COLOGNE – The hotel room is nice. Small, but nice, and the view over the Cologne cathedral to the left, and the hockey arena to the right keeps him focused.
“They’re my two cathedrals,” says Risto Pakarinen, a Finnish hockey reporter, in Cologne to cover the 2010 IIHF World Championship.
To the uninitiated, that means the hockey world championships.
Um, ice hockey.
Starting tomorrow, Mr. Pakarinen and his three IIHF.com writer and two photographer colleagues will cover all 56 games, ending in the final that will be played on May 23. By then, Mr. Pakarinen will have used every piece of clothing in his suitcase.
“Probably, yes. But most of it just once,” he says, sitting in an armchair, examining his media accreditation.
“Next year, I have to get a better photo. I’m not really that fat, am I? It’s the fisheye lens they have in them web cameras,” he says.
Outside his hotel, the euro could be crumbling, the Crown Princess of Sweden might break her engagement, and ABBA could announce a secret comeback, and he wouldn’t know.
Some 1408 kilometers northeast of the hotel, garbage cans were emptied today, because Mr. Pakarinen lifted them to the curb in the morning, but for the next 19 days, for him, days will have no names. He goes from game day to game day, in a haze.
He says he likes Germany. Or, the little he’s seen in a day. A tram, a McDonald’s, a hotel, and a hockey arena.
“I saw people offering free hugs to strangers in the old town. That’s nice, right?” he adds, and looks at his accreditation.
“And I get free food with this. That’s nice, too.”
