Go [team]!

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Risto

As I type this, every once in a while I catch a glimpse of something orange hovering over my keyboard. It’s the plastic bracelet with the New York Mets’ logo on it, together with their slogan, “Ya gotta believe!” I’ve been wearing it around my wrist for two weeks now.

I’ve been trying to become a fan for years. A fan of … anything, really, but mostly a team of some non-hockey sports team. My method has aways been the same: I first make up my mind about the sport, then go about deciding which team to choose – then buy that team’s fan merchandise.

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An open letter to people on the 3 train

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Risto

Dear co-rider,

In the spirit of John Lennon, a one-time New Yorker, I say: yes, yes is the answer. “Yes” is the answer to the question on everybody’s minds earlier today: “Do you smell something weird?” And “yes” is the answer to the question, “is that short fella standing in the middle of the car the source of said smell?”

So I say to all of you, yes, yes I did smell something weird, and yes, the smell seemed to be coming off that man –– and yes, I was that man.

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Give me your tired, your poor

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Risto

My first trip to New York City was a 30-hour layover on my way from Montreal, Canada to Helsinki, Finland. I had been at a sports fair in Canada, and had somehow managed to convince my boss that it was a good idea for me to travel through JFK, and, well, did it really matter if I stayed there for three hours or thirty? He didn’t think it did.

That’s how I arrived in New York City late on a Friday night. I was going to stay at a friend’s place in New York, and not only had he welcomed me to his home, he had also arranged for a driver to greet me at the airport.

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Finland’s love affair with Donald Duck

Posted on July 13, 2013 by Risto

One recent late night, when I should have been writing, and was instead scrolling up and down my Facebook page, I saw the status of an acquaintance of mine – a Formula One reporter on Finnish TV – in which he wrote: “Heard that a version of my name may have been used in the Donald Duck magazine. Can anybody confirm that?”

A couple of days later, I asked him if he’d heard anything. He hadn’t. Then I asked him why he had asked that.

“It’d be a great honor to be featured in the Donald Duck magazine,” he said.

We go back a long way. This is the oldest toy I have left.

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Smalltown, Finland

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Risto

The gulls have taken over the market square. They’re everywhere, feasting on the remains of the day on the ground. There’s peas, strawberries, cloudberries, potatoes, Vietnamese food, pancakes. Donuts. Or parts of them, tiny parts of them.

The market square, the heart of the city, is now asleep. One of the cafés on the square has closed for the day, their red chairs stacked up outside their little house a sure sign of it, leaving nothing for interpretation. The other one is only half-full, when just two hours earlier they both had been packed and people had shuffled the chairs in new constellations as everybody wanted to fit under the shade.

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Ma MacGyver

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Risto

One of the things I remember best from my time in the business school is how our law professor, who apparently was very famous in Finland, told the packed classroom that “a lawyer’s best friend is the telephone.”

Now, I’m no lawyer, but I always thought it was a clever thing to say, and I’ve always remembered it. Especially when I’ve had car trouble.

I know nothing about cars, so my best friend has been the phone. Most often the call has been placed to a person I like to call “Dad”. The car doesn’t start? Dad walks me through it.

“OK, give it gas, reeeeeally pump some gas, and then turn the ignition,” he’d say.

There’s a weird noise? Dad knew the cause.

Oh, and if the car still wouldn’t start? Dad always knows a guy who can come and tow me.

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Tarasov’s life lessons

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Risto

When I heard – or most likely read – somebody talk about the “five-hole” for the first time, I had no idea what it meant. I knew it was a hockey term, and I did know it was the goalie’s weak spot, but since the five-hole isn’t called “five-hole” in Finnish, I had to figure it out on my own.

And to me, the goalie’s weak spot number five was not between his legs, but instead, next to the post on the [left-catching] goalie’s glove side.

Not top shelf, and not under the glove, either, either, but next to the post, just stroking it on the way in. Top shelf was number 4, a low shot to the glove-side number 6. I had those numbers memorized, because I had seen a photo in a book, and the caption under it said that “scientific research has revealed goaltenders’ weak spots.” It even says, “hard shots to spot number five are difficult to stop even if the goalie has a quick glove hand.”

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The Tale of The Four-Eyed Medicine Man

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Risto

The Tale of the Four-Eyed Medicine Man
By John H. Watson (MD)

What I am about to tell you is a true story, and the fact that I am here to re-tell it to you, is sufficient proof of its authenticity if a gentleman’s word isn’t enough.

As my practice has dwindled away in recent years, and with a gold-digger of a daughter-in-law circling around my humble house like a vulture, I have decided to do what I vowed I would never do. It is with a very heart I reach deep, deep, deep down to my archives, and dust off the last remaining stories I have buried there.

While I dislike bringing too much attention to myself, bear in mind that I do this only for financial gain, so pray send me a pound or two upon finishing these tales. After all, memories of Holmes are all I’ve got.

Yes, Sherlock Holmes.

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The flipside of ‘Miracle’

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Risto

In 1977, after Boris Kulagin coached the Soviet Union to a World Championship silver medal for the second year in a row, he was relieved of his duties as the bench boss, and a new boss was called in. Viktor Tikhonov, a Moscow native, and a former Moscow Dynamo defenseman, rode back into his home town to take over the Red Army team, and the national team, which was practically the same thing.

By then, Kharlamov was 29, and one of the veteran players on the team. He was a two-time Olympic champion, and a six-time World Champion, and a national hero. None of that mattered to Tikhonov, already famous for his discipline and tough love towards his players.

Or, at least, tough something.

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The Discoverers

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Risto

Wife looked at me, and raised her eyebrows.

“You gotta do what you gotta do. There’s no other way,” I said.

“You’re right,” she said, got back on her bike, and kept on riding through the overgrown grass and some bushes. We were discovering things, and nobody said it would be easy.

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