I think the price just went up.

Two of the cutest moments of my World Championship have involved the same two people: Mikhail Grabovsky, and his father (and in the background probably father’s father, although that’s just my guesswork).

Continue reading →

This is actually copied and pasted from our IIHF World Championship blog, but it’s been a long day – only 12 hours at the rink today, though – and I have nothing left in my brain. So, I’ll do what I actually like doing best: I quote myself.

—-

QUEBEC CITY – “Hey,” he says, “what did you think about our line last night?”

He, Petri Skriko, former NHLer and a three-time World Championship player for Finland, flashes a very happy smile. As he should because “their line” was simply amazing the night before. The line is Russian’s Alexander Semin – Sergei Fedorov – Alexander Ovechkin, the “Washington line”.

Skriko is the Washington Capitals’ pro scout these days, and in Quebec City to scan the best of the international hockey before heading out to Halifax to check out the rest of the teams.

Ironically, when Skriko himself was drafted to the NHL – as 157th player, on round 8 – by the Vancouver Canucks, he was never scouted. By a pro scout, anyway.

“I had a teammate called Stu Ostlund on my team, SaiPa, in the Finnish league. He was finishing up his career and when he went back home after the season, he told the Canucks about me, and they just went ahead and picked me.

“The year after, I was elected tournament MVP in the World Juniors. When I then signed my first contract, the GM took me to his office and showed me a sign he had had made. On it, was my face and a text, ‘I AM A GENIUS’,” Skriko told me, laughing.

“Too bad he wasn’t there anymore when it was time to renegotiate my contract.”

Quebec is celebrating its 400th anniversary, so the city is preparing for a big party, with a lot of events. It’s a nice city, in all of its Frenchness, and what seems to be thousands of restaurants.

One of them is this crêperie. It’s a nice place, but not too pricey. At least if you believe the name. Non-Swedish speakers, click here.

Hockey fans of the world are making their way to Canada for the IIHF World Hockey Championship. I was sitting next to a German fan on the plane on my way to Quebec.

Stereotypes are based on something, and I now know whom the stereotype of Germans is based on. It’s a hockey fan with a long hard rock hair, leather pants, an oversized national team sweater, and a posse of five.

At the passport control, the immigration officer asked another German fan to delete the photos he had snapped a few seconds earlier. Unfortunately, the language barrier had no Checkpoint Charlie. Fortunately, he, too, had his posse close at hand, and everything was settled in a peaceful manner.

One of the people in the group then blurted, “don’t worry, he’s Finnish.”

Funny, I used to say my misbehaving friends were Swedes, until I married one.

From now on, they’re German.

Today, at the coffee shop, there was a lady in front of me getting a cup of coffee. She turned her purse upside down looking for small change, so that she wouldn’t have to charge her ice cream and coffee on her card.

I heard her mumble about having it in there somewhere, and told her that I had the ten krona she needed.

“I have it here, if you need it,” I said.

“No, no, I’ll just put it on the card,” she replied, and waved her VISA.

“Thanks, anyway,” she said.

“Sure,” I said, and put the coin back into my pocket.

It was probably the “if you need it” that did it.

Back in the rowdy 1990s, I worked at the Canadian Embassy in Helsinki, helping Canadian companies to find business partners in Finland. Sounds glamorous, I know. And it was. Oh, those forestry seminars in Brussels. I wish I could tell you about them but it’s still too early for that.

Anyway, working for Canada was great. They even made me an honorary Newfoundlander after I passed the initiation rite: drank screech and kissed a cod. In that order.

Can’t wait to see what it takes to become an honorary Quebecer (or Quebecois).

Here’s something to give us hope:

Watts figures, if you rewound the world to 1982, Madonna would likely remain a total unknown–and someone else would have slipped into her steel-tipped corset. “You cannot predict in advance whether a band gets this huge cascade of popularity, because the social network is liable to throw up almost any result,” he marvels.

So, keep your head down, your underwear on top of your clothes, and work hard. Maybe the word-of-mouth will make you a star.

Joe Pelletier, a Canadian hockey historian, the engine behind Hockey Book Reviews, Greatest Hockey Legends, and 1972SummitSeries.com and author of Legends of Team Canada and The World Cup Of Hockey recently reviewed Off The Post.

Each online posting is by itself, an experience to be enjoyed in the immediate moment. But when you pick out the best and put it into a book, Pakarinen’s contributions become an entertaining and thoughtful archive of the past couple of years. But it also offers so much more.

Read the entire review here, then check out the Off The Post site here. Get yours today!

In 1977, I bought my first LP. I took bus number 64 to downtown Helsinki and walked to the pharmacy slash record store across the street from the market. Now, I already had a bunch of tapes at home, but this was the first real record I bought.

It came down to two records: The Happy Days album “Fonzie’s favorites” and Elvis’s “The Rocking Days.” After a long deliberation, I chose Elvis. I mean, he was The King, and even if I didn’t know it then, he had the record for most number one hit singles on the Billboard 100 chart back then, 17.

Then, the Beatles topped him, and got 20.

And now, Mariah Carey stepped on Elvis’s blue suede shoes when she scored her 18th number one hit.

The Fonz writes children’s books. Heyyyy!