to believe that even in the era of Twitter, there still have to be rink rats, people who hang out at the hockey rinks and get close to the teams. They’re often either kids or people with special needs, and I think it’s because they seem harmless. And are harmless. And have the time.

I was one once. When I was a kid. I loved being at the rink, any rink actually, so I tagged along with Dad to his beer league and oldtimers’ games, and looked for pucks, and talked with the cafeteria people, and watched Dad and his buddies play.

The most famous rink rat in town was a man everybody knew as “Puti” and while he probably wasn’t homeless for real, that’s what we’d call him today. A homeless person. He was also special.

I have no idea how old he was, but from a 12-year-old’s perspective he was an older man. He could have been 25 or he could have been 35. Or even 40, although probably not.

Most importantly, he was the village fool and a living legend – and the Helsinki Super Fan.

It seemed he was always in the stands, in every hockey game in town. His team was Jokerit, the underdog team in town, and it suited him well, but he was a common sight even at junior games across town. He was loud, he was proud, he was brash, and he was social.

According to the most common story people told about him was that he was “too smart”. That he had been a prodigy and had aced all classes at the university but hadn’t been able to handle it, and had crossed the line from genius to fool. People said he could speak 7-8 languages. Some people said he came from old money which explained how he could travel around the country watching hockey, considering his business seemed to be selling earthworms at the market square.

Then again, he traveled around the country riding a moped, a cost-effective method to be sure. But the range of the moped was impressive, if all the stories were true. My Dad told a story about Puti riding his moped to Forssa, only an hour and a half from Helsinki, but others had seen him in Tampere, and even Oulu, 600 kilometers north of Helsinki.

Whatever the destination, the stories had one thing in common: Puti always ran out of gas.

Puti would talk to everybody, and thanks to his language skills – which couldn’t be denied – by the end of the tournament, his jacket would be filled with pins and stickers, and patches and flags he had either gotten or traded for with the other teams’ fans – parents.

And with every pin, Puti became a fan of that team, and he did what he did best, and what he probably enjoyed the most: he cheered. Maybe it was his love of language that made him always work on his cheers. The key? They always rhymed.

They weren’t always great rhymes, for sure, but they were rhymes, and they were funny. And, they were mostly great.

One day, I was sitting on row 6 in the Helsinki arena, with my buddies, watching top Finnish 14-year-olds play, when Puti showed up. (Jokerit was playing). He walked right past us, yelling something, and waving his arms, trying to get the small crowd going.

Being 12, I wasn’t friends with him – I was probably a little afraid of him – but also being 12, I didn’t think twice about talking to him when he walked up and down the stairs. Puti was shouting his rhyming cheers, and we joined in, helping him which he appreciated it.

Then I noticed the referee’s name sort of rhymed with the Finnish word for fly (in the pants) and I made up a “cheer” about that. I suggested it to Puti, who turned around and started to use the new rhyming cheer. I felt a little bad for coming up with a jeer like that but on the other hand, hadn’t I just sold my first joke?

I felt bad enough to let Puti yell that one on his own, and when Dad came to tell me it was time to go, I didn’t mind.

We went back to the tournament the next day, though. That time I didn’t sit on row 6, but instead, I watched the games from the wooden benches higher up. I could see Puti downstairs, putting on his show, and then I heard him use the same line on the referee again. I was happy to be in the cheap seats. Then I heard a man say, “Check it out, Puti’s there.”

They were sitting to my right, one row down, and I saw the other guy look down for a while.

“Where does he get it all from?” he then asked his buddy.

I said nothing.

“I hear he’s a genius,” his buddy answered.