He was there

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

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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IIHF: Not the usual route for Finns’ parade

The Finnish national team is no 1960s and ‘70s Montreal Canadiens, yet, but with three gold medals in four straight finals – three Worlds and one Olympic final – the citizens of Finland know well how to celebrate a hockey championship.

Maybe all too well.

The cities of Helsinki and Tampere build plywood walls around their landmark fountains and statues to protect them from the celebratory gestures, such as climbing on top of them.

That didn’t help as the walls came down and the fans went up.

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Even Hockey Can’t Offer Escape

It’s difficult to focus on hockey when missiles are flying in Europe, not unimaginably far from where I’m sitting and typing this. And yet, all I want to do is think of hockey, hoping that the game will, once again, offer me refuge from the grim realities outside the rink.

Then again, all through my lifetime, hockey has been at the center of political attention, a venue for proxy fights and battles, from the 1969 World Championship, relocated from Czechoslovakia to Sweden due to the Soviet invasion of the original host country – and then the Czechs and Slovaks beating the the Soviets twice in the tournament – to the 1972 Summit Series to the Canada Cups to the 1980 Olympics and the Miracle on Ice all the way to the IIHF relocating the 2021 Worlds from Belarus.

There’s no escape.

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Jalonen, Finland check one more box

Finns love a lot of things – sauna, for example – but right at the top of the list there’s hockey, and then there’s sticking it to the man and sometimes the stars are aligned in a way that brings their two loves together. The Beijing Olympics men’s final was one such event when the Finnish Lions downed ROC 2-1, claiming the nation’s first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey.

With Finland currently a giant of the game, it’s hard to imagine a time when the men’s team didn’t make the final of big tournaments in regular intervals.

About 45 per cent of the population are too young – born in 1983 or later – to remember the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary where Finland beat the Soviets, 2-1. Back then, the win was enough to give Finns the silver medals, behind the Soviet Union but ahead of Sweden (and sticking it to the Swedes is also on the list of things Finns love).

And about a third of the current population either wasn’t born or they hadn’t turned five in 1995, when Finland won their first World Championship, in Sweden.

There’s at least a generation of Finns who never felt the truly bitter sting of disappointment.

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History will be made

When Dre Barone takes the ice next Wednesday in Laval, it may be a small step for him but it’s a leap for hockey culture. Barone will be the first openly gay male official in an AHL game.

In fact, he’s the only openly gay male hockey participant in a pro league. For now anyway.

For Barone, Wednesday’s game between the Laval Rocket and the Manitoba Moose marks both a comeback and a step up. After hundreds of games in the ECHL and the Southern Professional Hockey League, he feels he’s now ready for the American Hockey League.

“The ECHL is still a one-ref league, the highest pro level league not to have gone to the two-ref system. Fitness is not a problem and since I live in Canada, I’ve been able to find places to skate. I was also at the NHL Officiating Combine in August so I feel prepared,” Barone says.

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End of an Era

Back in March 1965, Urho Kekkonen, the President of Finland, officially declared the hockey world championships opened from a brand new presidential box in the brand new Hakametsä arena in Tampere.

Finland had been up as host of the 1963 Worlds but with no indoor rink in the country, and no government commitment for one either, the Finns agreed to back Sweden’s bid. There were more-than-vague plans to build an arena in Helsinki, and a delegation from Tampere had visited the 1962 Worlds in Colorado Springs on an expedition.

In the end, Tampere beat Helsinki by a year, and hence, Kekkonen made the 200-kilometre trip from Helsinki to open the tournament and watch the opening game, which alone tells a 21st century reader how the world has changed.

It was Czechoslovakia v East Germany.

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Home away from home

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled to Finland for the first time in 350 days and went up to the newly renovated Helsinki Olympic Stadium and its tower to see the sights.

The view is fantastic – the best in town – regardless of whether you look out south, toward downtown or east toward the swimming pool that was the venue for the 1952 Olympic water sports.

My favourite is the one to the north, toward my home away from home, the Helsinki rink. Built in 1966, the second indoor rink in the country, it’s never really even needed a name. Except “The Rink”.

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Rock! Rock! (Till The Puck Drops)

When the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Vancouver Canucks in the 2009 Western Conference Semifinal, Mats Sundin sat on the bench and hummed along “Chelsea Dagger,” the Hawks’ goal song.

Maybe it was the sudden shock of his realizing that not only was the Canucks’ playoff run over, so was his career.

Or maybe “Chelsea Dagger” is simply a hell of a catchy song.

“Music is such a big part of hockey games that music has been played at games even during the pandemic when there have been no fans in the stands,” says Kaj Ahlsved, a Finnish researcher who wrote his PhD thesis at Åbo Akademi’s musicology department on music in sports events. Hockey was one of the sports he studied.

“You can’t think of a hockey game without music,” he told Hockey Wanderlüst over Zoom.

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Meet Sweden’s #1 Skills Coach

Last week, in the Maple Leafs game against the Oilers, William Nylander carried the puck into the offensive zone. At the hash marks, he made a quick turn to shake Ryan Nugent-Hopkins off his back, and passed the puck to Jake Muzzin who fired a shot from the point. Nylander followed the play and tied the game with a slap shot from the slot.

It’s a move Nylander does often. He makes a quick turn to win time for himself.

“Turns and winning time” was also the topic of Joachim Ahlgren Bloom’s recent presentation at Global Skills Showcase, organized by the NHL Coaches Association’s partner Coaches’ Site. They went looking for the best skill development coaches in the game and of the original 250 nominees, twenty were invited to make a presentation.

Ahlgren Bloom, 47, was the only skills development coach from Sweden to get the invitation.

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