Thursday 2nd October 2008 will long be remembered as one of Helsinki’s greatest sporting days. In the decades to come, grey haired old men and women will sit their grandchildren on their knee and recount with warmth the events of this blustery cold day, for this is the day that an ice hockey team represented by a furry, water-loving animal, flew from afar to our capital city. Yes they talk a strange language, but this is a team packed with stars, with household names that trip over the tongue, and they’ve come to show their silky skills to Helsinki’s finest. There’s talk of making this a more regular fixture, but for the moment this one match is all we have to savour. Yes folks, it’s HIFK versus Kärpät, that clash of the titans. Sadly, Nelonen have made a navigational error and taken their cameras to Jaffa where there’s some kind of sideshow going on.
Jokerit 1-4 Penguins (0-2)(0-0)(1-2)
Well, the TV’s a bit different: the clock counts down instead of up, there’s a hell of a lot of commercials and even the pyjama men no longer look like they’re on their way to fetch a milky drink. What is the world coming to? Answer: some money-spinning exercise. An exhibition match by billing, and an exhibition match was what we got. Jokerit had their moments, but for elongated periods were completely outclassed by a Penguins team that frequently didn’t need to sweat too much. Faster in thought and deed, and better organised and more skillful, they gave the impression they could have ratcheted up a far bigger victory had they really put their minds to it. Two goals in the first period for the visitors through Malkin’s not quite hit right shot from the blue line which Riksman nevertheless completely lost, and then at the death of the period via Fedotenko’s close range shot, taken quickly and efficiently while three defenders stood around inefficiently, admiring his handiwork. Lahti pulled one back in the third with a penalty shot and then, shortly afterwards, rattled the pipework, but Kennedy and Dupuis then gave the scoreboard a more realistic look.
So what did we get out of it? Well, for the doubters there was confirmation of the gulf in class between the NHL and Europe, for the Penguins a final shake down before things start in earnest which they doubtless put to good use, for the unwashed the chance to see a top flight game (albeit minus a large slice of commitment) without having to pay, and for Jokerit?
3.10.2008 at 0:48 |
And also the chance for many Finns to see NHL stars such as Crosby and Malkin live in action.
I see no harm in such an exhibition match.
3.10.2008 at 7:23 |
Agreed entirely, no harm at all.
3.10.2008 at 14:47 |
[...] Helsinki’s BIG NightThursday 2nd October 2008 will long be remembered as one of Helsinki’s greatest sporting days. In the decades to come, grey haired old men and women will sit their grandchildren on their knee and recount with warmth the events of this … [...]
5.10.2008 at 19:22 |
Were Jokerit going all out?
Were the Penguins?
I’m not sure the gulf in class is as big as you make it seem, particularly if the games were played on Euro-sized rinks and called by Euro referees.
6.10.2008 at 8:25 |
Morning ursus and thanks for the comment, your opinions are always welcome. No, of course neither team was flat out, for that to happen there would need to be some significance to the result and in this case there wasn’t. Perhaps I’m misreading your last sentence, but surely being in an unfamiliar environment (apparently they were in Finland a total of 7 hours, going straight from the airport to the stadium, warming up, playing, showering, post-match pleasantries and then back to the airport) and overcoming it in the manner the Penguins did, adds to the difference in class. On top of that, the Penguins were still in their pre-season matches and still fine-tuning the balance of the team, whereas Jokerit were half a dozen games into the season and had better reason to be both match fit and match sharp. My impression of the game was that the Penguins were able to control most of it without unduly exerting themselves, Jokerit, on the other hand, having to work much harder to contain their opponents. Had both teams gone to flat out then I’m very firmly of the opinion that the Penguins margin of victory could have been substantially more than three goals. What that equates to in terms of difference in class is, of course, debatable. I was basing my opinion on not just the result but also on the manner of the victory. My choice of “gulf” is probably at the provocative end of things, but terms such as “sizeable” or “substantial” would not be.
6.10.2008 at 12:50 |
Thanks Muuk; I hadn’t realised that they had been in Helsinki for such a short time (and assumed that they would be less “game ready” than Jokerit).
Part of what I was trying to get at was that I’m not sure that evidence supporting a substantial gap between Pittsburgh and Jokerit necessarily equates to a gap of equivalent size between the NHL and the best teams in Europe. The Penguins are clearly one of the best teams in the NHL (with two of the brightest young stars in the whole league); I don’t think that anyone would say that Jokerit has an equivalent position in Finland. And yet, if you look at the Victoria Cup results (the Rangers, who aren’t close to being as good as Pittsburgh, trouncing Bern and then beating Mettalurg) it may well be that the gulf is still there.
7.10.2008 at 10:10 |
Entirely fair comment of yours ursus, about extrapolating from two teams to their corresponding leagues. Rather than saying “confirmation of the gulf in class…” better wording would have been “further evidence of the gulf in class…”. In the terms you describe the Penguins then you’re right that Jokerit don’t hold a similar position in Finland. In fact, I would say that no team in Finland holds such a position. Looking at it slightly differently, I viewed the two teams in their respective leagues as similar in that both are amongst the strongest. In Jokerit’s case they are indisputably the most consistent power in ice hockey in the whole time I’ve lived here. The only team to come close would be Tappara. While a meaningful comparison between two leagues can only be done when there are regular competitive matches between teams from the two, I could see many aspects of the Penguins play — in a game where they didn’t really have to — that I consider to be some margin superior to the regular fare on offer here. However, I wasn’t making judgement on a single game. AHL games I’ve seen on the box seem to be a little bit better standard than SM-liiga; certainly many AHL players have little difficulty in estblishing themselves as leading players in many leading clubs around Europe. Finns, on the other hand, are rather thin on the ground in the NHL at the moment. None of this is conclusive, of course, but there is consistent evidence all in the same direction.
Apologies for the somewhat disjointed reply; lots of interruptions and the usual shortage of time.
7.10.2008 at 12:41 |
Doesn’t seem disjointed to be at all. We both have busy lives.
As you know, it’s a topic that I have been extremely interested ever since the European influx to the NHL became significant, and one (as you note) that can be discussed endlessly but only really settled on the ice.
You are also much better placed than I am to have a view, as all we have access to here in Italy are the occasional international tournament (which tends to overstate the quality of the European leagues as a whole), the local league (which is increasingly marginal and not even of Junior A standard), and episodic trips to Switzerland (a league that I enjoy and wish we could see televised).
The Jokerit/Penguins comparison is also interesting for me, because while their profiles outside of their respective countries may be similarly high, their recent financial histories are anything but. The Penguins have been effectively bankrupt for much of the recent past (Lemieux’s ownership stake was granted in lieu of salary they couldn’t pay him) and came within a whisker of being moved out of Pittsburgh as recently as two years ago. Crosby and Malkin are likely to change all that, as long as they stay there.