He was there

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I wasn’t surprised when Alpo Suhonen called me one fall morning two years ago, He often called me to talk about his new ideas – and there were a lot of them.

I was stunned, though, when he asked me if I’d be interested in writing his biography. After all, I had been the one who’d been urging him to write one for years, ever since I first heard his fantastic, and fantastical, stories while working on another book with him almost ten years ago. We were supposed to be working on his philosophy of coaching, but more than once or twice, I realized I was listening to Alpo tell me about his adventures, the places he’d been to, and the people he’d met. (The list is long and you’d know all the names, but let me just say “David Bowie”).

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IIHF: Jalonen eyes an Olympic surprise

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When a coach has won three IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship titles (2011, 2019, 2022), an Olympic gold medal (2022), and a World Juniors (2016), and led his homeland to the top of the IIHF World Ranking, you wouldn’t expect him to sign with a 20th-ranked national team competing in Division I Group A.

But that’s exactly what Finnish legend Jukka Jalonen did last summer when he signed a two-year contract with Italy, the host nation for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

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Curtain call

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In grade school, the last lesson of every Friday was reserved for organized goofing around. In other words, on Fridays, we had an hour to showcase our creativity, and most of the times, a few kids would tell jokes or maybe perform a sketch or two. Sometimes I was one of those kids with a short play or a sketch of my own.

It was important for me to be funny so whatever we put on, was always a comedy. Not that we always succeeded. Comedy’s hard, a lot of hit and miss.

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Learning by traveling

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I’m amazed by myself. But not in a good way. In recent years, I’ve come to realize how little I know about the world. Yes, a kind reader would interrupt me now and tell me that it’s just age doing its work, that it shows signs of great wisdom to see one’s fallacies and shortcomings. 

To which I would say, “thank you”, because even if I’m not always especially kind to myself, I do try to be kind to others. 

Unfortunately for me, such encouraging words never last long because I then turn around and talk to Son, a walking Wikipedia if I ever knew one. And should there be a page that needs updating, or has missing links, Daughter will surely patch things up with her knowledge. 

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Sweet eighteen?

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I like rules. I’ve always liked to know that there are rules and I expect everybody – I’m looking at you pushing a shopping cart on the streets – to follow them, even the unwritten ones. (Really, dude, it’s not your cart).

I like rules so much that I make up new rules for myself. These are rules that may have been inspired by other people, but they only apply to me.

Two of these rules have to do with how I speak of Son and Daughter – and no, there’s no rational reason behind them. One, I never call refer to them as “children”, “kids,” or even just “son” and “daughter”, except here on the old blog. The rule is to always include their name in the conversation.

I think it has to do with my being an only child. I never wanted to be just a kid. I always wanted to be Risto.

Funnily enough, the second rule has to do with the end of childhood. And the rule is never to call someone “an adult” or “a grownup” when they turn eighteen.

Never.

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I coulda been a contender

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Finland had a presidential election recently, and for the first time in my lifetime, the new President is younger than me, albeit only by a few months. The new head of state is also someone I’ve played hockey against when we were – both – pre-teens and teens. 

A few weeks ago, I was sitting across the table from his father, a prominent hockey executive, talking hockey for a book I’m working on. And since it was right in the middle of the campaign, the topic of presidency came up. 

“I’m sure he’ll win,” I said, while grabbing another Jaffa cake (which, for some reason, you can’t find in Sweden, but that’s another story).  

“We’ll see,” said the then-future Father of the President. 

“It could’ve been me.”

I didn’t say that out loud but I did think it. And then I took another Jaffa cake – because they were there. 

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Let’s take a cruise

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I once tried to estimate the number of times I’ve been on these ferries that traffic between Sweden and Finland. It’s almost like one of those questions you might expect to get at a Google job interview in which the right answer is less important than how you try to get there.

The first three – six, if you count return trips, and why wouldn’t you? – are pretty easy.

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The Tao of the Butabis

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A Night at the Roxbury opens with a shot of the Butabi brothers hitting the clubs, perfecting their dance moves and bopping their heads as they drive through the city, Haddaway’s “What Is Love” blasting in the background. 

Life is good, and the boys are feeling great, when suddenly, Doug hits the passenger’s side window with his head, smashing it into a thousand pieces. 

He looks at his brother, Steve, sheepishly. 

“I broke the window again,” he says then. 

That’s one of my all-time favourite movie lines, and also one that I quote frequently. Basically, every time I do something that is moderately stupid, but stupid enough to make me swear. 

I love how that one word adds another dimension to the story. Obviously, they’ve been at it before, and obviously, they haven’t learned anything. The “again” is such a clever way to convey to the viewers that these two guys are the opposite of clever.

But it doesn’t matter. They’re so happy together. 

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Shitty Beetles? Are they any good?

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For two years, I’ve been writing an 80s music newsletter with a friend of mine. Well, not just any of buddy of mine, but my very own musical advisor and a pop guru who introduced many artists to me back in the original 1980s. 

We named it after the Finnish title of St. Elmo’s Fire, the movie, and don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it. First of all, it’s in Finnish, and second of all, we’ve been very patiently waiting to get discovered, and have wanted to let that happen organically. Without marketing, that is. 

And for “research” purposes, I’ve also been reading or maybe re-reading the local paper from the 1980s, practically daily. (It started when I was writing Someday Jennifer in which the main character “travels” back in time). 

It’s been surprisingly uplifting.

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