Author Archives: Risto

IIHF.com: Pain is so close to pleasure

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And here’s my latest on IIHF.com.

The other race, the one that has people losing sleep, sweating through nights, having nightmares, acting absentminded, and losing their hair is the one that has two teams playing in a qualification series with the best teams in the Allsvenskan, the league one tier below the Elite League. And that’s just the fans. What the players, coaches, and team managers are feeling is probably worse.

That’s the Yin. The “shady place.”

Click here to read the whole piece.

Edit: And here’s the song I quote in the piece.

I’m a lover, not a fighter

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Today, I suddenly realized that I didn’t become a pilot, a policeman, or a pro hockey player like I thought when I was a kid. Didn’t become a rich businessman like I thought when I was in business school. Didn’t even become a media consultant like I was told to say to clients when I switched careers for the first time.

I’m a writer. This is what I do.

Even on a Sunday.

Be happy

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Moderated a roundtable discussion today, the topic being work atmosphere at a Swedish company. By the end of it, I asked the participants to give some pointers to the readers (in the same company across the world) on how one person can make the atmosphere better for everybody.

“Just be happy and stay positive,” said the first.

“Yeah, I say the same,” said the rest.

So easy. To forget.

Go, go, go!

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The fans were cheering loudly, they were singing and chanting, and clapping, and waving their flags. For about ten minutes, they chanted something that sounded like this:

“YOAOAOYEACAMENASARKEYYAAVIYEACAMENA!”

A young man next to me was quietly chanting along, clapping his hands with the rest of them. I finally asked him, “What are they chanting, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” he said.