“The Finnish journalist rediscovers hockey on the radio.”

The entire column after the jump. This and more in Off The Post in the fall.

Meeting an old friend

I’ve found radio again. I know it’s so last century, with video clips coming to our screens and mobile phone displays, but we go back a long way. When I was about ten, I would guess that I only saw about ten games on TV every season. The rest I either saw at the rink or listened to on the radio. And when I wrote my own play-by-plays, I tried to imitate the radio style.

The most famous sportscaster in Finland in the 1970s was a radio personality, famous for his colorful style that often veered away from the events on ice. He might see a famous and familiar face in the stands and start riffing about him. For five minutes. In those five minutes he’d give his listeners the celebrity’s mini bio, starting from his shoe sizes.

For some reason, shoe size was his big thing.

His nickname was “Steam,” and I can only assume that it was because he was like an engine rushing through.

But what he was most famous for was his rapid fire, straight shooting, 5,000-words-a-minute style that, together with the fact that he was doing this in the Finnish staccato, made him synonymous with hockey in Finland.

He was so good, and colorful, and created such atmosphere and suspense in every game that we often turned off the sound on the television even when there was a game on, and listened to “Steam” instead.

Besides, there was always the odd chance that “Steam” – who played oldtimers’ hockey with my father – would mention dad’s name in some obscure context, like, “Harlamov is flying down the wing…like Eikka Pakarinen…but Harlamov still keeps the puck with him.”

And we’d laugh at home. “Steam,” what a guy. Who cared that he forgot to tell us what the score was, we could see it on TV.

I don’t even know when I stopped listening to hockey on the radio. It’s a shame, though, because radio can be a great way to enjoy a great game. Even better, radio can be a great way to enjoy a mediocre game.

It’s so intimate and even today, radio manages to create an illusion of traveling to places that are out of reach otherwise. So much of the game is left for my imagination that everything becomes magical again. The shots are a little harder, the saves a little flashier, the arenas darker, always packed, and the fights a little more…gentlemanly.

Now, that’s just me. For you, the image may be different.

And that’s the beauty of radio. It brings us a little magic.

Sometimes it’s better that way.