Me, revisited

So I went to a place called “Olympics” and the next thing I know, three weeks just flashed by. I hope you had your “risto+pakarinen” Google alerts on, and caught at least some of my stuff on IIHF.com during the games and the Games.

Like this blog entry, about an event of which I wrote here earlier.

Pekka meets the press.

TURNING THE TABLES

February 25 / Risto Pakarinen

Coaches don’t get medals in the Olympics, even in hockey, a sport where the coach is somewhat relevant. At times. But Pekka Hämäläinen, head coach of Finland’s women’s hockey team, was all smiles after the bronze medal game. The memory, the experience, the overtime win, nobody can takes those away from him.

Some 29 years ago, Hämäläinen was the star defenceman of JoKP, a team in my howetown at the time. Back then, the only pro players in the world were in the NHL, and Finnish players still actually “turned pro” when they left the country. Some were carpenters, some were students, or “students”. Pekka Hämäläinen was the part-time editor-in-chief of an advertorial distributed to every household in the city. It had TV listings, a lot of classified ads, and couple of sports stories.

One of them was the “Player of the Week”, which usually featured Hämäläinen’s teammates.

Except one week, early in the 1981-1982 season, when that player was me. We had hosted a junior tournament in the city, and done pretty well, so they picked me. Or he did.

The interview took place in my father’s office in an appliance store downtown. Pekka sat in the big chair behind a desk, and I, 13 years old, sat down on the other side. Pekka asked, I answered. The basic format was very simple, more than an interview, or a story, it was a fact box about the player in question so I knew what was coming.

I caught Pekka by surprise today when I returned the favor by posing the same questions back to him. Ready? All you need to know about the bronze medal coach:

Name: Pekka Hämäläinen
Born: July 19, 1953 in Joensuu, Finland (note: At home in Mutalantie 19, not in a hospital, he added.)
Position: Defenceman / coach
Favorite food: Pepper steak
Favorite drink: “With that, red wine”.
Favorite music: Rock’n’roll
(Note here: I had practiced my answers, so I told him I listened to all kinds of music. He stopped writing, looked at me, and asked, “classical, too?” I said no, and he said, “I’ll just put down ‘pop’.” Pekka really did say rock’n’roll, though.)
Worst opponent: Myself
Goal: To win gold in Sochi.

Above is Pekka. No photo of a 13-year-old me available. I’m sorry.

Not really.
– – – – –
That was the official IIHF blog entry, but for you, my dear reader here, I will give you the full story. Below you WILL find the photo of me at 13, and the actual story as it ran in the paper. Turns out I forgot a couple of questions. The color of his eyes, and what is most fun in life.

My answers: blue, and hockey and friends.

The blue-eyed boy.

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