The day of (Finnish) music

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Risto

The other day, as Son and Daughter and I were at the subway station, waiting for a train, Daugher told me that it was true, there was actually a place called Korvatunturi (Ear Mountain) in Finland.

“Did you know that?” she asked me.

I told her I did.

She didn’t say it, but something else was implied in her question and remark. The fact that if the grown-ups kept telling her that Santa Claus lives at Korvatunturi in Finland – and at least one grown-up in her life does – and if there is such a place for real, then there must be something to this Santa business.

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Top 10 list

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Risto

Top ten things that tell you that you may be dealing with a Finn:

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Watch this

Posted on November 29, 2014 by Risto

My father was in Turkey on a vacation a few weeks ago. Last week, he paid a visit to us and on our way back from the airport, he rolled up his left sleeve and showed me his watch.

“Got myself a new watch in Turkey,” he said.

“Oh yeah? Ten bucks?” I asked him.

“No, no, this is a real watch. A lot more than that,” he said, and added after pause, “but not three figures.”

“Looks nice.”

“I looked it up online, a watch like this is worth 8000 euro –when it’s a real Breitling. But really, who buys a watch worth 8000 euro?”

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And this one’s for you

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Risto

If a song was written in 1904, is it a traditional folk song? Maybe not, but I didn’t care because I was in fourth grade, and I didn’t know the song was written in 1904, or that a version of it had been in an early 1960s Finnish movie. Our teacher had probably picked that one to make our music class a little more contemporary.

It didn’t, but I didn’t care. I just loved singing the song.

I sat in the front row, as I often did, being a small kid. The big kids could see from behind a smaller one, but us shorties wouldn’t have seen anything sitting behind a big, we were told, so I sat in the front row even in music class, even though it didn’t really matter there.

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This is how I role (model)

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Risto

Shortly after Son was born, in the middle of the greyest time of the year in Helsinki, Finland, my mother asked me if I ‘d ever thought that I wouldn’t have kids at all. She was holding him in her arms and Wife and I were getting ready for our first night out without the baby – “Finding Nemo”, a long story, will tell later – so I quickly just told her I hadn’t – because that was the truth.

It’s just that I hadn’t thought about having kids, either. I simply didn’t think much. When I was a teenager, and my buddies talked about their dream cars and dream girls, I sat in the sidelines, listening, because I didn’t have either.

And yet, somehow I ended up with my dream car – turns out it was a Volvo V50 – and the dreamiest of my dream girls, Wife. And with her, our dream children.

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Foppa, Sudden, and me

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Risto

When I moved to Sweden in 1998, I stayed the first week in an apartment that belonged to a friend of friend, before moving into another apartment that I rented from a future colleague. Well, she was already a colleague, but only for a few days. My first week there, I didn’t have any furniture so I spent my nights lying on a borrowed mattress in the kitchen, reading under the kitchen hood light.

No surprise then, that I didn’t have the right cable package to watch the hockey World Championships three weeks later, although I did have electricity and a couch at home. I followed the tournament in the papers, and did watch half of one game in a bar with another new colleague of mine, but didn’t see the final games between Sweden and Finland.

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University of Hockey

Posted on October 11, 2014 by Risto

TORONTO – OMNI Television is offering new Canadians the opportunity to create their own hockey traditions with “Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi Edition”, “Your Hockey” weekly segments, and “Hockey 101” …[that answers] basic questions that many new fans may be too afraid to ask, such as “What is icing?” and “What is holding?”
– Rogers media release, September 24, 2014

Dear student of hockey,

Welcome to Hockey 101! We’re thrilled to tell you that you have been accepted into the OMNI program in which we’ll study the game of hockey, and look for answers to questions you may have been too afraid to ask.

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Nice guy

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Risto

I don’t think I had seen a homeless person until I was in my twenties. I must have been aware of the people walking around, sitting on park benches, but those were mostly referred to as people who were down and out, maybe just as “drunks”.

I remember the uproar when the streets of Helsinki were wiped clean of such individuals before the CSCE meetings in Helsinki and I remember reading the daily political cartoons in the paper, and there was one recurring character who represented these people.

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My guru’s back

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Risto

Decades ago, I found it fascinating to hear my grandmother talk about things that had happened decades ago. I was always fascinated by the fact that she could even remember things that had happened so long ago. Well, here we are, and I’m about to tell you a story that begins, as you guessed, decades ago.

So … decades ago … when I was a schoolboy, there was no Facebook or Twitter, or Amazon, which meant that all the recommendations of cool things to read and do, and listen to, came from my friends. One friend knew all about the coolest comics, another was in charge of sports teams, and a third one was a reader.

And then, a fourth one, Mika – name not changed – was my house guru for music. He was perfect, because he didn’t just introduce me to new music, or old music for that matter, but when he did, he put it into context. Speaking with him was like speaking with a music critic. Not only did he know that Bruce Springsteen was the Boss, he knew why he was the Boss, and why he should also be the boss of me.

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Unbreakable

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Risto

When Saku Koivu, 39, announced his retirement from hockey on Wednesday, with a statement from the NHLPA, it truly marked the end of an era.

He’s the boy wonder of the late 1980s and early 1990s who turned into Team Finland’s leader and captain of the early 21st century, only to take a step back in the last few years of his career into the role of an elderly statesman.

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