What an atmosphere!

Canada's six-year yearning for world hockey supremacy ended on Sunday, May 11, with a thrilling overtime goal by Anson Carter (New York Rangers).

Canada snatched the victory from Sweden with three unanswered goals. Carter picked up his own rebound to slide the puck underneath the pads of Swedish goalie Mikael Tellqvist (who incidentally plays for the St. John's Maple Leafs, the farm team of the Toronto Maple Leafs).

For those of us watching (here in Finland and in Canada) the television replay indicated a goal – while the ref had to go to video replay. We poor fans watching the game on the big screen at the main train station in Helsinki were feeling pretty stressed! It was a whole lot of fun – and we were just as stressed as Andy Murray looked when Carter scored!

The whole bunch of us was chanting "goal, goal, goal" –
much to the chagrin of the Swedish fans there. With the point of the hand to centre ice, Canadian (and some Finnish) jubilation was mirrored by Swedish dejection. All of us fans gathered at the tent at the train station knew the game could have gone either way! We stood on the picnic tables and sang our national anthem in celebration.

We continued our celebration long into the night. Some Finns even came along at one point and sang the national anthem to us in a bar! We also met some Swedish fans and chatted the night away with them.

For those of us Canadians who are living here in Finland, this was a great opportunity to meet a whole lot of new people from all over Europe. There is a mailing list in Yahoo! groups called "Canadians living in Finland", and over the last few weeks we have seen an increase in membership by Finns and Canadians alike – no doubt thanks to the bond of hockey!

Finland has been good to Canada in terms of hockey – the last time Canada won the gold medal at the World Championships was in 1997, when Finland last hosted the championships.

Canada went undefeated in the tournament, they won seven games and tied one – no doubt all Danes are celebrating their TIE with the World Champions! This was almost as good as the Olympics.

Next year's championships will be held in the Czech Republic, April 24 - May 9, 2004. For those fans who want a taste of NHL hockey here in Finland, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be in Helsinki on September 24, 2003 to play an exhibition game against Jokerit at the Hartwall Areena. Tickets are available from Lippupalvelu.

By Carmen Boudreau-Kiviaho