The other day, a friend of mine tweeted something about his childhood in Oshawa, Ontario. While I knew that he was Canadian, and may have been aware of the fact that he was from “Toronto”, I never knew he was from Oshawa.

Not that it mattered to me, but I replied to him, and said that you learn something new every day.

I often tell Son and Daughter that you learn something every day. Just the other day Son was a one-boy audience to a medium-long speech that Herb Brooks would have been jealous of, on the importance of practice, and learning by doing. Yesterday, when Daughter and I hung out at the rink, she worked on her math skills by tying to figure out how much time was left on the clock.

“Well, a bandy game lasts 90 minutes, and now they’ve played 86 .. so…,” I’d say, and she would be quiet for a while, and then deliver her answer with a big smile.

Sometimes, though, we learn something when things go wrong.

Continue reading →

My first real soccer shirt was a yellow, short-sleeved shirt with a small crest on the chest, with a stylized G in the middle of it. G for Gnistan, or “spark”. The day I got my first real soccer shirt was the biggest day of my life, until I got my first real hockey sweater.

The hockey sweater was dark green and had the word “KERHO” – “club” in Finnish – diagonally across the chest.

And the year after that, I got a sweater with real advertisement on it, a career highlight.

Continue reading →

The young, dark-haired man behind the desk at the gym said something to me and whatever it was, he was being passionate about it, that much I knew. He was smiling, and pounding his chest, and pointing at me. I’m reasonably good at lip reading, but that time, I was confused.

Usually, he just takes my card, swipes it, and gives it back to me, so I often keep my earphones in my ears, smile politely, and keep walking.

But, this time, he was still holding onto my card and talking, so I scratched my head a little, and like a great magician, discreetly pulled the earphone out without him noticing.

Continue reading →

I don’t know why I remember that particular line, but I do, and I think it’s funny. I think it’s funny that I remember it, and I think it’s a funny line. Maybe I remember it because I caught myself by surprise with my witty answer. It was almost as if I didn’t realize what I had said until I heard the words come out of my mouth.

Continue reading →

About 15 years ago, I spent New Year’s Eve with my best friend at my place. It was a nice place, in a Helsinki suburb, a ten-minute train ride from downtown Helsinki. We made some food, we called up another buddy to come over – he did, briefly – and we danced to the Doors.

“You know what my mother said when I told her about us hanging out at New Year’s?” my buddy asked me.

I had no idea.

“She said that she felt bad for us, ‘two miserable bachelors, alone at New Year’s’,” he added, and we laughed.

Continue reading →

My parents were in their early twenties when I was born, even if I didn’t know it then, and to be honest, I didn’t much think about it even as I grew up to understand it. In fact, when my best friend asked the seven-year-old me how old my parents were, I said I didn’t know.

“My mother’s 35,” he announced.

“Huh. I think mine’s 35, too,” I said, and then we continued our football match.

My mother was 28 at the time.

Continue reading →

1. When he was just three apples high, like the Smurfs, one of Son’s favorite places to go to was the local park, because there were animals. Some sheep, some horses, some rabbits, some chicken. And a big rooster. Sometimes we took sandwiches with us, other times we bought some cookies or hotdogs there.
This was one of the other times.
Son got a hotdog in his hand, and he stood there on the park bench, quietly enjoying his hot dog, looking around. At one point, when he was looking around, the rooster snuck up on him, and snatched the hot dog out of his tiny hand.
Early lesson to parents. Son can hold a grudge. We don’t like roosters much anymore.

Continue reading →

Somebody stole my bike. My trusty sidekick, my ride, my wheels, my friend. Gone. It was so sudden, and so unexpected. I had ridden it to the mall, just a kilometer from our house, and left it at the almost-usual-spot. I usually parked my bike next to the hotel bikes, but since there were only a few bikes closer to the main door, I decided to leave it there.

I went, got changed, walked around the gym, and walked out 35 minutes later.

And just twenty minutes later, I had gone through all five stages of grief.

Continue reading →

“They get paid for that? It’s their job? I want that job!” – Daughter, having heard that you have to buy a ticket to a hockey game so that the clubs can pay the players’ salaries.

I can understand that she didn’t know the players were pros but it had never occurred to me that Daughter wouldn’t know you had to pay to go to a game. Then again, kids think different.

Continue reading →