Puckarinen

HELSINKI – Hockey is a game where you have to be at the right place at the right time. That is what makes a great goal scorer. And great scorers are always sought after in hockey. But sometimes, as a player happens to be at the right place at the right time in the rink, he’s also very much at the right place at the right time outside it.

That’s what legends are made of.

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A friend of mine once told me that he’d heard somewhere that your home will always be wherever you are living when you’re 18. Regardless of the questionable reliability of the source, that’s a claim that’s pretty easy to believe, it kind of makes sense.

Home is where you are when you’re a teenager.

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EKSJÖ, Sweden – Niklas Hjalmarsson had walked, or run, the 250 metres from his parents’ red house to the playground so many times before. Hundreds, thousands even. But this was the first time he had walked the distance carrying the Stanley Cup over his head.

Russnäs, his home village in southern Sweden is about as far from Chicago you can get. With a population of about 80, Russnäs is a collection of about twenty houses on both sides of a narrow road that ends abruptly at the edge of a forest.



Keep reading after the jump, or on IIHF.com. Cont.

"Country roads / take me home / to the place / I belong…"

The day started at a country road, and it ended fittingly with Niklas Hjalmarsson singing John Denver's "Country Roads." But in the young Swede's case, those roads were not West Virginia, but the heart of Smaland -- "small lands" -- in the heart of Sweden.

Before the Cup got back into its travel case, on its way to Antti Niemi, Hjalmarsson gave it a whirlwind tour of places and emotions.

Happy places and happy emotions.



NHL.com, or below.
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The Stanley Cup landed in Gothenburg, Sweden, and continued its journey to Jonkoping where Niklas Hjalmarsson played with HV71 in the Swedish Elite League. But instead of the Kinnarps Arena, Hjalmarsson wanted to make a stop at the Ryhov Hospital's children's ward, where a dozen kids got to see the famous trophy up close, get Hjalmarsson's autograph and exchange a few words with the Stanley Cup champion.

And, of course, see Hjalmarsson hoist the Cup, like a true champion.

"It's so cool," the 23-year-old defenseman said when the Cup was set up on a table before the children arrived. He let his hand slide down the trophy.



NHL.com, or below.
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And you thought Ovi's "hot stick" routine was a little over the top, eh?

KARLSTAD – Färjestads BK’s goaltender Robin Rahm’s June 28 doping test has been found positive, containing traces of anabolic steroids. The 23-year-old goaltender admits to using anabolic steroids.



“I’ve made a huge mistake, and I wish there was something I could do to get it undone,” he said in a press release published on the club’s website.

Rahm had a hip surgery in May, and he says he used the illegal substances hoping they’d help him recover faster. Färjestad has suspended him immediately, pending investigation by the Swedish anti-doping committee that will determine his suspension.

The club’s GM, Thomas Rundqvist, was sympathetic to Rahm.

“I feel sorry for Robin and the club, while it’s obvious that we can’t emphasize enough that this can’t be tolerated,” he said in an interview with Swedish Aftonbladet.

“We’ve talked with Robin today and yesterday, and our mental coach, Lennart Carlsson, will take care of him. It’s important that we don’t just kick him out. We’re all available for help, and Robin also has his family nearby,” he added.

Rahm made his Elitserien debut with Färjestad last season, playing 19 games, and posting a .907 save percentage.

In character, Vanity Fair style:

If you’re a European hockey fan, you may want to circle September 9, 2012 in your calendar.

That is the rumored launch date for a new pan-European professional hockey league, that has its foundation in the existing major European leagues. According to both Swedish, Finnish, and German sources, teams are discussing things, but nothing specific has yet been officially announced.

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Here's one from NHL.com. Click here if you want to see it as is in the wild, or keep reading below.

Back in the day, when Finns dominated the world’s car racing circuit, an adage was born: "You need a Finn to win." It hasn't been as apt in the NHL, with only seven Finnish Stanley Cup winners, and with the first three earning their rings with the same team, the Edmonton Oilers dynasty of the 1980s.



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Here's one from the archives, from the pages of Off The Post. A story about Father, Son, and the Stanley Cup.


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Finnish goaltender Antti Niemi is one of the big stories in this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs. I wrote a piece about him for The Hockey News June 7 issue:

"One day, my father called me to tell me he had been at the local rink to see a junior game and had seen a goalie that impressed him," said Markus Lehto, Niemi's Helsinki-based European agent. "My father is no super scout, but he used to be the CEO of another rink and a team manager with Jokerit, so he knows his hockey."
Still, when his father mentioned "Antti Niemi," Lehto thought his dad was kidding. The only Antti Niemi he knew was the Finnish national soccer team's goalkeeper. But Lehto made a note and went to see the kid.

Read the story here (pdf, 3.1MB).

I will be covering the World Championships in Germany, starting on Thursday, May 6. For the duration of the tournament, please join me at www.ristopakarinen.com where I will post photos, links, and writing, from this side of the mixed zone. And maybe some from the other side.

You can also follow me on Twitter.

Should be good. (So must be too good to be true). :)

STOCKHOLM – A Game 7 of a best-of-seven series surely is the ultimate showdown, but a final round of a round-robin series can be just as nerve -racking and exciting, just as long as the stakes are high. And that’s exactly what they were on the last day of the Swedish qualification series when Rögle and AIK Stockholm were after the one remaining spot in Elitserien next season.

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STOCKHOLM – The fans were opposed to the move back to the bigger Globe arena, citing the better atmosphere in Hovet as the reason. The fans didn’t like Djurgården’s idea of handing out red T-shirts to people so that they would make up a formidable Red Sea in the stands, because the fans wanted to have their own ideas. The fans didn’t like the fact that Djurgården wanted to play in red sweaters in the first place, because “to them, Djurgården is always blue”.

But as long as the team’s winning, the fans don’t care.

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Selänne scores 600th NHL goal as the third European player

STOCKHOLM – Teemu Selänne, the Finnish forward who a month ago became the all-time Olympic scoring leader, added another milestone to his resumé when he scored once in the Anaheim Ducks’ game against the Colorado Avalanche, and became the 18th player, and third European, to get to 600 regular season goals.

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STOCKHOLM – Between all great goalies, wonderful snipers, and the smooth-skating defencemen that continually push the game forward, and the grinders and the power forwards who give it another dimension, there’s another group of players that are just as special in their own right, and who personify the will to do anything to win.

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JYP’s 18-year-old defenceman breaks rookie record in Finland.

JYVÄSKYLÄ, Finland – Finland, like many European nations, seems to fall into despair with regular intervals. The past, looking back, always so glorious, and the future, unknown and scary. Sure, the Finnish national team came home - in a figure of speech as only three players returned to Helsinki airport after the tournament, and all three had connecting flights to catch - with a bronze medal, but who can Teemu Selänne, Saku Koivu, Sami Salo, Kimmo Timonen, Jere Lehtinen, and Ville Peltonen pass the torch to?

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Last weekend, I was in Minsk, Belarus, to see the Russian KHL’s All-Star Game. After the game, I was standing in the mixed zone, listening to former NHLer Ville Peltonen, also a Finnish national hero thanks to his hat trick in a World Championship final against Sweden in 1995, when some fans showed up.

They said, “pleez, pleez” and gave Peltonen some small flags, posters, and a pen. He said, “sure,” and signed a half a dozen autographs, and posed for a few photos.

(Some of my colleagues thought it was such a no-no that the KHL should be fined, but my story’s not going there).

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JÖNKÖPING, Sweden – A beard is a funny thing. We’ve all seen all kinds of playoff beards over the years, from a few hairs to a full-facial hair masks, à la Henrik Zetterberg.

A beard also changes the way a person looks and by the time any playoff season comes to the final series, the players have transformed. It takes time, so the difference is most obvious only the day after, or a few days after the last final, when the players show up to a parade all clean-shaven.


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All-time record seals Janne Ojanen’s place in Finnish hockey history.

TAMPERE – All-time records can be double-edged swords. On one hand, they are the true testament to the player’s impact to the sport, and a proof of excellence over a long period of time. On the other, they also often get dismissed because the player in question, the one breaking the record, is almost without exception not the same player as he was in his prime. (Martin Brodeur may be an exception.)


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Sixteen years ago, Team Finland entered the Olympic tournament with anticipation. It had finished seventh, after it beat France in the game for 7th place, a disappointment for a country that had won its first Olympic medal in Calgary, four years earlier.

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One from the archives:

The first Winter Classic between the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins was such a great success, and such a marketing kick for the sport, that it’s no wonder there will be a sequel to that. And this time there’s reason to believe that the sequel might even out-do the original.

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Dear Hannes,

Last night after you’d fallen asleep, I had one of my hockey games again. We lost, which is never fun, but I scored a goal which is always fun, so all in all, it was more fun than not.

Skating is so much fun. When I was eight or nine, a little older than you now, I used to dream that it’d get so cold in Helsinki that all the streets would freeze over and I could skate to school. Skating was so much more fun that walking, or running. (For some reason, inlines don't do it for me).

But I did have to to walk to school and back. If I didn't walk with my best friend, I was always kicking pieces of snow and ice, and after school I’d play ball.

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HELSINKI – This is exactly the way it wasn’t supposed to be. Jokerit Helsinki had announced that, having had first Doug Shedden and then Glen Hanlon behind the bench, and a string of failed imports on the roster – and several superstars, like Glen Metropolit, and Tim Thomas – this season, they would be an all-Finnish team.

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MOSCOW – In 2008, Linköpings HC shocked its fans when it announced that it had rented its three star players, Magnus Johansson, Tony Mårtensson, and Mattias Weinhandl, to the KHL. Johansson went to Atlant Mytishchi, Mårtensson to Ak Bars Kazan, and Weinhandl to Dynamo Moscow.

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ÖRNSKÖLDSVIK, Sweden – Peter Forsberg has crashed a few nets in his time, but on Monday, he - together with a lifelong buddy, Markus Näslund - crashed the Modo Hockey web server when it was announced that both of them would return to the team this season.

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On the move, again?

HELSINKI – All the Finns really ever wanted was a medal. The country had made its debut in the international stage at the 1939 World Championship in Basel, Switzerland, finished 13th, and then went to war. The real kind.

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