By John Nauright
Finland are the World Champions of ice hockey yet they have fewer registered hockey players than the Province of Alberta in Canada and a lot fewer than the USA or Canada as a whole. They beat their arch-rivals Sweden 6-1 in the final this year to win which made it even sweeter for them. This week we visited the youth hockey club here in Jyvaskyla and the JYP Club, the professional team who plays in the top Finnish League (their local NHL). We learned about how young kids have several pathways to play that allow them to pursue a top level career or just to play for fun from the time they are six or seven years up well into adulthood. Some succeed at the highest levels. When we were at JYP it coincided with the press conference announcing that their star 19 year old defenseman, Sami Vatanen, had agreed to a contract with the Anaheim Ducks in the NHL, becoming the fifth Finnish player to be signed by the team. The students and I met Sami and were able to view his press conference as well as to tour the arena and learn about the operations of one of Finland's leading ice hockey clubs. Sami will play one more season for JYP and then join the Ducks. Keep an eye out for this young player who has already won many awards for excellence in his young career. He is small for a defenseman but he is lightning quick.
We have learned that the Finnish league is a strong one, but that a number of top players go on to play in the KHL (most teams are in Russia) or the NHL. We also learned that the Finnish clubs do better when a player signs with the Russian-dominated KHL than when a player signs with the NHL. JYP is a success story in the Finnish league despite losing a player or two here and there to the larger international leagues. They play in a state-of-the-art small arena by North American standards. It is the smallest in the Finnish League seating nearly 4,700 however there is not a bad seat in the house and everyone feels close to the action. They sell well over 80% of capacity in season tickets in a city of 130,000 which is not too bad at all. Like Canada, Finland's leading sport in ice hockey in terms of attendance, professional organization, and sponsorship income.
The current world champions will co-host the 2012 World Ice Hockey Championships next May playing the opening rounds at home in Helsinki in a group that includes the USA and Canada. It should be an awesome atmosphere and some of our students will be able to be there and work and research on the event in partnership with the Finland School of Sport Business. The Ducks will be opening their regular season in the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki on Friday October 7th against the Buffalo Sabres, just prior to that on the 4th they will play Finnish club Jokerit, the former club of Teemu Selanne. On the 8th the Ducks will play in Stockholm, Sweden against the New York Rangers.
Hockey is becoming more and more of a global sport and Finland is a small but important nation in international ice hockey circles. Some people in the USA may have forgotten that it was Finland that the "Miracle on Ice" team defeated for the gold medal in Lake Placid in 1980 and Finland is always a team to beat in the Olympics and of course in the World Championships. You may not know too much about Finland and hockey unless you follow the NHL or Olympic hockey but their success should come as no surprise once you see how well organized their hockey development programs and clubs are and how they feed both into the professional teams and into opportunities for playing hockey for fun throughout life. Congratulations to Sami Vatanen and to the local clubs here who nurtured his talent.
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