From the desk of Risto Pakarinen

From the desk of Risto Pakarinen http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/ From the desk of Risto Pakarinen en-us Nucleus CMS v3.64 © Risto Pakarinen 2007- Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//nucleus/nucleus2.gif From the desk of Risto Pakarinen http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/ <![CDATA[The flipside of 'Miracle']]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-flipside-of--miracle-
By then, Kharlamov was 29, and one of the veteran players on the team. He was a two-time Olympic champion, and a six-time World Champion, and a national hero. None of that mattered to Tikhonov, already famous for his discipline and tough love towards his players.

Or, at least, tough something.

Kharlamov, like everybody else, had an image of a good coach in his head. That image looked like Anatoli Tarasov, the legendary coach of the national team, who had built the 1970s championship machine, and who had given Valeri his chance, and believed in him when nobody else did.

Tikhonov was nothing like that. Tikhonov was the exact opposite.

“We have won Soviet championships, world championships, and we’ve done it our way, why should we now have to start preparing for a new season any differently,” Kharlamov told his teammates.

“Preparing for a new season any differently” meant “working twice as hard”.

Tikhonov told the Red Army players over and over again how the players on his former team, Riga Dinamo in Latvia, worked much harder than the stars in Moscow. And with only a silver and a bronze medal - a bronze! - in the last two world championships, the players didn’t have much of an argument against him.

In the fall of 1979, after another World Championship gold medal, Kharlamov was even more of a veteran player, and with the effects of the 1976 car accident still lingering in his body, Tikhonov decided that number 17 was done.

Tikhonov wasn’t alone in his thoughts about Kharlamov. One of the people who thought Kharlamov may have been, if not completely washed up, then at least past his prime was Valeri Borisovich Kharlamov himself.

“After a lost game when my entire body aches, and I can’t even lift my arm, I think that I’ve done my share, it’s time for the younger players to take over and work their behinds off,” he would tell his wife.

“If I can’t make the Red Army team, I can always play on a team that’s fighting for the 11th place in the standings, and we can still live in Moscow,” he’d say.

But he didn’t leave Moscow, or the CSKA, and he did hang on to his spot on the national team. But even if he finished second in the World Championships in 1979, in a tournament that the Soviet Union went through undefeated, and even if he scored 22 goals and 48 points in 41 Soviet top league games in 1978-79, by the next fall, he found himself something of an outcast.

Nothing was good enough for the coach.

One of the reasons was the lack of discipline Kharlamov had showed outside the rink. In 1977, right after Tikhonov had taken over the national team, Kharlamov and defenseman Valeri Vasiliev were out drinking the night before an Izvestia Cup game against Czechoslovakia, the Soviets’ archrivals. Well, their only rivals in the hockey world at the time.

The team was down 2-0 after two periods, and Tikhonov entered the dressing room, fuming.

“Enemies … you’re my enemies .. You’re benched!” he yelled to Kharlamov and Vasiliev.

That time, though, Kharlamov was bigger than the coach. It was the tiny number 17 who had more clout with the team, and the rest of the players stood up for him.

Boris Mikhailov stood up.

“Coach. Give them a chance to make up for their mistake,” he said.

Others joined in and finally, Tikhonov agreed.

The Soviet Union rallied back from behind, and tied the game 3-3 in the end. Vasiliev scored a goal, and Kharlamov picked up two assists.

After the game, Tikhonov went back to Kharlamov and Vasiliev, and said, with venom in his voice:

“Here’s an idea. What if we let you guys drink whenever you want, maybe you should be the exception, maybe you should be allowed to do whatever you want.”

Even the Minister of Sport Sergei Pavlov got involved later, and told the players to keep the drinking out of the public eye, at least. He even offered them a chance to use his dacha for the purpose, but the players declined. They weren’t stupid.

In 1979, Kharlamov’s play was just fine, and even if his production dropped somewhat, he was still a part of the team that was getting ready for the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, in February.

Coach Tikhonov wanted to rebuild his national team and get some new blood in, so he broke his famous top line. It was Kharlamov who had to go. Team captain Boris Mikhailov and Vladimir Petrov stayed together, and Kharlamov was sent further down in the lineup.

His spot on the top line went to young Sergei Makarov who had been voted to the World Championship All-Star team by the media. That, too, had been something of an injustice and Kharlamov was sure Tikhonov was behind. After all, he had collected more points in the tournament than Makarov, and both Mikhailov and Petrov were voted into the All-Star team. Why was he left out?

But he knew better than to fight with the coach, so he played as hard as he could, and by the New Year’s, he had scored ten goals in 21 games in the Soviet league.

Before the Olympics, Petrov, Mikhailov and Kharlamov approached Tikhonov and asked him to put them back together. Kharlamov didn’t come along, as Mikhailov and Petrov thought it was best that they’d be the ones to talk to the coach. That was, Kharlamov wouldn’t be begging.

“Viktor Vasilyevich, we’ve been loyal to the team and the country for many years, and while the young players are good, it’s just not the same playing without Valeri,” said Boris Mikhailov, the team captain.

Tikhonov listened carefully but nothing on his face revealed what he was thinking about, or whether the veteran players had any chance of changing the coach’s mind.

“Boris and I, we’ve always played together. Even Tarasov tried moving Kharlamov from our line, and we told him, too, that we felt like a man who chopped off his finger,” said Petrov.

Tikhonov listened, thanked Petrov and Mikhailov for their message, and sent them away. Kharlamov sat in his white Volga at the parking lot of the Luzhniki arena, waiting for his friends. When he saw his friends walk out of the arena, he opened the car door and got out.

“Well, what did he say?” he asked Petrov.

“Nothing. He said he’d think about it,” Petrov replied.

Kharlamov inhaled, and closed his eyes. The good news was that Tikhonov hadn’t said no. The bad news was that he hadn’t said no, and now he’d use this as a weapon, he thought.

“He’s going to make me pay for it,” Kharlamov said. “Fine.”

Meanwhile, Tikhonov was thinking about it. Maybe he wasn’t thrilled with Kharlamov’s play, but the only thing that mattered was winning. Maybe getting back to together would be the spark all three needed.

“It’s probably the last chance for them to play together. Maybe I should put them back together,” he told his assistant coach, Vladimir Jurzinov.

Jurzinov agreed.

In the four Izvestia Cup games in December, Kharlamov scored two goals, and added 4 assists, and the first line was as good as ever when the team left the Soviet Union for Germany, to play two exhibition games against West Germany, and then onward to the US, to have their dress rehearsal at the Madison Square Garden, against Team USA.

Kharlamov went goalless through the games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Krefeld in Germany, but opened scoring in the game against the US in New York. The Americans didn’t stand a chance, as the CCCP men kept on scoring, at will, it seemed.

Soviet Union 10, USA 3. The Soviets were just as good and dangerous as everybody thought. Only, they weren’t as good and dangerous as they thought themselves.

The team traveled to Lake Placid only to find out that the Olympic village they’d be living in for a couple of weeks was a less-than-welcoming facility. While it was new, it was also built like a prison because that’s exactly what it was going to be after the Games. A prison. The Americans and the Canadians stayed elsewhere.

Finland’s cross-country skier Juha Mieto, who stood 6-4 tall, was so furious when he couldn’t sleep in the short beds in the rooms that were small as train compartments, that he tore a pillow apart so that in the morning, the corridor was covered in pieces of the pillow.

Two adjacent rooms shared a window, with a separating wall right in the middle of the window. The walls were thin, and privacy didn’t exist.

The Soviets’ and Kharlamov’s biggest enemy, though, was boredom. Unfortunately, the only thing they could come up with to take away the numbness was vodka. Over 120 empty vodka bottles were found outside the Soviet rooms after the tournament.

On the ice, things were smooth as well.

Soviet Union held a true hockey clinic in its first three games, against Japan, the Netherlands, and Poland, beating all three second-tier hockey nations, with a 41-5 goal differential. Kharlamov scored five points. The tournament couldn’t have started better for him.

In the next game, against Holland, he scored just one point, but his day off didn’t matter as Vladimir Krutov stepped up and scored a hat trick, and added two assists. In the third game, against Poland, Kharlamov scored again, and when he returned to the Olympic Village that night he had scored 3+6=9 points in the tournament. In just three games.

Just before the team embarked on their journey, the U.S. President Jimmy Carter had announced that the United States would boycott the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow in protest of Soviet military action in Afghanistan if the Soviets didn’t withdraw their troops by February 20. He had also earlier suggested that the US might ban the Soviet Olympic team from the Lake Placid Games.

The day of the deadline was the day of the last games of the round-robin. The Soviets played against Canada, and beat them handily 6-4. Kharlamov didn’t score a point.

They had cruised through the first round robin undefeated, winning all five games, scoring 51 goals and allowing just eleven. Mikhailov - Petrov - Kharlamov line had scored 13 of the 51, or a fourth of the teams’ goals, a little less than expected, but they were always known to be best in the really tough games.

Two such games were ahead of them before they could fly home as Olympic champions, and get new medals, and promotions in the Army. One against the US, and one against the Swedes, their two points from the game against Finland - a 4-2 win - were carried over from the round-robin.

The tension was rising, and the pressure was mounting. The Soviets weren’t playing just for the Olympic gold, they weren’t even simple propaganda boys for the Soviet empire, they were now the enemy of the state.

Kharlamov’s confidence wasn’t as good as at the beginning of the tournament. A forward lives for, and by goals and points, and with the top line not producing, the coach had turned his attention to them now.

This time the players had asked Tikhonov to try to change lines to get Kharlamov going and to force the opponents to change their matchups. The coach listened to the players, but this time, he didn’t see any point in giving in to them.

Kharlamov saw the signs in the stands during the warmups. He didn’t understand all of them, and he didn’t want to look too hard, because he didn’t want people to know that he cared, but he could see them. Some of them were written in Russian.

“Get out of Afghanistan!” “Russki, go home, not Afghanistan!”

Kharlamov sighed. It was draining to always be fighting somebody, to always be the enemy. Everything felt fine, though, as Valeri Kharlamov laced up his Adidas skates, and snapped on his Jofa helmet, and walked to the rink.

He was the last player to leave the dressing room, as always, and the last one to step onto the ice.

Minutes later, he was leaning on stick at the red line, next to David Silk, watching Petrov win the opening faceoff. His line was the Soviets’ starting line, as usual, with Vyacheslav Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov behind them. People were cheering, but the noise levels went down after the first shift, as the homecrowd was nervously watching the game, fearing for the worst.

Kharlamov always wanted to feel the puck early in the game, get around a defenseman, or make a nice pass, to get into the game. The others knew it, so right away Fetisov got the puck to Kharlamov, who made a couple of moves, to feel the puck, and then sent it to Petrov with a beautiful backhander.

Petrov, uncharacteristically, dumped the puck into the US zone. The Americans’ attack was cut short in the neutral zone and Kharlamov picked up the puck, then picked up speed, and when facing three Americans on the blue line, he turned back, calmed down the situation and then tried to carry it back into the US zone. He tried to find Mikhailov with a long passed, but instead, iced the puck.

“We got a little bit of a glimpse of what the US team is going to try to do. When the Soviets gain possession of the puck, they’re going to try to be very deliberately … when they have the time. Under those circumstances, the US team is going to back off and try to move into their defensive zone with all five men so that they won’t be outnumbered,” said Al Michaels, calling the game on NBC.

The top line didn’t score, but others did. Vladimir Krutov gave his team the lead halfway through the first period. The US tied it up. Makarov gave the Soviets the lead just two and a half minutes before the end of the first period, but Mark Johnson shocked the Soviet players, and most of all the coaching staff, with his 2-2 goal on the last second of play in the first period.

Tikhonov panicked, and made a goalie change. Out came Vladislav Tretyak, a national hero, and instead, Vladimir Myshkin took his place in front of the Soviet net.

Kharlamov couldn’t believe his ears. Was Tikhonov really pulling Tretiak? He looked at the goalie across the dressing room. He didn’t say anything, and Tretiak didn’t say anything, but he could see the goalie was furious.

“He’s crazy,” Kharlamov told Tretiak, as they were the two last players to leave the dressing room before the second period.

At first, the goalie change seemed to calm things down, as Maltsev scored the Soviets’ third go-ahead goal at 2:18 into the second period. With one period to go, the US was down by a goal, putting up a good fight, but being outshot 30-10 in the first two periods. Myshkin had made jus two saves in the period.

“Our coach made a serious mistake by pulling Tretiak. Vladislav had always been able to shut it down at the right time, and his calmness charged the whole team. And when Tikhonov pulled him, we immediately felt some discomfort, and the Americans gained confidence. That change substitution was fatal,” Petrov said years later.

Fatal it was, as with exactly ten minutes remaining in the game, Mike Eruzione beat Myshkin with a wrist shot from the slot, and gave Team USA the lead in the game for the first time, just a minute and 21 seconds after Johnson had tied the game.

Tikhonov kept sending his top line out, but as the clock was winding down, Kharlamov seemed to be going through the motions.

Kharlamov, Petrov, and Mikhailov came out for the last time with a minute and a half remaining in the game. The US coach had made sure his players kept their shifts at 45 seconds, while the Soviets’ top line played easily over a minute, close to 90 seconds at a time. For once, they weren’t the stronger team in the end.

With a minute remaining, Kharlamov took a pass from Petrov on the Soviet blue line. He skipped past Silk at the red line, went around Ken Morrow on the blue line but lost control of the puck, and it went to the US zone. Mikhailov grabbed it and played it to Petrov in front of the net, but Jim Craig made a save on Petrov’s backhander.

Kharlamov was waiting at the far post, should the puck find its way there. It never did.

With 30 seconds remaining, Kharlamov got the puck again, at the red line. This time he skated around Johnson, then dumped the puck into the US zone, but Petrov was late to the puck. Mikhailov missed it, but Bilyaletdninov managed to keep it in the zone.

With just 12 seconds remaining, Kharlamov knew it was over. He skated into the corner, but he knew it was over. He made a body check, and put his arms around Rob McClanahan in the corner, trying to look like he was still battling, like he still believed – but he wasn’t.

When the final buzzer went off, and the Americans stormed onto the ice behind him, Kharlamov never looked back. He adjusted his elbow pads, looked up to the scoreboard, and wondered what Tikhonov was going to say.

He did notice that Tikhonov left the bench right away, without shaking hands with the Americans. After the players’ handshakes, he saw Helmut Balderis, the Latvian sniper, skate to the American bench and shake hands with Herb Brooks, the US coach.

The Americans’ doctor was George Nagobdas, whose parents had left Latvia some 40 years earlier. He spoke Latvian and told Balderis, in Latvian, not to do it. Balderis replied by cursing his coach.

Tikhonov, who had coached Riga Latvia for years, understood every word of the message. Back in the Soviet Union, Tikhonov criticized Balderis and kicked him out of the national team.

But in Lake Placid, in public, Tikhonov stayed quiet, and even skipped the post-game press conference. In the dressing room, however, he let his players know exactly what he was thinking, and who he thought should be blamed for the loss. And it wasn’t him.

He walked around the room, stopping in front of the players he deemed guiltiest for the loss, and wagged his finger in their faces. “This is your loss!” he told Tretiak who just stared back at him.

“This is your loss!,” he told Mikhailov.

“Your loss, you did this,” he told Petrov.

He finally took a few steps towards Kharlamov’s stall.

“This is your loss! This. Is. Your. Loss,” he spat out.

Years, decades later Tikhonov would admit that pulling Tretiak was a huge mistake, and that he was the one to get blamed for it.

“Tretiak always played better after he gave up a goal. The decision was a result of getting caught up in emotions. After Tretiak gave up the rebound and let in the soft goal by Johnson, my blood was boiling. It was my worst mistake, my biggest regret,” he said.

Back at the prison, as the players called the Olympic Village, there was a line to the phone. Mikahilov was on the phone, standing a few meters behind him were the Golikov brother, when Kharlamov took his place in the line.

The players had few secrets from each other, even if they only heard one side of the conversation. Everybody knew how the others’ families were doing, whose parents were ill and whose children had gotten praise at school.

Valeri dialled the number to Moscow. He looked at his watch, it was ten o’clock. It’d be morning in Moscow. Irina answered after just a few rings.

“Valeri? Why are you calling so early?” she said. “Is everything OK? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt, I’m fine,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake up Sasha and Begonita. I just wanted to call you, because something happened. A disaster, really.”

He could hear Irina hold her breath.

“We lost to the Americans. 4-3,” Valeri said.

“Tikhonov did not like that,” Irina muttered back.

“No,” said Valeri, and then added, “what is Pravda saying about the game?”

Irina put the receiver on the table, and ran to get the paper. She knew Valeri only had a few minutes to speak with her. She opened the paper, and while looking for sports news, she spoke with Valeri.

“Nothing here … the kids miss you … we all miss you, and we hope you come home a champion … nothing here,” she went on.

“I miss all of you. Guess where we live here? A prison. This is a prison, for real. They told us that the house we’re in now, will be a prison after the Olympics,” Valeri said.

“There’s nothing about the game in the paper.”

“Maybe it was too late to make it in to the paper. Could you check the paper tomorrow for me, please? I have to go now. Love you,” Valeri told his wife, and hung up.

The tournament wasn’t over yet, even if nobody told the Americans. There was still a chance for the Soviet Union to win the gold medal, despite their embarrassing loss to the US. If they beat Sweden, while the US lost to Finland, they’d be Olympic champions.

When the Soviet players left the Olympic Village, Finland had a 2-1 lead in the game against the Americans. Jukka Porvari and Mikko Leinonen had scored for the Finns, Steven Cristoff for the Americans. One period remained to be played in the game.

When Kharlamov and his teammates arrived at the rink, Phil Verchota, Rob McClanahan, and Mark Johnson had scored for the US, and the battle was over.

Kharlamov, Petrov, and Mikhailov were still the top line, even if Tikhonov told publicly afterwards that he had thought they looked tired in the game against the US. Maybe because they played twice as long shifts as the Americans. In one shift in the third period, Petrov faced three different American centers in a faceoff. Everybody was so used to the Soviets being the stronger team in the third period, that they even considered the Americans having used doping.

"What do you give your players eat and drink before the third?” asked Valeri Vasiliev.

“The last period is always ours. Leading 3-2 going into the second period … we were confident of victory."

Poor Sweden. They never had a chance.

It took just 36 seconds for Kharlamov to set up Vladimir Petrov for a goal in the game against Sweden. With 2:22 remaining in the first period, Mikhailov made it 4-0, again assisted by Kharlamov, while Makarov and Alexander Maltsev had scored two goals in between. At 15:02 into the second period, the game was 9-0 … and over. All that remained was the medal ceremony.

When the Soviet national team returned home after a successful World Championship, the players usually met with the Communist party officials, and the representatives of the Komsomol, the youth division of the Party. When the CCCP played and won, productivity was said to go up by five to ten percent, but after a loss, it plummeted.

In 1980, the hockey team was pushed aside when the crowds celebrated other athletes, the winners.

Kharlamov knew that before they landed. Irina hadn’t found anything about the game against the US in Pravda, which meant that it had never happened. Pravda was rewriting history as it happened, and in that history, there was no place for losers.

“Maybe I can play a few seasons in another team,” he had told his wife during their last phone conversation.

“If he kicks me out, maybe I can play a few more seasons somewhere else, finish my studies, and then become coach.”

“Just come home,” she had told him.

On the plane back to Moscow, Tikhonov continued his attacks on Kharlamov and Tretiak. He walked up and down the aisle, always stopping next to Tretiak and Kharlamov, to let the veterans know they had failed him.

Finally, Valeri Vasiliev who sat behind Kharlamov had got enough. He stood up behind Tikhonov, who was still yelling at Kharlamov, and put the coach in a headlock.

“You can keep yelling at them, or you can stop, and I won’t kill you. Your choice … coach,” he said.

Tikhonov tried to shake Vasiliev off his back, but the defenseman was just to strong.

“Fine,” the coach said and Vasiliev let him go. Tikhonov walked to the front of the plane, muttering curses.

There were no World Championships that spring, but the Soviet national team did play in the Sweden Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden in April 1980 which gave Tikhonov a chance to cut Vasiliev and Petrov from the team. He put Krutov on the same line with Mikhailov and Kharlamov, and made Kharlamov the center of the line.

Kharlamov scored a goal in the game against Canada and the Soviets won all four of their games in the tournament.

But nothing helped. No win was big enough, no goal breathtaking enough. The summer, and the season until the next World Championships, were going to be long. And even a gold medal in the 1981 Worlds wouldn’t probably take away the pain.

The Soviet Union hockey national team blazed through season 1979-80 with a 22-1 record, and the only thing they, that team, is remembered for is that one loss. Then again, when a team wins four straight Olympic gold medals, 21 consecutive Olympic games, plays 48 games in two seasons, loses two and ties one, that one loss that one season is nothing short of … a miracle.

Or a disaster.
]]> Hockey http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-flipside-of--miracle-#c Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:17:47 +0200 <![CDATA[The Discoverers]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-discoverers
“You gotta do what you gotta do. There’s no other way,” I said.

“You’re right,” she said, got back on her bike, and kept on riding through the overgrown grass and some bushes. We were discovering things, and nobody said it would be easy.

Last week, when my cousin was visiting us, he and I discovered an abandoned runway on a bike tour around the neighbourhood. I had forgotten how much fun just roaming around and discovering things is.

Last Saturday, we decided to skip out Saturday tradition - watching America's Funiest Home Videos - and go out on our bikes, and just discover things.

So, instead of heading towards the sports field, and the mall - our usual targets - we turned right, and headed across the highway.

“Let’s ride,” said Wife, and the next thing I knew, she was already all the way down the hill, turning right, her head popping from left to right, as it always does when she’s riding her bike fast. Daughter was by her side.

“Let’s ride,” I said to Son, and so we did.

And we rode past the gas station, up a hill, and through the tunnel underneath the highway, when I noticed something I’d never noticed before. There were three trees in a circle - as much as three can form a circle - with some sort of a milestone in the middle.

“Hey, did you see that…” I shouted to Wife, who was again some 50 meters ahead of Son and me.

“The shoe!” I heard Wife shout.

“What?”

“THE SHOOOEEE!”

“No, no, it looks like some sort of a milestone, but you know, it’s funny that I’ve never seen it before. Huh,” I shouted back.

“Daughter dropped her shoe!”

I stopped, turned my bike around and saw a small, blue shoe by the side of the bike lane. I picked it up, and gave it back to Daughter who had also turned around, when I saw Wife riding her bike through the grass field towards the tree circle.

She rode it all the way to the stone, stopped, and seemed to be reading something. Son rode his bike to the stone, as well, while Daughter and I stayed on the paved bike lane. On solid ground.

“What was it?” I asked Wife thirty seconds later as she rode back.

“Oh, it just said that these trees were planted here in 1996, to mark the start of an environmental project around the highway,” she said. “Let’s ride,” she added.

So, we did. Son was telling me about US presidents, and how his favorite was Abraham Lincoln, even if he didn’t really know why.

“He seems to have been a good man,” he said. “Who’s your favorite president? Were all US presidents famous?”

He’s in that big World War II phase that we all go through. If you read that and said, “no, we don’t” to yourself, just wait.

Anyway, listening to him, I discovered that I would have to spend a fair amount of time on Wikipedia so that Son wouldn’t discover that he knows more about that than me.

We turned left, and right - “kids, the IBM headquarters!” - and past a 19th-century mansion - Wife stopped to read the sign - and started to work our way towards something that had apparently been Wife’s goal all along.

For the past two winters, we’ve seen something blue shine through the woods next to the highway. It’s seemed to us that there has been a tent, and because it’s fairly close to the fair and congress center, I’ve always assumed it’s got something to do with that.

“Maybe it’s an art project,” Wife’s said.

Now, she intended to find out. At every turn, her suggestion took us closer to the light, until she finally did say it out loud. We navigated towards the tall tower next to the fair center, and then cut across the parking lot alongside the highway.

And then the parking lot came to an end, and there was just bush, and overgrown grass, and stinging nettles. Wife looked at me, and then rode on. Daughter followed after her, then Son, and I was the last in line, as always.

There was no path to ride on, so we just kept pushing through. Daughter’s bike got stuck in the sand, and Son got stung by nettles. Wife was a good fifty meters ahead of us.

“Can we ride through there?” I shouted.

“I think so, they have to get here by car somehow,” she shouted back.

“OK, Daughter, let’s go, let’s go, Mom’s already way ahead of us,” I said, and pushed Daughter bike that had got stuck in the sand again.

“Careful now,” I added.

Another minute later, we were all standing there, standing next to the white tent, that looked like one of those kids’ bouncy castles. Everything about it reminded me of a playground. It was surrounded by that red soft surface you always see at playgrounds, but what you don’t always see, in fact, what you never see at a playground, were the black stones sticking out of it. Also, there was that blue light, that was visible around the stones, even in broad daylight. (After all, it was nine p.m. in June).

“What is it?” Daughter asked Wife.

“It’s just a data center,” she replied, disappointed. She had been dreaming of a secret government camp, or a Wikileaks HQ. “Just a data center.”

“But can we ride our bikes through?” I asked her.

We looked around, and made another discovery: it was a dead end, and we’d have to go back through the same old field of nettles and sand traps.

“Oh well, now we know,” I said cheerfully. “I love discovering things like this!”

“I think it’s Facebook’s central computer. Let me just go update my status,” I said, jokingly, and took a step towards the fence.

Just as I made a mental high-five with Wife, who, again, was fifty meters ahead of me, the data center’s alarm went off: WEEEE, WEEEE, WEEEEE!

“Oops,” I said, and tried to act natural.

“What is THAT?” asked Daughter.

“Oh, that’s just their alarm…” I said.

“Will the police come and arrest us?”

“No, no, we haven’t done anything wrong, and that sound … pfft, they just want scare us off. Or, not us, but you know, people who are scared of such things, baby. Keep moving, keep moving, see how far Mommy is already.”

She walked her bike through the bushes and the grass and the sand traps, and I could see Wife watching us form the edge of the parking lot. The Daughter got on her bike, I gave her a push, and she rode away.

“I can still hear the alarm,” she said.

“Oh, it’ll stop soon,” I said, got on my bike, and followed her.

When I looked up to see where Wife was, I saw her pedaling - fast - at the other end of the parking lot, some hundred meters away from us.

She slowed down a little and waited for Daughter and me, and then we kept on riding back the usual route, past the school and up the hill, which must have confused the government agents because when we turned right at the bottom of the steep hill - another surprise move - they were nowhere to be seen.

The night was warm, the streets were empty, and we just rode our bikes, talking about this and that, and World War II.
]]> Based on true events http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-discoverers#c Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:37:57 +0200 <![CDATA[IKEA gives you new astrological signs]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/ikea-gives-you-new-astrological-signs
A few years ago, world’s leading scientists realized that due to some cosmic changes, our astrological signs weren’t valid anymore. At least one sign was missing completely and there was some confusion about the Sun’s place in the house.

We at IKEA, as you know, can’t stand any confusion in any house. According to our new strategy, we will become the “Google of the analog world”, and will help you organize, systemize, and simplify your life.

That’s why we’re proud to introduce to you the new, improved horoscopes, or IKEALOGY. No longer will you have to figure out the cutoff dates between two signs, because for simplicity - one of our key values - we kept the number of Ikealogical signs at twelve, but the new signs will align with the calendar system we’re so used to anyway.

Simple.

DUKEN (bedroom sign)
Birth month: January
Is there a more relaxed person in the world than you? Duh. No … there are other DUKENS, though, who are just as fun-loving and elegant as you. And yet, a part of you is galvanized steel. You tend to procrastinate, but when you finally decide to take the bull by the horns, you come home with great stakes.
As one of the four bed-signs, your best time of day are mornings and nights.
Compatibility: ARV, another social sign for those ex tempore dinner parties. If you know what I mean.

KROBY (lighting sign)
Birth month: February
People often tell you that you’re like the sunshine itself. You’re a born leader, and people generally turn to you for advice and guidance. You like hanging out with friends, but you’re also grounded.
Compatibility: BILLY, to give you support for the dark times.

HYLLIS (storage sign)
Birth month: March
Everywhere you go - and you do get around - you take a piece of the place with you, bring it home, and store it for later use – which may never come. But it’s yours. All yours. Nobody else’s. Bwahahaha!
Compatibility: FUGA will be the guiding light on your travels.

SLUKA (serving sign)
Birth month: April
Is nothing enough? No, you say, and pour yourself another cup of coffee. And it’s got to be coffee, too, to keep you going, and going, and going. Function is more important to you than form, but in your case it’s an easy choice as you’re a real looker, with a rational frame of mind.
Compatibility: TARVA, a solid natural.

KIVIK (bedroom sign)
Birth month: May
“Generous seating series with a soft, deep seat and comfortable support.” Your arms are always wide open for friends who need some support or a place to rest. Or just comfy company to watch TV with.
Compatibility: ORGEL is a match made in heaven.

FUGA (lighting sign)
Birth month: June
It’s better to burn out than fade away. You’re a spotlight, not a dimmer. You see things that others don’t. However, you need your space, and must be placed at least 20 inches from other objects.
Compatibility: HYLLIS, together you will see and hoard like nobody’s business

BILLY (storage sign)
Birth month: July
You started way back when, as a simple case, but you’re still going strong. You’re the backbone of your community. Even if you do come in different colors, you always adapt to the big picture. Favorite element: birch tree.
Compatibility: KROBY, your easy-going companion.

ARV (serving sign)
Birth month: August
The more the merrier is your motto. You’re simple and rustic, with ruffled edges that give a soft look. You like to serve, but on your own terms. You’re like glass, transparent – but also easily broken.
Compatibility: DUKEN’s soft surface will make you feel safe.

TARVA (bedroom sign)
Birth month: September
Sometimes you feel out of place, and a protective layer on your surface is a must. Also, like most of us, you require some assembly, but the finished product stands the test of time. You are a solid and natural companion.
Compatibility: SLUKA fills that empty space nicely.

ORGEL (lighting sign)
Birth month: October
You’re like a shade of handmade paper. Unique, and a canvas for the playful co-existence of shadow and light. You don’t ask, you tell. Sometimes you think you’re a genius. And maybe you are.
Compatibility: KIVIK adds softness to your life.

DOMBÅS (storage sign)
Birth month: November
You’re no dumbass. What you are is a closet. Everything looks great on the outside, but once you open up, nothing will stop the flood of items that come pouring from within you. You also like to travel, and you enjoy good food.
Compatibility: GIRIG, your polar opposite.

GIRIG (serving sign)
Birth month: December
“Handle me with care” oozes from you. You’re generous, you’re colorful, but you’re also not very deep. What you see is what you get. Favorite color: Green. Element: Fire.
Compatibility: You can always find solace in DOMBÅS.

On our website, you will find daily and monthly predictions for each sign. Also, napkins are on sale this week. You know you need some.

Yours,
Ingvar Kamprad
IKEA, founder (HYLLIS)

Mikael Olsson
CEO (GIRIG)
]]> Lighter side http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/ikea-gives-you-new-astrological-signs#c Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:43:07 +0200 <![CDATA[You've got nail]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/you-ve-got-nail
So, I asked him to hammer all the nails on our porch stairs, and the deck, and make sure none of them stick out. (This, obviously, turned into a power struggle between Son and Daughter.) Just as obviously, Son was fast, and even more obviously, once the feeling of the honour of being chosen by Father wore off, he got bored.

He decided he needed a bigger hammer, so he ran back inside, and rummaged through the toolbox we have. One look at the toolbox would tell you that I’m not much of a handyman – if the fact that I told Son to “ask Mom” when he couldn’t find a hammer wasn’t already a dead giveaway.

Son lifted the two wrenches, and the old screwdrivers I got from my father in 1988, and the Allen keys you need to put together IKEA furniture – and then he found a treasure. He walked out with a big smile on his face, carrying two big knives, one in each hand.

“What are these?” he asked me. “Cool knives.”

“Actually, Son,” I said, “they’re not knives…”

I did pause for emphasis, but I wasn’t going to go with the Crocodile Dundee line.

“… they are your great-grandfather’s bayonets from the war,” I added.

And then I told him about his great-grandfather, who fought in four wars, and who had a store, and who drove a taxi, and who died of a heart attack.

I wouldn’t have brought up the heart attack part, but when we were in the basement going through some stuff my father had given me - in an attempt to clear his basement - a doctor’s note of his cause death that was neatly folded inside my grandfather’s military discharge papers.

I was four years old when my grandfather died so most of the stories I told Son about him are built around tidbits I’ve heard from my father over the years. How Grandpa drove his car to the church, and then died there; how he fought in all those wars “against communists”; and how he rode his bike around the village with a suitcase hanging from the handlebar, selling insurances.

I don’t remember many things about him, and even the ones I do remember may just be something my mind has created based on photos I’ve seen. I think I remember his funeral, though, and I think I remember him walking slowly in his house.

But what I do remember, for sure, are his toenails. My great-grandfather was seventy when I was born, so he would have been in his early seventies when I was big enough to truly appreciate his physique.

His toenails were the kind that look like they could cut through glass, they were big and white and thick. They were the first thing you’d notice when you met him – if you were two years old, closer to the ground than his shoulders, and if he was barefooted.

His toenails were man’s nails. His nails looked so much tougher than anybody else’s nails I had ever seen. Tougher than Tarzan’s, tougher than Dad’s.

Tough.

Son was mostly interested in the bayonets, though, so we got back upstairs, and he put on a belt, stuffed the bayonets under it, and strutted around the neighbourhood. I heard him tell our next door neighbour about his great-grandfather who was a soldier, “and came home alive four times.”

I smiled and looked away. I looked at my feet. My toenails.
]]> Random http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/you-ve-got-nail#c Fri, 31 May 2013 18:58:30 +0200 <![CDATA[Cool? Me?]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/cool-me
He was the guy who stuffed candy bars with salt and then gave them to kids on the team, or filled somebody’s pockets with a half dozen eggs when they didn’t pay attention.

My friends still tell me stories like that of my Dad, and while I laugh at the stories now, I also know I didn’t always laugh at them then.

It may be hard to be saint in the city, but I’m sure even The Boss would agree that it’s just as hard to be a cool Dad. It’s a moving target at best.

Last year, I went on a field trip with Son’s class. Son was a little nervous before the trip, though, because I kept telling him about my plans to show his buddies what a cool Dad he had.

“I’ll even pull down my pants and wear my baseball hat sideways, like this!” I told him.

He ran away screaming. I pulled my pants back up, and turned my hat backwards, the way the really cool kids used to wear hats when I was a kid. I promised Son I wouldn’t pull my pants down, and that I’d just make those funny comments I always make on the subway.

“You don’t have to,” he said.

“I can’t help it. You know how it is, I’m a funny guy,” I said.

Son was quiet for a second, and just stared at me.

“You know, you don’t have to try to be cool,” he said.

“But I can’t help it,” I said.

“Sure. Just don’t try so hard,” he said.

We went to the museum, and it was all very exciting. The kids behaved well all the way through it, and I like to think I did, too because since that trip Son’s been a lot more tolerant with me speaking with his buddies. In fact, a few weeks ago, after I’d stormed into their classroom - after class - and shouted, “are you griefing everybody” to Son who was on the couch playing Minecraft with his buddies, I was a real-life viral hit in his class for about three days.

That week, when I came to the school to pick Son and Daughter up, Son’s classmates asked me to yell, “are you griefing everybody here!”

And I did.

I was a little unsure at first, I thought maybe they were secretly laughing at me, but when I saw Son get the cool kid in the class, and asked me to yell that catchphrase to him, too, I got into it. I knew they were laughing with me.

By next Monday, though, my act had worn thin.

“We’re not doing that anymore,” Son told me.

Yesterday, on our way home, Daughter’s classmates stopped her just outside the gates. The two girls were still on the schoolyard side of the fence, two young boys, maybe nine years old, were on the other side of it. When Daughter’s friends saw her, they yelled something about somebody being the cutest something in school. I kept on walking because I didn’t want to interfere.

When Daughter caught up with me and Son, I asked her if I had heard right and that her friends thought I was, indeed, the coolest Dad in school.

“No,” said Daughter, and snickered.

“You sure, because I think I heard them talk about coolest something,” I said.

Son put his arm around me.

“Dad, you know, you don’t have to be the coolest Dad in school. It doesn’t even matter what the other kids think, the most important thing is that I think you’re the coolest Dad in the world,” he said, and gave me a squeeze.

I laughed and tousled his hair.

"Thanks, Son," I said. "You're right."

Then we walked back to the car, talking about this and that, and I don't think Son even noticed that I flipped my hat backwards.
]]> True story http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/cool-me#c Thu, 23 May 2013 12:10:41 +0200 <![CDATA[Kings of Sweden]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/kings-of-sweden
“I was pretty calm,” His Majesty told the players when the newly-crowned world champions paid a visit at the Royal Palace in central Stockholm just 12 hours after they had beat Switzerland 5-1 in the final.

As the team presented the royal family with an autographed sweater, the players probably already heard the Poodles play their official tournament song - “En för alla för en”, or “one for all for one” - in the background because meanwhile, thousands and thousands of people gathered in Kungsträdgården, a recreational park that can be seen from the castle.

Kungsträdgården, “King’s garden” has in recent years become the new place for such events. Back in 2006, when Sweden won both the Olympic gold and the World Championship, the Olympic team had their parade end at Medborgarplatsen, a square on the south side of town, and the World Champions in Kungsträdgården.

The stage has been ready every year, but for seven long years, it’s stayed empty, sadly overlooking the two lines of Japanese cherry trees that surround the park. Except for that one night in January in 2012, when the under-20 team celebrated their World Junior Championship out in the cold.

But on Monday, the sun was out, the cherry trees had bloomed and were already mostly green, with a shadow of pink still remaining there. Above the stage there was a big sign that said, “WORLD CHAMPIONS”, in Swedish.

Not many experts had believed in the team before the tournament, and they did stumble in the early rounds. They lost to Switzerland, and they lost to Canada, and they squeaked by both the Czech Republic and Belarus, winning both games 2-1. In fact, Sweden scored only 17 goals in their seven preliminary round games, fewest of the four teams that advanced to the playoff stage.

But they did score four in their last preliminary round game, which was also the first with Daniel and Henrik Sedin on the team.

Sweden scored 14 goals - and one in the shootout in the game against Canada - in its four games with the Sedins. Henrik and Daniel were the architects for ten of them, including eight of the team’s ten goals in the three playoff games.

“We watched a game on TV back home [in Vancouver], and what we saw was a hard working team in which everybody worked for each other. That’s the kind of team we love to play for,” Daniel Sedin told Aftonbladet before the final.

There they were, wearing the yellow sweaters, lifting the cup, just to hear the crowd roar. So many of them finally getting their due, their day in the sun. There were the Sedins, while Olympic champions from 2006, still somewhat unappreciated in their home land, because they’ve had the big three - Sundin, Forsberg, Lidström - in front of them.

There was Staffan Kronwall, the brother of Niklas, who was the team captain, and led his boys to a wild song and dance number on stage, and there was Joel Lundqvist, the hard-working brother of Henrik, and the only one of the 2013 team who had been on the Kungsträdgården stage in 2006.

And there was Pär Mårts, the head coach of Team Sweden, who finally got the gold medal that has eluded him in his years behind the national team benches. And with it he got a car from Skoda, the long-time official main sponsor of the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship.

Two years ago he took his team to the World Championship final - but lost to Finland - and before that, he led the U20 national team to two silver medals and one bronze.

This time, Mårts was a winner.

“There’s no better place to get that gold medal than at home,” he said.

“We’ve felt a great unity in the group since day one, when we got to together in April. The spark was ignited, and the fire has burned since then. We’ve always believed in each other,” he added.

Mårts also noted that adding the Sedins to the team didn’t disrupt anything, as “the boys have been brought up in the Swedish system”.

In the end, it was the Swedish system that came through, and came out on top. Good defence, excellent goaltending from Jhonas Enroth, a team that pulled together. And a couple of twins from Örnsköldsvik, the heartland of hockey.

The World Championship final gathered an estimated three-million people TV audience. So did the Eurovision Song Contest from Malmö, Sweden, on Saturday. While the two audiences aren’t mutually exclusive, it’s safe to say the entire country came together on Monday, when Robin Stjernberg walked onto the stage with the championship team, and performed Sweden’s entry to the ESC: “You.”

The crowd was dancing, and the players were hopping, as Stjernberg hit all the high notes:

“Isn’t it crazy, yeah, isn’t it crazy? It’s all because of you-uu, all because of you-uuuooh.”

The home-ice ghost was nowhere to be seen.

From IIHF.com
]]> Hockey http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/kings-of-sweden#c Tue, 21 May 2013 11:52:38 +0200 <![CDATA[El Guano]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/el-guano
And one lonesome swan slowly swimming across the bay from north to south.

It’s taken it a good ten minutes, so you it’s taking it easy, because one lap around the bay is two kilometers.

The fact that it’s a swan is significant, because swan also happens to be the national bird of Finland. So seeing that national bird swim majestically across the bay puts a smile on my face, the same way almost riding my bike over a blonde Finnish teenage girl yesterday did.

One, because I only almost crashed into her.

Two, because it wasn’t really my fault, she just didn’t see me at all … because she was busy reading Väinö Linna’s “Unknown Soldier” - the great Finnish war novel - walking past the statue of Paavo Nurmi - a legendary runner - at the Olympic Stadium.

So you see how a swam swimming from the National Opera to the Finlandia Hall could be a loaded Finnish moment.

Except that I don’t much like birds. Son likes to chase pigeons at squares and while I may sometimes tell him to take it easy on the birds, I admit, I too like to see them fly away. I don’t find bids cute or attractive, except penguins, maybe. I think most birds are a little scary with their claws, and their beaks, and their crazy eyes. All birds have crazy eyes.

Mostly, though, it’s the dropping. The guano. Bird shit. I hate it, I hate the look of those white droppings on a sidewalk, and there are few things that I think are more disgusting than getting bird shit in your hair. It’s happened to me twice. The first time I was quick to look up, and I caught a glimpse of the seagull, and one day, I will catch him. He can fly but he can’t hide. I never forget a face.

The second time, it was a flock of birds, shitting down on me, Wife, Godfather and his wife, but I got hit the most.

And frankly, swans are no better than other birds. Sure, they swim “majestically”, and yes, the one I just saw looked beautiful from a distance of about 150 meters.

But I’ve seen swans from up close, too. Swans are everywhere in downtown Stockholm, swimming - majestically - under the bridges between the Royal palace, and the Grand Hotel. One time, when I was on my way to the gym during lunch, 15 years ago, a swan had apparently got lost, wound up on the street, and was now walking back and forth among the pedestrians - not majestically.

As I got a little closer to the bird, it … crapped right in front of me on the street.

There was nothing majestic about it.
]]> Random http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/el-guano#c Wed, 8 May 2013 11:41:37 +0200 <![CDATA[Undercover agent]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/undercover-agent
I got my hockey bag from the trunk of the bus, and as I lifted it on my shoulder and started to walk towards the arena entrance. And that’s where it finally dawned on me. I wasn’t going to be the next Gretzky, or even Matti Forss, my big idol in the Finnish league.

“Maybe it’s time for me to move on to the other side,” I muttered to myself.

I had quit hockey at least once before, so when I sleepwalked to school six hours later - because I made it a point never to miss class after a hockey trip - I had no big plans for my hockey future, or any other future. But I had had a moment of clarity, and during that moment, I had made two decisions. One, playing hockey was a hobby. Two, I wasn’t going to quit the game, I was just going to move on, “to the other side” of things.

It took me a couple of years to figure out what that other thing might be, but by my second year in the university, when it was time to pick my major, I had a half-baked plan. I was going to become a hockey agent. And so I majored in marketing, and minored in law, a combination I had decided was perfect for an agent. Back then, it was a new idea, because there weren't many real hockey agents in Finland.

When I had thought about that combination, I had forgot about one thing: That the most important product I’d have to market was myself. I realized that fairly quickly when I graduated from the business school three years later, and had no clients. I had no job, and no money. No clients, and no plans on how to get clients.

After graduation I had moved to my Grandma’s attic, and after two weeks, upgraded to an apartment upstairs of an old house in the countryside, with the downstairs being used as a kindergarten. I didn’t have a shower in the apartment, nor a real kitchen, and I had to do my dishes downstairs after the kids had been picked up. But I did do my dishes, and on weekends, I was allowed to use the sauna in the main building - a former piggery - in the same courtyard.

One day, a former teammate, a former linemate, and a former best friend - that’s all the same guy, and still a good friend - called me. It was early afternoon, so I had just barely got up and had played Civilization 2 only for a couple of hours, but when I heard his voice, I was wide awake. He had played a couple of seasons in the Finnish league, but now he felt that he was treading water. It was time to shake things up. He felt he didn’t get the respect he deserved – so he asked me to represent him.

“Sure. Sure thing,” I said.

I pushed the Olivetti keyboard a little farther away, and then got up.

“So, like, what do you want me to do,” I added and started to walk around the apartment, thinking. Thinking hard.

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me that?” said my friend, and I could feel the blood rush to my head. I was quiet for a second, and just looked out the window. The kids were playing in the playground. It was a nice spring day.

“Well, I was just wondering if you’ve had any talks with them,” I said, and then my friend told me that yes, and then he asked me to take over.

The GM of his team was one of the most famous GMs in Finland. He was the GM of the biggest club in the country, and he was also the manager of the coolest hotel in town. All in all, that made him the most intimidating GM to deal with.

Never in my dreams and half-baked plans had I come across the situation of actually negotiating with somebody. In my vision, I was talking to the players, and I was walking around carrying a light brown stylish briefcase, or sitting in the stands, deep in my thoughts.

The only thing that matched my vision was my phone. It was cordless. That alone made it cool in the early 1990s.

I had no idea of how much a good player should get paid. I didn’t know how I was going to get paid. For one of my previous hockey business gigs - writing copy for brochures of a hockey software and showing demos of it to coaches - I had got a set of golf clubs.

None of that mattered, though, because I had a client, and I had a job to do.

A couple of days later, I put on a shirt and a tie, and sat down at my desk next to the window overlooking an empty country road. I looked at my white mailbox that looked like a Moomin, the one that I had built and painted with my cousin, and I thought the world was a pretty fantastic place when I - a kid - could be pulling major strings from the upstairs of a piggery.

“If they only knew,” I said to myself.

And then I punched in the GM’s number.

The phone rang once. Twice. I coughed. Third ring. “Hi, this is Risto Pakarinen…," I muttered. Four.

The GM answered. I introduced myself.

“… And the reason I call you today is that I’m actually calling for J,” I said.

There was no reply.

“You know, your player,” I added, thinking that maybe he was preoccupied with something or hadn’t heard me.

The line was silent for a few seconds, and just as I was about to say something else, the GM spoke.

“So, what are you, some kind of a fucking agent?” he said, spitting out the last word in disgust.

Then he hung up on me.

“I guess not,” I said.
]]> True story http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/undercover-agent#c Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:28:36 +0200 <![CDATA[This man's best friend]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/this-man-s-best-friend
We were on our way home from my aunt’s place just outside Helsinki. We didn’t visit her often, and I didn’t really know her, which made me dread those trips a little, but that one time I almost didn’t want to go home, because in the back of her yard, behind a chicken netting fence, my aunt had a half a dozen German shepherd puppies.

Did I want a puppy? Of course I wanted a puppy, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it because I knew it wouldn’t help anyway. I listened to the conversation, and crossed my fingers, and just as we stopped at the traffic lights in front of the main Post Office, I heard Mom and Dad decide that, yes, it’d be a good idea to take a puppy.

They didn’t tell me about it just yet, but the next day Dad drove back to his sister’s place, and came back with a puppy. Of course, I would have to participate in the care of the dog, I was told, and I promised that I would. I’d take really good care of him. We’d be the best of friends, just like the Famous Five and Timmy. Or Lassie and the little girl.

I guess one of the rational motives Mom and Dad came up with when they held their pow-wow in the front seat that day was that he’d be good company for me, who was just starting school, but Dad has always been an animal lover so it wasn’t that hard to convince him that it’d be a good idea to have a dog in the house.

We already had a guinea pig, and before that, for maybe a couple weeks, maybe just a few days, I don’t remember, we had a bird that Dad had found hurt somewhere, and saved. It was either a crow or a magpie, and I remember it sitting in a shoebox in the back of our car, behind me, on our way to Grandma’s house. Maybe that was the trip when we let him free again.

The guinea pig’s name was Roosa, the bird’s Roope.

The puppy was named Riku.

What can I say, we always liked names that started with R.

When Dad came back, he told the story of how he had picked that particular dog out of the many, (almost) equally cute puppies.

“When I walked up to them, they all ran towards me and barked and jumped up to the fence – except this one dog, who stayed a little behind the others, and looked shy,” he told Mom and me.

“So I picked him.”

And he couldn’t have picked better.

Because he was a German shepherd, and a strong one at that, Dad wanted Riku to be trained properly so that Mom, and me - because at this point we still entertained the idea of my walking him - could control him. Riku was enrolled into a dog academy. Dad visited him a couple of times so that Riku would learn that he was his master, and by the end of the training, Dad was there all the time to make the transition smooth.

We were very proud of him. Riku, that is.

Dad then showed Mom and me how Riku should always walk on our left side, with his head next to our knee. He’d sit, lie down, and stay in place until given permission to move, on command. But he also learned to give his paw, to hold a piece of chocolate on his snout, and throw it in his mouth when we told him he could do that. And of course, he could play dead, one of Dad’s favorite tricks. I think he also could count. He couldn’t do algebra, but he did count to ten.

I fully expected Riku to talk to me when we were at home in the afternoons after school, and when he didn’t, I made up his lines in our conversations.

“Hey, Riku, I’m home.”

“About time. Wanna do something,” he’d reply, wagging his tail against the hall cabinets, so that it sounded like a big drum.

“Sure. Whaddaya wanna do? Want to play Tarzan?”

“Only if I get to be the lion.”

And he did get to be the lion – except when he was Cheetah, or an elephant, or a crocodile I’d have to wrestle with. Or maybe he was the Dog in my version of Enid Blyton’s “Five Find-Outers and Dog” called “One Find-Outer and Dog”. Unless we played soccer, and he was the goalie.

All adventures always took place inside our apartment, because, while Riku was the smartest dog in the world, who graduated summa cum laude from the training academy and who also got trained by the police - when Dad’s policeman friend joined the canine unit - there was always the chance that something would happen, and I couldn’t hold back. After all, Dad used to let Riku pull him on the snowy sidewalks of Helsinki in the winter.

Of course there were days when I found him lying in front of the balcony door, his nose pressed against the little crack between the threshold and the door, where cool air would get in, and when I got home, he’d just raise his head a little bit, as if to you say, “Oh, you” and then go back to his resting position.

We all got what we wanted. Dad got a pet, Mom got company for the nights when Dad and I were at the hockey rink, and I - as planned - got a buddy. Mom likes to tell a story about my getting a pair of new skates for Christmas, and being so, so happy that I didn’t know what to do. So what did I do? I hugged Riku and whispered the good news into his ear.

Then I grew up, and I didn’t play Tarzan (as much) with Riku, but he’d still be there for me after school, although, the days when he just lifted his head a little bit became more of the norm. But we played ball, and we talked and had each others’ backs.

By the time I was a senior in high school, Riku had grown old. At 84 (in dog years), he was a greybeard, and it wasn’t just as easy to get him excited about fetching those tennis balls anymore.

At the end of high school, seniors in Finland dress up in costumes, and then get thrown out of school in February so they can study for the national exams in March. Riku had been with me from first grade, so I thought it’d be great if he’d be there with me when I finish high school. My plan was to dress up as The Phantom, and Riku would be my “Devil”. (For all you phantomaniacs out there, I know, “Devil is not a dog, he’s a wolf”).

That winter, though, one weekend, he got very tired. He just lay on the floor, and didn’t want to get up. He whimpered a little, but mostly he just seemed to want to sleep. That wouldn’t do, so I tried to cheer him up. I teased him with a ball, and petted him, and talked to him, and he got up. Then I got him outside, and I started to throw snowballs for him to fetch. Of course, they disappeared into the snow, baffling Riku completely.

And I stood there, and threw snowballs to him, underhand, just a little behind him, so he’d have to try to twist his body in the air if he wanted to catch it. And fifteen minutes later, he was back to his usual self, the happy-go-lucky dog that he was.

I was happy to see that because I believed that it was me that had brought back his will to live. I thought that if only I could love him just a little bit more, he’d want to hang around a lot longer.

Riku died a few weeks later, when I was on a hockey trip on the west coast of Finland. Dad had found him, and wrapped him up, and carried him to the car. And then he found him a spot at a pet cemetary, and a tombstone, and for years we’d go to his grave on our way to my grandparents’ graves at Xmas.

A few weeks after Riku died, it was time for my last day of school. I wore red swimming trunks on top of my hockey one-piece underwear, Mom’s hood, Mom’s hat, Dad’s winter boots, and a plastic belt that Dad made and painted the Phantom’s skull on. On top of everything, I wore Dad’s long winter coat.

I looked at myself in the mirror, checked that the skull logo on my belt was visible, and that my face was covered by my mother’s hat. I was happy with my costume. I looked just like the Phantom. It was perfect.

If not for the empty space to my left.
]]> True story http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/this-man-s-best-friend#c Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:47:33 +0200 <![CDATA[Ten points to Hufflepuff]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/ten-points-to-hufflepuff
As I walked up the stairs to the gym, I saw a dude say something to me. I didn't hear him, because I was listening to a hockey podcast, but when I saw that he said something to me again, I took the earphones out of my ears and said - as politely as I could - “What?"

“Yeah, the game starts soon," he said.

"What?"

"The game. It starts. Soon."

I had no idea what he was talking about and it must have showed, because the dude pointed to my hat and said, "PSG".

The Paris team is popular in Sweden now because the nation’s biggest football star, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, plays there. The guys at the reception desk at the gym also seems to like it, because a couple of days earlier, as I was leaving the gym, he yelled “Paris” to me, and gave me the thumbs up.

"Oh, oh, yeah, PSG, right," I said to the dude, still not really knowing what he was talking about, but at least I knew he was being nice, and talking about football, and my hat. (And Zlatan).

I smiled and walked by him, and then turned around, because I felt I owed him an explanation.

"I completely forgot that I was wearing a PSG hat. You know, I have a Gryffindor hat, too, and for a second I thought you were talking about Quidditch."

He looked at me, and smiled politely.
]]> Incidents and accidents http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/ten-points-to-hufflepuff#c Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:24:12 +0200 <![CDATA[The most gullible man in the world]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-most-gullible-man-in-the-world
Wife is a couple of steps in front of me, Son and Daughter just behind me, when suddenly an old lady crouches in front of us and picks something from the ground. I don’t see her at first - because I’m taking photos - but when I almost bump into her, I take notice.

“Is this yours?” she asks, and shows me a gold ring.

“Nope, not mine,” I say. Daughter’s right next to me, admiring the shiny ring in the old lady’s hand.

“Keep walking,” says Wife, but I don’t. I’m looking at the ring, and I feel sorry for the person who’s dropped such a nice ring. The ring is big and it’s heavy.

I know this, because the old lady has now dropped the ring on the palm of my hand.

“Just give it back to her,” Wife says, now another three steps farther away from Daughter and me.

“You think it’s gold?” the old lady asks me, and points to some markings inside the ring. “Is that a gold marking?”

I squint, and try to see if there is a gold marking, but as I go through the motions, I remind myself that I don’t really remember what a gold marking looks like.

“Tough to say, but it sure is heavy,” I tell her.

She puts it in my hand, and tells me to give it to Daughter.

“Give it back to her,” says Wife. Now I’m torn, but I walk away from the old lady, and put the ring on a stone wall by the street.

Daugher and I walk a little faster to catch Wife, when we hear the old lady shouting behind us. We stop, and wait for her.

“Just take the ring, just take it,” she says, and I can see her brown eyes, and her teeth with a matching color.

“Then maybe give me something … for coffee,” she adds.

And until that sentence I hadn’t realized it was a scam. I tell her I don’t have any money, she doesn’t believe me, and when I tell her that “honestly, I don’t”, she turns away, taking the ring with her.

I’m a little surprised that I didn’t see the play. After all, I do call it “the oldest trick in the book” when I tell Wife what the old lady had said to me. Also, my legs have barely stopped shaking after two young men tried to rob my camera just four hours prior, before we entered the Louvre.

Aah, it’s springtime in Paris. Son and Daughter are climbing on a bench, on one of the many bridges over Seine, Son wearing a red beret he bought - with his own money - about an hour earlier. They’re happy so I’m happy. We’re in Paris, and the sun is shining.

The kids are facing the river, and I make them laugh when I tell them I’m going to take photos of their butts. That, of course, makes them turn, and then turn away again, and I stand there, cracking more jokes and snapping more photos.

Suddenly, I see a young man to my right. He’s saying something to me in French, and he’s holding a clipboard with a white piece of paper on it. At the same time, another young man walks up to me from my left, and he, too, speaks French and waves a clipboard in front of me.

Everything happens very quickly, but as I try to find a way out of the situation, I see that the man to my right has his hand around the strap on my camera. His hand is around it, but he hasn’t grabbed hold of it, not yet, and I leap backwards, and yell, in “French”: “Nooooon, no-no-no-non!”

Both guys look at me, raise their arms in that French way, with their palms up, and look at me like I was the one who just insulted them, and then they walk briskly down the street. I check my pockets for my wallet and phone, and when I find both still there, I look up and see a young lady jump two meters after the two young men surround her. She escapes the attack, and the men keep on walking.

With the ring episode behind us, I decide it’s a good idea to tell the kids of all the other times I’ve been fooled during my travels. Just so they know this is just something that happens in the world.

So I tell them how Dad and I were in London, and wanted to buy a watch or bracelet from a guy outside Harrods. Just as I had given him the ten-pound or twenty-pound bill, somebody yelled “Police!”, and he packed up his stuff and ran in one direction, Dad and I the other. I still don’t know why we ran.

I tell the kids how ten years ago, as I walked through Stockholm, two guys asked me if I wanted new speakers, straight off their van. Apparently, their company was moving, and they needed to get rid of them. I looked at the speakers, but decided that they were too big.

I tell the kids how in Rome, when Wife and I were walking alongside the river Tiber, a car pulled up next to us and asked for directions to the Vatican. Having been in the city for just three hours, I was more than happy (and proud) to be able to point the man to the right direction.

“In fact, if you look that way, across the river, you can see the St. Peter's Basilica, right there,” I told him.

“Thank you, signor,” he said.

“Thank you so much,” he added, “thank you. You’ve been so nice that I’d like to pay it back to you somehow. Let me give you a leather jacket.”

He waved towards the backseat of his car, where there was a pile of leather jackets. He reached back and gave me one. It was a nice jacket, and had he given it to me for free, I sure would have taken it. Of course, he wasn’t going to do that.

“I’m sure it’ll look good on you,” he said.

“Oh, signor, I’m almost embarrassed to say this, but … my tank is almost empty, and I don’t have any money. I’m running on fumes here. Now, you get the jacket, and you give me whatever you can give me,” he said.

“I don’t have any money,” I said.

“Honestly,” I added then.

He looked at me, and asked for the leather jacket back. I gave it to him, and he extended his arm, in a handshake.

“Thank you,” he said. “Let me just thank you.”

By now, the situation was a little strange, but I did walk up to the car, and took the man’s hand. And we shook hands. A little longer than I had expected. Or wanted. He just wouldn’t let go of my hand, and for a second, I was absolutely sure he was reaching for a gun.

He wasn’t. He smiled, let go of my hand, and drove away.

Then I tell the kids how on that same Rome trip Wife told a tourist playing the shell game with the cups and the pea that he shouldn’t wage any money on that because he had seen the guy remove the pea. The guy with the cups didn’t like that very much, and we had to run from the market.

And just as I finish telling these stories, we turn a corner. Just then, a young lady walking towards us, seems to pick something up from the ground. She looks at us, shows us a big, shiny, golden ring, and asks:

“Is this yours?”

“Non,” I say, and we cross the street.

“That must be the oldest trick in the book,” Son says.

Daughter listens to my stories intently, her mouth and eyes wide open. She’s quiet for a while. She’s thinking.

“Dad? Why do the tricksters always choose you when they try to fool somebody?” she asks me.

“That’s a good question,” I said. “I don’t know.”

She looks puzzled.

“It’s because Dad looks like a nice guy, and he’s always helping others, of course,” Wife says.

Daughter nodded.

“I know," she says.
]]> True story http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-most-gullible-man-in-the-world#c Tue, 9 Apr 2013 21:41:33 +0200 <![CDATA[Woulda coulda shoulda]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/woulda-coulda-shoulda
“It’s like the snow in the movies,” said Wife when she took off with Son and Daughter this morning.

I waved to them from the front door, until I saw Son’s red hat disappear behind the garage. I closed the door, packed my bag and went to the gym because while you can make a change any given day, sometimes you have to keep doing the same thing over and over again to really make a change.

Although, I’m still doing the exact same weight program I used in 1995, and see no change.

Anyway, I walked in, and got my lucky locker - number 2 - got changed and walked back into the main gym area. I was sitting on a bench, adjusting my hair, admiring myself in the mirror when a beefy man walked up to me and asked me if I was going to work out or just read the book I had in my hand. I said I had just finished, like I always do, and left the seat.

As I got up, I glanced at the mirror again, and realized that I wasn’t wearing any pants. I had walked naked into the gym, with just my Dallas Stars hat on.

Well, no, I didn’t. But I could have.

I only did a shorter workout today, and skipped stretching like I always do, because I was in a hurry to turn a great idea I had got walking on the treadmill into reality. I ran downstairs to the grocery store - my gym is at a mall - and asked to get the biggest cardboard box they had.

They said they didn’t have one, and I said that of course they had, and the guy at the customer service thought about it a second and said, “you’re right.”

“One of thems has to be the biggest one,” he said, turned around and gave me a blue and white box with “Chiquita” on the side.

“Perfect,” I said and ran up the escalator to the second floor. I tore a flap off a cardboard box, wrote “Stories bought and traded, 5 kronor” on it and put it up against the box, then sat behind it on the floor to wait for customers.

And I sat there for hours, listening to people’s fantastical tales.

Well, no I didn’t. But I could have.

Instead, I walked home, and listened to music. I sang along as I always do, and I tap danced all the way to the tunnel when I saw two kids standing in the middle of it, facing each other. I saw clouds of smoke around them, but I wasn’t sure if it was from cigarettes or just air - in which case, strictly speaking, it wasn’t really smoke - but I decided to keep an eye on them as I got closer.

The taller kid had his back towards me, the smaller one looked like he was ten or so. And he had something in his mouth. I stopped tap dancing.

“Yo, man, kids, homesies,” I said, and they turned around. Well, the taller one turned around, the shorter kid just stared at me.

“High-five, low-five, beetches,” I said, and the boys smiled.

“Yo,” they said in unison.

“Whatchadudes doin’?”

“A little graffiti,” said the taller kid.

“Hey, guys, can I help you?” I said.

The kids looked at each other. The taller boy whispered something to the smaller kid - who, by the way had a lollipop, not a cigarette in his mouth - and his face lit up.

“Are you really Paksy? The Banksy of Sollentuna?” the smaller kid asked me.

“Yes, son. Yes, I am,” I said, and then painted my tag on the wall.

Well. I didn’t. But I could have. That didn't happen. But it could have.

Instead, I came home and worked for a few hours.

Except that I didn't. But I could have.

I should have.
]]> Fiction http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/woulda-coulda-shoulda#c Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:38:00 +0200 <![CDATA[Top of the morning]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/top-of-the-morning
Exhibit A, “Son”, gets up at the crack of dawn and refuses to go back to sleep, fearing that he will miss something while asleep. What that might be is a topic for another study for which I don’t have funding yet.

Exhibit B, “Daughter”, refuses to get up at all, kicking and screaming everybody and everything within, well, a kicking distance from her bed. Once up, though, all sunshine.

“Son” was born in the middle of the night, 2.58 am, and “Daughter” in the evening, at 6.30 pm.

And my hypothesis goes like this: that’s how you know if you're a morning person or not. Son got out and about in the wee hours for the first time, and has always been a morning person. Daughter waited until the evening, and she’s always more of an evening person (because yes, she certainly doesn’t like to go to bed).

The funny thing about Daughter is that as soon as she’s awake, she’s the happiest, funniest, loveliest person in the world, and it’s not just me saying that. Wife thinks so, too. It’s just that it takes a concerted effort to get to that happy place.

That’s why, if we have to leave early in the morning, she gets to sleep in her clothes.

Sometimes our household turns into a vaudeville show in the morning. A vaudeville show with an audience of one, and she doesn’t even have her eyes open. But there I am, with Krtek, a hand puppet of the Czech mole, in one hand, and Krtek’s buddy, the little mouse in the other.

“Hey, mouse, wanna see something funny?” I’ll say and when the mouse says “yes”, as he most often does, I launch into a pretty elaborated song and dance number.

Now, that was years ago, and doesn’t work that well anymore. Daughter’s seen all the Krtek shows and isn’t looking forward to new ones. Fortunately, just as Krtek’s magic vanished, Wife’s little monologue as “the Lion” worked and got Daughter up in no time. In just 15 to 20 minutes.

We’ve joked, we’ve screamed, and we’ve carried her to the downstairs sofa for an extra five-minute nap. We’ve sang and we’ve danced, we’ve played her favorite tunes, and sure, every once in a while I’ve teased her, trying to get her to snap out a dream.

We look forward to December because in December she likes to get up to watch the advent calendar on TV, almost on her own.

We’ve played tricks, we’ve had treasure hunts, and we’ve done gymnastics to get her to wake up, and not be cranky. But cranky she is.

It’s a fascinating transformation because by the time she then gets to the breakfast table, thirty minutes after the rest of the family, her hair pointing every which way, and her pajamas hanging on her, she’s all smiles and hugs, and full of life.

This morning, the three of us, Son, Wife and I, tiptoed into her room, Wife carrying a tray with a sandwich and a cup of tea, Son holding onto a small box, and me with a camera in my hand. And we sang. We sang "Happy birthday" to Daughter who turns seven today, and who’s been counting down the days since early February.

She got up in a second, with a big smile on her face, and listened to us finish the song. Then she gave us big hugs, and her big hair was pointing every which way, and she blew out the candle that was also on the tray.

After she had opened her presents - Son insisted on buying her jewelry on his own - she looked at Wife.

“You know, I was already awake when you guys walked in," she said.

That's how special a day today was. Tomorrow? Krtek, get ready. It's showtime.

]]> True story http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/top-of-the-morning#c Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:38:14 +0200 <![CDATA[Culinary time travel]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/culinary-time-travel
Maybe this is the last year we all walk around carrying takeaway coffee cups, sipping our lattes, and using coffee shops as our offices away from our home offices. It doesn’t seem likely, but surely there must come a time when our nutritional habits have changed so much that even an idea of somebody eating on the run seems odd, let alone that they would carry hot, addictive liquids with them.

“Food is culture,” says Lotta Lundgren, a Swedish food writer, and one of the two stars of “Historieätarna”, a TV show about Swedish food - and culture - in different eras.

And since food is culture, it’s apt to change.

Back in the 1970s, people smoked in movie theaters, on airplanes, and in their offices. Not anymore.

Just like the 18th century Swedes probably never imagined food that would be cooked and served warm, there will be something that changes the way we eat, the way we live, and, then, like Bruce Springsteen sings in “Rosalita”: “We'll look back on this and it will all seem funny.”

Erik Haag is a Swedish writer, comedian and a TV personality who’s been a regular guest in Sweden’s living rooms since the 1990s. Lotta Lundgren took the country by storm some five years ago when the then-advertising copywriter started a food blog called “If I were your housewife.” The blog turned into a book and a career in TV. Lundgren is now working on another book about cooking, and food.

In 2012, Lundgren and her partner in crime, Erik Haag, spent a week in six different eras. They dressed they way people dressed then, they acted the way people did, and most importantly, they ate and drank the way people did. The six episodes were - on a timeline:

17th century, Sweden as a superpower
18th century, Freedom (freedom from absolute monarchy)
19th century, Oscarian time, after King Oscar II
1920s, the roaring 20s
1940s, the war years
1970s, the radical years

“The reason we chose these six eras was that we wanted them to be different from each other so that it would be good television. Every era has its story, but we wanted to contrast from going from the 19th century to the 1970s,” says Haag.

“It turned into a symphony,” he adds.

The production company had a meal historian on their research team, and he briefed the duo on the characteristics of the different eras. He showed them how and when different drinks and food had been consumed, and how quickly they also disappeared.

“Food says everything about that particular time, and we could potentially do something about every passing year,” says Haag.

For six weeks, Haag and Lundgren were human guinea pigs, trying to reach back and live the life of their ancestors, or other selves in another era, in an attempt to remind people of what Sweden was all about, and how Sweden has come to be what it is today.

“Everything creative has to have a starting point, something that you can hang other things onto. And with every endeavour you have to decide which stories to tell, and which not to tell. For us, in this show, food was the centerpiece. We began the story with food, and the rest came naturally,” says Haag.

While the show was light in its delivery, thanks to the chemistry between Haag and Lundgren and guest appearances from Swedish comedians, the backbone is in science, and documented facts. Haag and Lundgren wore period clothes, all episodes touched on religion, architecture, and the social norm issues as well, and they had experts who could tell them about the period’s politics, and customs, as dinner guests.

“There are a lot of recipe collections and cook books available, the first ones aimed at the masses date back to 18th century. Back then the upper class had servants to prepare their meal and women were dominant figures in Swedish households and that’s why the recipes are still with us,” says Lundgren.

Recipes for the show were found, for example, in Susanna Egerin’s cookbook from 1733 and Gustafva Björklund’s cookbook from 1847.

“I’ve wanted to do travel back in time since I was a boy and this experience comes as close as can be. So when we ate the soup made of a leather belt, it felt like a luxurious thing to do. I was privileged to get to do that. Somebody had researched everything, and then prepared the food. I remember the cook saying, tearing up, that some of those dishes hadn’t been cooked for 400 years, and will quite possibly never be cooked again,” Haag says.

Food is culture, and food is communication. What we eat and how we eat are who we are. Food is a part of our social code, which is probably why the 1960s science fiction vision of the future man consuming food in the form of pills hasn’t happened.

“Saying that food is fuel is like saying that sex is simply a matter of fertilization,” says Lundgren.

“I think the idea of food as fuel is an idea that was born in our time. I think about what I eat, and watch my carbohydrate intake, but I think there’s also a placebo effect. If I got something that has little carbohydrates, but was told it was loaded with carbs, I’d probably still think I could run longer,” says Haag.

For Lundgren, everything comes around to food. To her, food, and they way people eat, is a way to explain the world.

“Humans can’t eat certain things because we literally don’t have the stomach for it, but if you can digest it, you can eat it. There is no right or wrong, everything simply mirrors our time,” she says.

“Back in the 17th century, people were supposed to eat according to certain body fluids, and make sure they got food that warmed them and cooled them down and so on. There are people who say you should eat according to your blood group, which is silly, considering blood group is determined by just one gene out 20000-30000.

“But we all want to eat better than others. Food is culture, and food is close to religion, so we want to know that our religion is better than yours,” she says.

Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, even all the way up to the middle part of the 20th century, people ate so that they could work. Well, for one part of Sweden, food was important as a way to entertain their dignified guests, but for the masses, food was a matter of survival.

That became obvious for the history eaters as well.

“I think I asked at some point when the food would be served warm, and the answer was '19th century',” says Lundgren.

While there had been some sort of refrigeration machines in the 19th century - the first patent was given to Jacob Perkins in 1809 - it wasn’t until the 20th century that household models started to appear into the market.

“Food was always kept in room temperature, which meant cold rooms, and it wasn’t until the 19th century that the idea of warm food really became prevalent. That surprised me,” says Lundgren.

“I thought first that it was simply that food wasn’t an interesting part of people’s lives, that nutrition was the primary goal, and it was. Culinary experiences were a little too high on their hierarchy of needs. But not for the rich. They have always eaten well, with good spices and everything,” she adds.

Being suddenly thrown from the GI-indexed world into the 18th century is a shock to the system. But not as bad as one might (want) to think.

“We did get ill during the filming of the 19th century program, but I don’t know if it was the food or the fact that it’s mentally tough to work 14-hour shooting days,” says Lundgren.

While Haag and Lundgren didn’t undergo any medical studies during the filming of the series, Lundgren did keep an eye on her weight - as she says she always does.

“I gained weight during some weeks, and lost weight during others, but I wasn’t able to make link it to anything we ate,” she says.

“I think you can handle more than you think, and changing your diet just like that isn’t that bad. It’s not the body that is affected, it’s the mind. Getting out of your comfort zone happens fast when you don’t get to eat what you want,” adds Haag.

And not just that. There’s always the fact that the crew members do get to eat exactly what they want to.

“Well, it was tough to see the crew drink coffee when we were shooting the 17th century show, and there was no coffee available for us then,” Haag says, smiling.

The duo didn’t just eat the way people did in the different eras. They lived the life, and had small assignments to carry out. In the 1920s they were farmers, in the 1970s, Haag was a smoking journalist. They wore the corsets, the wigs, and the cotton long underwear with pride.

“I think they were extra tough on us during the 19th century show and I wasn’t allowed to eat without Erik. One day I basically didn’t get any food because he was running errands elsewhere,” says Lundgren.

“That was tough. I felt violated. So I supposed that was an authentic 19th century feeling, for a woman,” she adds and laughs.

Another part of was the drinking. Back in the 17th century, water wasn’t the drink of choice because there was no fresh water so people drank other beverages, like beer.

“It felt a little strange to start the day with a beer,” says Haag.

“We drank four, five liters of beer, and hard liquor and some nice wines. Warm beer worked just as well as coffee once you get used it,” adds Lundgren.

Every era had its surprises, and every era had its ups and downs.

“The 1970s were just a fun show to make because we could goof around, and be silly. And our parents recognized themselves in the characters.

“In the 19th century, we got porridge that was really bad. I don’t understand how people had the energy to work if that was what they ate. The 17th century was so exotic, it was so different from today that it might as well have been the Star Wars,” says Haag.

One pleasant surprise was finding the roots of Swedish food culture.

“The 18th century food comes back at certain intervals: At Christmas, midsummer. The drinks, the schnapps tables, those are ours. The rancid butter, the aged cheeses, the gravlax, all the dishes we’ve all eaten at every major holiday in Sweden comes from that era. That’s what midsummer and Christmas are supposed to taste,” says Lundgren.

“I’ve always raved about the Italian food tradition, so it was really great to go to the 18th century, and be served the alcohol and the starters, and realize that that’s our tradition. It felt really authentic – and it’s ours,” adds Haag.

Spreading that word was important to Haag and Lundgren.

“I work with food and with people who work with food, and even they didn’t know that that’s where the roots of our culinary history are. We may think husmanskost, our home-cooked meals - like meatballs and pyttipanna - are that, but that is actually a very modern invention,” says Lundgren.

“So it was nice to give people an intensive course on that,” she adds.

“It was a cultural good deed,” adds Haag, and practically finished Lundgren’s sentence, as they often do.

After their previous series, “Landet Brunsås”, “The brown sauce country”, they got angry messages from people who thought they were looking down on Swedish food.

“People didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that Sweden had been so poor. But, that’s a fact, and we can’t rewrite history,” says Lundgren.

Now that they’ve been to the 17th century, and back, they’d like to go back in time again.

“It’d be fun to go back as far as possible. The challenge is that we can only go back to documented time, where we know things have been a certain way for sure. Even the viking era would be difficult to recreate, and we’d have to guess a lot, but I think we could do that,” says Haag.

“There’s a company that has a sample of all the cultivated plants in Sweden and they can say whether the vikings ate this or that,” adds Lundgren.

Haag says there has been talk about a new series, and about a faster-paced one at that. However, he thinks the fact that they were the guinea pigs for a week - “it felt almost like a nature program” - helped them pass on the feeling of being in another time better.

“These days we could choose to eat anything, but we only eat a small part of what is available. Suddenly we got the opportunity to try something new, and in a way, leave our own personalities behind. It was like a vacation from myself,” says Lundgren.

“I recommend doing that,” adds Haag.

“Absolutely,” concludes Lundgren.

Original article published in TreeFree Food #3.
]]> Story archives http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/culinary-time-travel#c Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:05:41 +0200 <![CDATA[Small Things of Joy]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/small-things-of-joy
Fortunately, those three aren’t at the top of the list of cures in our household. Fortunately, because we haven’t been sick very often, and because I’m not sure how to use tar as medicine.

Anyway, at the first signs of a cold I turn to another holy trinity.

When I was ten, going on eleven and home from school, I was home alone. Well, with our dog and our TV. Our dog was great company, TV not as much since there was nothing on during daytime, and while we did have a video recorder, there were no movies on video yet. So I read, and chatted with the dog.

Some time during the day, Dad would come in to check up on me, and to make sure everything was fine. And with him, he’d always have orange soda, bananas, and a new comic book, most often a Donald Duck one.

That was enough to make me feel better, but just to be on the safe side, Dad sometimes also brought some chocolate. He’d get in, see that I was fine, and then go back to work.

One time, when I was ten, going on eleven, the soda and the comic book and the bananas got me up on my feet in no time, and I was lucky because the cross-country skiing world championships were on TV. I sat on the couch with a pad and a pencil, and two stopwatches on the coffee table, ready for me to take notes of the skiers split times as soon as the race got under way.

Juha Mieto was Finland's big hope and my favorite as well, simply because he didn’t wear gloves when he skied. I sat there cheering for Mieto, when I suddenly got a little hungry. We lived across the street from a grocery store so I decided to get something to eat. I immediately also decided what I’d get.

Lihapiirakka, the Finnish meat pie, a two-pack. I found some loose change in Dad’s jacket pockets and ran down to the store. That was our deal. If I needed something, I could check his pockets for change. For some reason, he always had some loose change in his jacket pockets. I still don’t know anybody else who keeps change in his pockets.

I held the coins in my pocket, and with the key on a string around my neck, skipped down the stairs. It didn’t feel right to watch cross-country skiing and then be out and about like that, when I was supposed to be sick, but I figured it’d only take me three minutes to run to the store, get the pies and run back.

I ran into the store, and picked up a two-pack from the fridge, and then ran to the checkout line. And there, in front of me was the mother of a classmate of mine.

“Busted,” I said to myself.

She placed her items on the belt, and as she put the basket down, she saw me.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” I said. “I live in the house over there and I just ran down to get some pies but I’m really sick so I should be at home and I will be in a second, but I just needed to get something to eat, because I have already eaten the food that my parents left me, and….”

“I see,” she said, and smiled. Then she paid for her groceries, and went home.

I ran home with my pies, and cursed myself for being so stupid, and so greedy and weak, because now my hunger for meat pies had got me into trouble. Now the word was out. Surely everybody would now think that I had skipped school to watch Juha Mieto.

I went to school the next day, but nobody said anything.

Now I’m a Dad with a son that’s ten, going on eleven, and who just happened to be sick today. Since I work from home, having a sick child at home doesn’t change things that much. Especially with a ten-year-old who can entertain himself with Minecraft and books and movies.

Things have changed.

However, there are some things I try to keep the same, so around noon, I left Son home alone to go the gym. I was going to be out for about an hour, and I knew Son was going to be fine, but I was happy not to run into anybody I know all the same.

On my way home, I thought of Son, and how he was big enough to be just fine home alone, like I had been. I decided to get him the magic medicine: the soda, bananas, and a comic book.

I knew we had raspberry soda in the fridge, and that Son would enjoy the pancakes I had promised to make him but I did need a comic book. I ran over the street, and hopped over the ditch, and ran into the gas station that was the closest store.

I picked up a Donald Duck from the stand, paid for it, and walked back towards the main street when I took a look at the cover. The name of the pocket book was “Small Things of Joy.”

And I thought it was perfect for the occasion.

So did Son.
]]> True story http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/small-things-of-joy#c Mon, 11 Mar 2013 23:59:17 +0200 <![CDATA[The one that got away]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-one-that-got-away
On my way out, I grab the one that matches my mood, if not always my clothes.

Nobody needs close to hundred baseball hats, of course. I didn’t want a hundred hats originally. All I wanted was one.

The one I really wanted was blue, and it had a mesh back, and a logo of a hockey team on the front. It was a logo I had never seen, but then again, I had only seen a few NHL logos, and the St. Louis Blues weren’t the hottest or the most iconic of teams around.

But that was the hat a schoolmate of mine had. He had bought it on his hockey team’s trip to the US, something I hadn’t even dreamed of. Sure, I knew other teams had traveled to tournaments, too, and even my team had been in Sweden for hockey, but the coolest thing we found was a popsicle with two sticks. (Which was very cool).

The hat haunted my mind. I wanted a baseball hat, too, and when I noticed a tiny classified ad in the paper, I persuaded my mother to order “a real baseball cap” for me. Unfortunately, while it was surely “ a real baseball cap,” it was also completely white, with no logos in the front, and even worse, no mesh in the back. It was just a hat.

About a year after that disaster, a friend of Dad’s happened to play in an exhibition game against the New York Rangers and I guess the Rangers gave hats to the opposing team players because one ended up in our household, and on my head.

I’ve collected hats ever since. I’ve walked miles and miles in rain in Rouen, France to find a store that sold hats with hockey logos. I’ve got lost in Vancouver trying to find the Canucks store. I have hats with NHL logos, I have hats with my name on them, hats with Swedish teams’ logos, and a hat with the Women’s Olympic Qualification tournament logo on them.

But as with many other things, I’m often reminded of the one that got away.

In the mid-1990s, one of my teammates was a guy who had moved from Finland to Sweden as a boy, then back to Finland to do his military service, and then fallen in love and stayed there. He was a proud Finn, and an even prouder Gothenburgian.

Every year, he’d take his family to Gothenburg to visit his parents, and to eat the world’s best pizza. One time, he came back from Sweden with a hat. For me. It was a red hat, with the word “FRÖLUNDA” in green letters in the front. It was a Frölunda Indians hat, all the way from Gothenburg, and it became my favorite hat.

Those days, my gym was at a big sports center, the venue for boxing, gymnastics, and weight lifting in the 1952 Olympics. There are still basketball courts, and dozens of young gymnasts practice there so the weights and the workout machines are scattered around the arena. My workout always ended in the second floor, where the leg curl machine was, and where I’d do sit-ups and stretch. Well, not as much stretch as lean against the railing and watch kids play basketball.

One evening, as I was leaving home, I couldn’t find my favorite hat anywhere, and after some serious thinking, I deducted that I must have left it hanging in a hook in the dressing room at the gym. While I wanted to stay carefully optimistic about the hat’s fate, I also quickly deducted that I might have lost it forever, and the next time I was at the gym, the man in the lost and found quickly confirmed my suspicions.

“What? A Swedish hockey hat? Nope, haven’t seen it,” he said, without even looking at me.

“That’s what I was afraid of, but … thanks, anyway,” I said and went to change into my gym gear.

About 45 minutes later, I was up in the second floor, doing sit-ups and stretching, when I saw a kid on the basketball court wearing a hat that looked very familiar to me. I waited until he got closer so I could see better. He sank a three-pointer, and when he picked up the ball, I saw “FRÖLUNDA” in green letters on his hat.

I stopped stretching and immediately walked to the stairs, skipped down, and took a left and a right and confronted the young boy who was two heads taller than me.

“Hey, nice hat,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“Where’d ya get it?”

“My cousin.”

“Oh yeah? From where?”

“Um, Sweden.”

“Where in Sweden?”

“Gothenburg, dude.”

I really thought he’d give it back to me once he realized that I was the hat’s obvious, real owner. Now the boy had passed my first three questions and had almost survived my inquisition. I had to nail him with my next one.

“I like it. Nice … nice colors. What does it say there … Frrööö…?,” I let the rest just hang in the air.

“Frölunda,” said the guy and bounced the basketball a couple of times. I could tell he was in a hurry to get away, but I had all the time in the world. All the time in the world. I smiled.

“Frölunda? What is that anyway?”

“It’s a hockey team,” he said and turned away.

“Oh…”

“I knew that,” I muttered.

As I walked to the dressing room, I watched him jog slowly to the other end of the court and make a layup, then adjust the Frölunda hat on his head.

On the top shelf in our basement, there’s a brown cardboard box with dozens of baseball hats in it, but no Frölunda hat.
]]> True story http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-one-that-got-away#c Thu, 7 Mar 2013 10:42:08 +0100 <![CDATA[He believes he can fly]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/he-believes-he-can-fly
I also thought it would be neat if all the streets in Helsinki would freeze over so I could just skate to school every day.

Yesterday, I went for a skate on a lake close to our house. I’ve been there before, of course, because it’s something of a must-see around here. Wife, who’s originally from the other side of the lake, took me there for the first time our first winter.

That time, I wore my hockey skates, and I may have even worn my hockey gloves, even though you can’t really play hockey on that pond. But, I was a hockey player so I brought my stick and gloves.

I know I had my stick, because on the home stretch of the shorter track, the three-kilometer one, after we had sat in the snow and drunk hot chocolate and eaten our sandwiches, Wife had some problems with her skates, while I was still going strong, or at least trying to look like it. So, I towed her back in. I held on to one end of the hockey stick, Wife the other, and I picked up speed. And then I picked up some more speed. And then some more - “I’ve never seen anyone skate that fast,” said Wife - and then … my skate got stuck in a hole in the ice, and I fell, and I pulled Wife down with me.

But we survived, and we’ve been back to the lake many times every winter.

That first time, I remember thinking that it was just like my dream of skating on the streets. There are two wide tracks on the lake making it look like a street. I remember the wind on my face, and how fast I seemed to go - and did, ask Wife - and how that must have been the way we were actually supposed to travel here in the North.

I had been looking at the other skaters jealously as they took one stride while I took four, but I simply took it as a challenge. Besides, I only skated around the shorter track anyway, and I could do three kilometers in my hockey skates any day of the week. But just as I always talk about running the New York City marathon, I kept talking about skating on lakes, and apparently somebody heard me because last Christmas, in 2011, that is, I got a set of long blades, and a thermos, from my brother-in-law.

And last weekend, while rummaging through some boxes in the basement, I noticed a pair of winter boots on the shelf, and decided to see if they would fit in the bindings on my blades. And they did. Off I went.

My first few strides are a little cautious. My winter boots, while continentally stylish - since I bought them in Vienna four years ago - don’t have the same ankle support as my hockey skates, which is actually the way I like it, it just took some getting used to.

I put my gloves on, adjust the backpack and take the first real strides, and by the time I reach the “start” sign, I’ve already adjusted my goal from skating around the short track to going for the full 14-kilometer lap. Double digits.

The track is empty so I have all the space in the world. I pick up speed and by the time I turn around at the nook of the lake, up towards the end, I'm flying. I listen to the sound of my blade cutting the ice, and the rhythm of my skating was in harmony with the rhythm of the talk in my earphones.

I feel the wind on my back, and I smile a little, until I realize I would have to skate against the wind on the home stretch. But I decide to worry about that when I get there. I step over and around a few big cracks on the ice, and then return to my steady rhythm as quickly as possible.

Left, right, left, right, crackle, right, the signs says two kilometers, left, right, left, right, left, right, then suddenly another sign marking three kilometers.

I feel like I’m actually traveling. I know that to get back home, I’m going to have to turn around, but I push that thought out of my mind again, and imagine going from one place to another because I have to get from here to there.

Everything around me is different shades of white, mixed with some light shades of blue, and in some places, although these spots are few and far between, the ice is black and I can see down to the depths of the lake, reminding me of the fact that I am indeed skating on a lake, not a Zamboni-flooded artificial ice that’s painted white.

This is real.

Then I feel the smell of yeast, and without the signs or Google Maps, I know exactly where I am. I’m at the yeast factory, and I think of Wife and her stories of her old classmate who declared in classroom that in a case of war Sollentuna would be a target for bombs, because of the yeast factory.

Just as I get to the turning point, I see a black dot in the horizon, and I assume it’s another skater. Even though I tell myself to just keep skating, and sticking to my rhythm, I accelerate and soon I’m a little out of breath, but I’m also just a few strides behind a man.

I pass him and I keep pushing a good while longer so that I get a nice distance between him and me, so that he wouldn’t think I passed him just to stick it to him. I glance behind me and see him a few hundred meters behind me so I stop skating and just raise my fist for a second or so.

12 kilometers says the sign, and the wind, my friend just a half an hour ago is now my enemy, blowing against me. I remember being ten years ago and walking to school in a snow storm, with the wind on my face, and how I then imagined being Prince Valiant, and I laugh at myself, and then I imagine being a messenger with an important letter in my backpack and I accelerate so I can deliver it on time.

The shorter track joins the longer track from the left and the two tracks merge into one, and right there the ice is soft. My blade gets caught in the slush and I ran a few steps across, and then keep skating. I can already see the red huts on the shore, and I now I decide to cut a few seconds from my time.

And I skate as fast as I can, and I zig zag a little to go around the many cracks, and when I get to about thirty meters from the Start sign, I let up, and glide towards the benches, blow my nose, and when I get to the bench, sit down.

I take off my blades, walk to our car, throw my blades in the trunk, and drive home.

It’s not a bumper car, and I’d rather skate home, but it's as close to my dream as it can get.
]]> True story http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/he-believes-he-can-fly#c Thu, 28 Feb 2013 19:38:52 +0100 <![CDATA[Frozen]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/frozen
I look down to my feet, and I see that I’ve managed to stomp a perfect square into the snow, and that makes me happy. I’d smile, but the muscles on my face won’t move anymore. I look out to the ice to see if Daughter is still skating around in circles. She is. I look at the clock at the other end of the field, and note that I still have seven minutes to go.

My fingers are cold now so I’m keeping my hands in fists inside my gloves. My toes are also cold, and I can’t wait to get to the car, when the blood starts to circulate in my toes again, and I get that tingling sensation in them.

I remember walking past the Royal Castle in a snow storm with Wife ten years ago, with my teeth chattering. She told me to relax instead

“If you’re freezing, you shouldn’t fight it, you should just relax,” she said.

I answered her with the sound of chattering teeth.

“It’s true, my sister told me that,” she insisted, and with both of them sisters now against me, I exhaled and relaxed.

And I exhale now, at the edge of this bandy field, and my shoulders drop. I see Daughter coming back towards me, following her coaches, and giving me a quick look. She does that to see if I’m watching, so I lift my left arm and give her a thumbs-up with the empty thumb of my glove.

She waves, and accelerates to catch up with the coach.

It doesn’t seem that long ago I was inside a hockey rink, wearing a hockey sock in my head, circling around an empty rink, shooting the puck to an empty net, then picking it up, shooting it against the boards, and skating to the other end to do the same.

We were supposed to have a hockey practice that day, but with the mercury dropping on the thermometer below our official minus-15 degrees Celsius limit, most of the other guys had either gone home, or had never showed up in the first place.

I had stayed for three reasons. One, I really liked to play and since I already was there, I figured I might as well go out and shoot some pucks. Second, it was the cool thing to do, and acted as a testament to my true love of the game — or at least that was the story the next day at school.

And third, I had to stay in case my fans showed up. They were there for most of our games, and practices, and sometimes after school, I’d see them sitting outside their apartment building close to my school, and I’d stop, and we’d talk, and I’d make them laugh, and then ride home feeling pretty good about myself.

It was so cold that after just a few minutes, my face was so frozen I couldn’t really talk anymore, because I couldn’t move my mouth. And then I saw the group of three young girls walk towards the rink, and the three of them stand there side by side, watching us goof around. I saw one of them make a small wave-like gesture to me, so I nodded slightly, then picked up the puck, and took a shot. I missed the net, and the puck hit the chicken wire behind the net, and disappeared inside a white cloud of puff as the puck hit the frost off the wire.

I skated towards the girls.

“No practice today. Optional, actually. Too cold,” I said.

“It sure is cold,” said the tallest one.

“Yup,” I said, turned around, and went back to shooting the puck.

They stayed there for twenty minutes, and then walked back to the rink cafeteria. I played some more and then went to the dressing room and peeled the skin off my ears.

I guess I should have known they’d make me stay at the hospital when they gave me a bath, but I was only five years old, so I didn’t know much about things like that, and the truth became obvious to me soon enough anyway.

The water flowed from the faucet, and the nurse was trying to make me sit.

“It’s too hot,” I said.

She turned the tape a little to make the water colder.

“Now,” she said.

I put my hand under the flowing water.

“Still too hot,” I said. “It’s hot.”

The nurse kept on turning off the hot water, and I kept on telling her the water was still too warm. It was too warm, I wanted it colder.

The nurse looked at my father with a puzzled look on her face. He looked at her and shrugged his shoulders.

“I don't know what to say," he said. "He does like the cold.”
]]> Based on true events http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/frozen#c Sat, 23 Feb 2013 19:52:54 +0100 <![CDATA[Awkward non-silence]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/awkward-non-silence
Decades later, when I was a single man living the single man’s life, it sometimes happened that on a Sunday afternoon, while watching a rerun of “Friends”, I realized that I hadn’t spoken with another person since Friday night when I had left the office.

Now, that didn’t mean that I hadn’t spoken at all, or opened my mouth one bit. I’d most likely been singing along classic 1980s hits, or laughing out loud - back then nobody LOLed - and speaking to the talking heads on TV, even arguing with them.

But also, I had been speaking just to myself. I used to hold speeches, in English and in French, mostly in English, on topics that ranged from post-game statements to the media to Oscar speeches to something I should have said to a client or a friend.

“Mais, mais, je.. Je…”

Yes, my French speeches were short.

I don’t talk in the car like I used to, and I recently discovered that I seem to talk to myself only in one specific instance these days: When I think back to something I’ve done, and conclude that it might have been embarrassing.

The other day, for example, I was in the kitchen making coffee and I thought back to an interview I made the week before during which I told the interview person that I happen to make the best lattes in Stockholm.

And as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I laughed a little, and started to mumble, and shake my head a little, and kept talking to this imaginary person, going through the process of making a real good cafe latte.

Most of the times, though, I just say something like “Oh, well” or “Now, wasn’t that something”, or, “But it’s true!” Sometimes I crack a joke, and then other times I may sing a little.

I actually sing a lot in the house. I’m not a great singer, which is why I only sing in the house, but in here, I like to sing. Anything can trigger a song in me. Son says he needs a name for his cartoon character, tentatively called “Square” so I suggest calling him “Hip” as .. in

I used to be a renegade, I used to fool around
But I couldn't take the punishment, and had to settle down
Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes I cut my hair
You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care
Because I can tell what's going on

It's hip to be a square

Mostly I do Finnish oldies, though, and we even play this as a game. Son and Daugher can throw words at me, and I’ll sing a song about that word. (If anyone knows a song in which “fork” is featured, let me know).

Last week, Son and Daughter and I were on the bus on our way home from school. Son was playing something on my iPad, Daughter had my “iPad mini mini”, my phone, that is, so all I had was the bus window and my thoughts.

And that’s when I thought about a comment I had made to another interview person - I never learn, do I - and it made me feel a little awkward, and this time my escape was a song. I belted out a Finnish classic about a silver moon, a song often sung in our house.

Of course, we were on the bus which made it an awkward moment and when I think about it now, I want to stand up and hold a speech. And that loop reminds me of that mirror tunnel.

I can’t believe I told you about the mirror tunnel.

How embarrassing.

IT’S HIP TO BE SQUARE!
]]> Random http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/awkward-non-silence#c Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:32:14 +0100 <![CDATA[Fasth goes mental]]> http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/fasth-goes-mental
He also had some mental changes to make.

Fasth told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter he once threw his goalie stick 17 rows into the crowd. When his former AIK goalie coach Stefan Persson tells the story, he stops at row 7 -- but you get the picture.

"When I was in my teens and got my first real goalie mask, our equipment manager told me once that the next time you break a stick on the crossbar, I'll take your mask and throw it to the ground," Fasth told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. "Somehow I remember that one."

He's better now, he said -- and it shows.

Working with mental coach Martin Blom, Fasth improved his approach. Persson points out another detail that makes Fasth a successful goalie.

Persson made a video of Fasth, showing just the moments when he turned his head and looked around during one game. The edit was four minutes long. He edited a similar video for AIK's new goalie, Daniel Larsson, at the beginning of this season. That edit was 22 seconds long.

"No other goalie moves his head as much as Fasth," Persson said. "Your eyes are key to everything. If you know where you are and where the other players are, you can then steer the defense and talk to the defensemen, and you don't have to guess when you make saves."

Every once in a while, Fasth has to return to the basics. That's when he works on angles, positioning, and getting up from the ice.

"He had some problems with the small [NHL] rink, but it was just a matter of adjusting things a little," Persson said.

How little? Four inches.

Though he could claim some, Persson won't take credit for Fasth's breakthrough in the NHL.

"Who came up with the flop in high jump, or the V-style in ski jumping? It wasn't a coach, it was an athlete," Persson said. "Viktor's so modest, and when you hear him praise the defense after a game, that's truly him. He also knows that when he has a bad day, he'll get their support."

But the goalie coach is surprised.

"Did I think he'd get to the NHL when he came to AIK? No."

Originally published here.
]]> Hockey http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/fasth-goes-mental#c Sat, 16 Feb 2013 10:54:54 +0100