kyyrandi

A little under two years ago scored the goal that took Team Finland to World Championship Finals and made the whole country fall in love with him.


And now, last night he got his so very long awaited NHL deput, and scored his first career NHL goal. He's all grown up.

Discounting the first period the game was a really great watch all in all. The power play looks like it might have the potential to be really deadly, especially once the second line truly get's it going. Getting goals from three different lines was really promising and if someone was wondering if the chemistry with the Parise-Koivu-Heatley line would work out, I'd say based on the opening night performance, it's working just great.

Other highlights: Spurgeon and Brodziak getting assists, Granlund getting the second star of the game and the overall look of the penalty kill.
Here's to hoping that they keep at it in the same manner with the Stars. Koivu and Parise getting their first goals of the season would be nice. ;)


Meanwhile elsewhere on the league: Selänne opened up with 2 goals and 2 assists against the Canucks. Not bad for a 42 year old. If this is the stage of things to come, we might see him break 700 career goals this season. And that'd be so very very awesome indeed. 

 And one of them happens to work at a local theater. Which is how yesterday, I went and saw opera in person for the first time in my life. And I only had to pay one euro for the tickets, since it was a pre- opening night showing. The opera in question was Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio, which had been adapted and set to modern day Finland. I'm not in anyway a huge opera fan, but overall it was really fun experience.

Also, since the friend who had gotten us the tickets just had a birthday, we went out afterwards, just to play some pool and hang around. Can't even remember when's the last time I've had so much fun going out.



I keep meaning to write about all the things I'm looking forward about the upcoming NHL season, but then I get distracted by new videos and and articles and putting it off. (For all my complaining in the previous post, I am so very happy that there are once again actual hockey news to read.)

But here are some very jumbled thoughts on it:

A) Teemu Selänne cracking the top 10 career goals scored. Being that he only needs six goals for that, it shouldn't be an overly long wait, thankfully.

B) Granlund's first NHL goal. For everyone's sake I'm really hoping this comes as soon as possible. Saturday's game would be best. And not just because the kid deserves all the good things happening to him, but also because I can already see the way at least portions of Finnish media will make out like he is a bust with no future what so ever, if he hasn't scored by his fifth game. And then I'd be annoyed, because would it kill these people to have some patience! and all in all I'd just rather not.

C) Wild making the playoffs. No reason why they couldn't do it, as long as they stay at least somewhat healthy. Which leads me to..

D) Mikko Koivu having a full, injury-free season. Just, please hockey gods, make it so.

E) Seeing Crosby score and score. And then score some more. By the time I started watching the NHL last spring the Pens were already out of the playoffs. So all I've ever really seen of the wonder child is highlight reels, and while those are all well and good, I can't wait to finally see him in action for real.

and finally

F) Pekka Rinne having a career best, Vezina winning year. Not really holding my breath on this happening (not the Vezina at least), but one can always hope.



Been doodling around with some writing ideas once again. The Carter/Richards Second-trade-never-happened!AU is at a point where I have a complete plot outline for it. I think? I'd just need to decide just how depressing I want the ending to be.

And then there's the Koivu/Granlund fic i should get around to completing, especially now that those two are finally in the same continent and playing for the same team. Mostly my problems with that is, that on one hand, the fic I originally had planned is going to end up loooong, and I get frustrated with it and just want to jump right to the sex. But then on the other hand, every time I try and write any sex scenes with the paring I feel like a creeper, what with Granlund being the Official Little Brother of Finland.. So that's something I need to get over.

While on the subject of Koivu/Granlund, Mikko's first post-lockout interview on WildTV gave me so much feels. Talking about lockout being over and how exited everyone is and how it's good to be getting back to playing hockey? No facial expressions what so ever. Getting asked about Granlund? Instant smile. (Careful now, you're adoration is showing.)
(The vid in question.)

Also, if I've looked correctly, based on the interviews, Kyle Brodziak sits between Mikke and Mikko? Meaning that there should be a fic about how they are constantly hassling each other because of UST, and Brodziak, the innocent by-stander gets caught up in it, until one day he can't take it anymore and lock them in a closet (because locked in closet is a great trope and there can never be too much of it!). And then sex happens. But the hassling doesn't stop, if anything it gets even worse, and Brodziak despairs. Someone, please make this happen!


In not fic related writings, I've been thinking about a Barkov primer, because everyone should love him, and then thought that while I'm at it, I might as well do a primer on baby Finns in general. (And yes, it's because I want to gush about Salomäki, shut up. :D). So if anyone out there has any specific Finnish prospects in mind that they want to know more about, let me know.


Oh right, almost forgot, if there's someone out there lovely enough to to some betaing for me, I'd be so very very grateful. One of the reasons I've been stuck with my writing is that I get overly conscious of all the hang-ups of my second language english and having a beta would really help with that.


Finally, and also on the list of things I almost forgot: a very big welcome to all the new people on my friendslist!

.. Which I sometimes seem to forget.


First things first: I'm BAAAACK.  That is, I have a working computer again, and should once again be able to update at least somewhat regularly. And of course also, yey for NHL getting it's ass in the gear again. Still going to miss Demers though. Why oh why must he play for the Sharks?

Anyhoo, I can't wait to mess up my sleeping patterns by waking up at three am. / staying up until seven am. to watch games, right when I had managed to turn it around to something somewhat normal resembling. But more on the NHL some other day.


Because I went to watch my SM-Liiga team play on Thursday, and I have FEELINGS about the game and I need to get them out. But before I get to the game itself, here's watch been happening with them since I last updated. EVERYONE IS INJURED. That pretty much covers it. If I remember correctly, at the last count, we had I think six or seven forwards out, and as for our defense: since the start of this year we have been able to put six Ds in the roster in idek, one or two games? Rest of the time the whole has been plucked by playing one of our forwards, Joonas Komulainen, who isn't even 170cm in height, so yeah, really tiny, and also did I mention it a fucking FORWARD!

And then they're our goalies. As for them, the situation took a turn for the absurd right before christmas, when our backup got put on IR. Our starter had already been out for almost a month at that time. Meaning that the team didn't have a goalie, expect for a 17 year old junior, who has yet to play a single SM-Liiga game, and a third stringer on loan from the team at the bottom of the standings (who btw, could've gotten called back up by his team, since their start up goalie had been injured as well.)

So I guess you could say, that the last couple of weeks have been somewhat stressful. Luckily, the loaned goalie got to stay with us for as long as we needed him, and both of our own goalies returned to action this week. Still, the amount of bad luck this team has had is really getting out of hand.


But anyway, back to the game on Thursday. My boys won 3-0 after a game of not the worlds most skillful hockey ever. But then again, considering the amount of penalties as special situations in the game, (in total, the teams gathered 59 penalty minutes, 12 of which were for Kärpät.) Of the second period, just five minutes were five-on-five. Mostly the reason for it all being this situation:


Now, as a background, Ohtamaa, the Kärppä player who ends up getting pummeled to the ice, had hit Kantola, the Ilves player doing the pummeling, way back when in October and landed him on IR for more than a month, mostly because of bad luck. This was the first time the two players had met since.

At the time this incident happened the second period had been going on just over two minutes, and Kärpät were up by one. The result of if: Kantola earned himself 2+2+5+20 (hooking and tripping calls, if I remember correctly, a major for the fight, and automatic game misconduct because of it), meaning that his team had were killing off nine minutes of penalties, and were out their number one center. Who, btw, is currently on temporary suspension, while the disciplinary board makes their decision (meaning four or more games, any less and the league disciplinarian would've already ruled on it.) 

The level of stupidness: I'd say even trolls would be capable of more brain functions than Kantola at the time..


But somehow some people managed to be even more stupid.

Including yours truly, the truth be told, because I really should know better than to go anywhere near hockey message boards, when it comes to anything even remotely controversial happening on the ice.

But anyway, I did, and here's the problem I had with the tone of the conversation: a) What kind of crazy person thinks it's reasonable to be asking a person to get up and hit back when they are already down and someone keeps hitting them? Or that taking a defensive posture in that situation (which, btw, is as much about instincts as it anything else) is somehow cowardly?
b) Since when has it been a requirement for players to drop their gloves every single time someone asks them to? Kärpät were already playing with just five Ds, and had Ohtamaa taken Kantola up on the offer, they would've been down to four (and Komu, but let's not go there), since fighting means an automatic game misconduct in any situations in SM-Liiga. And seeing as how the game was 1-0, with 38 minutes left to play, why on earth would've Ohtamaa started fighting then? Or why should he have?

(Then there's the whole issue of how I much I despise the culture of feminizing players or actions that are viewed as non-desirable, and how that one of the biggest problems I have with hockey culture on general, but I'm trying to not get in to that any deeper right now, because if I did, this post would at least double in length.)

But any case, the rest of the game was enjoyable enough - mostly because yey, we won - but at the same time, it was once again a somewhat bittersweet reminder on how much it suck to cheer for a team when you only ever get to see them in away games. Which made me decide, that come playoff time, if Kärpät manage to make it, I'll be making a trip to Oulu to see them play at home, come hell or high water. Sure, it's over three hours in train, one way, and I'll have to spend close to a hundred euros, on just the travel alone, and also, I have no place to stay up there, but somehow, I'm going to make it work.


Also, for something completely different: the Doctor Who Christmas Special was damn near close to perfection and Clara has the potential of becoming the best Companion since Rose. More on that to follow, for now: Is it April yet?


Oh, and plus: I borrowed the Batman: Arkham City from a friend. So far I'm loving it.

Seems like I accidentally ended up taking a mini-hiatus from blogging. Mostly because life got kind of crazy  in a lot of ways. I had a mid to bad depression period and ended up missing school for a month, plus two weeks of sick leave, but now, thanks to some adjustments in my meds and also after re-structuring my life a bit, things are starting to look up a bit again.

I ended up not being able to change school, because the place I would've tried to get in didn't have any spots open, but I'm surprisingly fine with that. I talked things through in my current school, and we worked out a new class schedule for me, so my work load is much smaller until the christmas break, I have Wednesdays off completely and I'm also spending two days a week interning instead of going to school, which is something I've always preferred. Also, the internship place is really nice, it's a kitchen of a local old folks home, the staff is really great and since it's a pretty small place, it isn't super crazy busy all the time.

So assuming I can keep this up, I'd maybe be able to graduate sometime in the next fall, which while not ideal, as I originally it should've been next spring, is still better than what it seemed when things were at their worst. It also helps that I've really gotten a lot of my motivation back, the lack of which was a big factor in why I was struggling with school so much in the first place.

That said, I am planning on re-applying to schools in the spring also. I've already started prepping a little for the entrance exams for uni. I've wanted to study english and literature for so long, that at the very least I need to try and see if I have a shot at making it happen.


Finally, to the very best of things to have happened while I was busy not blogging: KÄRPÄT ARE NUMBER ONE IN SM-LIIGA STANDINGS!!! That hasn't happened since something like 2008! The team has completely transformed from the crap-fest that was the begging of the season to an actual contender. The goaltending has, as unlikely as that seemed just a few months ago, become top notch, and the team is just clicking. They have the least goals against, by a pretty nice margin at that, and are number two in goals scored! At this rate, we might even have a shot at a championship this spring!

And they've done this, even though the team keeps having injury problems. I think at this point, at least three or for players are or have been on IR because of concussions, plus a whole list of other injuries. Honestly, at this point it feels like trying to keep up with whose out with what is a wasted effort.

All of which leads to me continuing to feel conflicted about the lockout. Seeing as for all that I really want to see NHL being played sometime this season, just the thought of losing our lockout NHLers makes me sad. I actually have the confidence in the team, and I think they'd do just fine with out the NHLers, since a lot of other players have been stepping up and improving, and so losing them probably wouldn't lead to an immediate clusterfuck, but there's no denying that they make the team better.

Especially Demers, who I just can not gush enough about. He's just such a huge presence on our blue line, plays 25+ minutes night in, night out, is third in the team in points scored and second in plus/minus. He's arguably the best defenseman in the entire league right now. Not to mention that he seems to like being here, fits well with the team and all the other players always talk about how well liked he is in the locker room. He's even learning finnish!

Aand that's probably enough gushing for now. 

See this is why managing updates more regularly than twice a month is a good thing; so things that you've been thinking of posting about don't just pile up until you really don't even know where to begin.

I guess saying that I got a letter from the Tampere University Hospital a week ago is as good a place as any. I'll try to make a separate post about it at some point, because Feelings (so far, I've gone from exited to panicked and scared and then back to exited again), but anyway, the point is that after months of waiting, things are finally happening regarding the trans process, and I'll have my first appointment in less than two weeks and then another one in December. I've been waiting so long, that even that much progress makes it feel like everything has at least doubled in speed all of the sudden.

The first one is with a nurse and the second one with a social worker. Besides them, I'll meet with a psychiatric and a psychologist at least once before getting the diagnose. Could be I'm forgetting someone, and I'm pretty sure there's at least two appointments with the nurse and some one else as well. Hopefully that part will be done sometime before the next summer. Fun fact, transsexualism is the only condition diagnosed and treated as a mental disorder which requires the patient to prove themselves as being totally NOT crazy before getting treatment. :p



Bad camera phone quality is bad.

So last Thursday was kind of perfect by all accounts. Not only was it the day of the arrival of the previously mentioned letter, I also went to Tampere that day and me and a friend of mine went to watch one of the local teams host Kärpät. Full disclosure, this was my first time seeing a game life, for all that I've been literally watching hockey for as long as I can remember. (The very first game I have clear memories of watching is the '95 World Championship Final. I was five correction, since I can count for shit, seven, at the time; talk about growing up with unsupported expectations. It took me a really long time to realize that such things are a great novelty, when you cheer for Team Finland.)

So no surprise, my excitement levels were somewhere up there with "five year old on Christmas Eve" levels by the time we got to the rink. And god, I'd really forgotten the smell of freshly laid ice. I mean as far as winter sports in general and especially school went, skating was always my favorite (to be fair, considering the alternative was usually cross country skiing which I loath, it didn't take that much), and it's something I haven't done in years, but now I kind of want to, as soon as the public outdoor rinks open up.

Getting back to the game itself.. IDEK, I really enjoyed the experience and all, it's was a really nice, even game with lots of goals, but Kärpät ended up losing 4-3 on overtime, despite having a two goal lead for a period and a half. Mostly because of absolutely stupid penalties the team started taking from the end of the second period and onwards. In the end, our PK had to work through two five minute majors, and the second one was just too much (having one of our Ds plus our leading point scorer ejected from the game also didn't help).

Also, the game winning goal came with about a half a minute of the overtime left, so I was doubly pissed, because I'd sort of started hoping to see Jokinen in a shootout live. Since, if we couldn't win in in regulation, there should be at least some benefits, dammit.

But all in all, I really did enjoy the game, even if cheering for the away game did feel a bit awkward at times. Mostly because our seats were in the home team's end and so of course we were surrounded by their fans. Good thing hockey fans don't have the tendency of getting into brawls, unlike football, and also it not like it was a rivalry game or anything, so I think mostly people just ignored me for the most part. :D

So, definitely going to see them again the next time Kärpät are playing in Tampere. Too bad that isn't until over a month from now..

In other Kärpät news; Kärpät most certainly do NOT have a goalie problem, part I don't even know anymore: after playing a somewhat nice and solid game on saturday, our number one goalie was pulled out of the line up at the last minute yesterday. (Which, yeay, Kärpät won, but considering they were playing against a team who is yet to won a single game on regulation this season, and is the last in the standings, it doesn't say all that much about their performance.) Like, he was announced as being in the line up when the team skated on ice, late.

Turns out, he'd said he was feeling too dizzy to play, after the warm-ups. Because of TOO LOW BLOOD SUGAR. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't taking care of your diet so that such things wouldn't happen, umm, part of your job perhaps? Isn't avoiding things like this happening the reason you have nutritional plans and shit? I mean what even?

Really want to know who the hell came up with hiring this guy. I mean a Swedish goalie, who used to play for the Flyers. In what kind of twisted mind does that sound like a good idea?


Meanwhile in the real worlds, last weekend was a somewhat spooky/crazy one. I stayed in Tampere until Sunday, and while I was there, my hometown, and especially the nearby areas where hit by record flooding, mostly because of heavy rainfalls. I don't actually live anywhere near where the worst of it hit, and I already knew that, when I read about the whole thing online on Saturday, because the closes source of water is over a kilometer away from here.

But it was somewhat shocking all the same, possibly because it came so left field. I'm originally from way up north, and as far as possible natural catastrophes go, the only thing I've learned to regard as a less likely to ever effect my life in however small way, is an earthquake.

And then to top of it all, when I was heading back home on Sunday, a friend of mine called to say that there's been a fire in my apartment building. Since I'd left the cat home, I really freaked  about that one. Luckily everything was fine, the fire hadn't spread out of the one apartment it had started in, which wasn't anywhere near to mine. Although the cat did demand some extra attention and cuddles when I got home eventually, so I guess she got spooked by the sirens and all that.

I wonder what'll happen this weekend, since I'm not home again for that either..

But not to end this post with such a downer, here's perhaps the best song/music video about queer gender identity ever made:
Plus it's just a great song, in general.

Not that I'm happy about lockout or anything, but thanks to it, I'm once again exited for the SM-Liiga season and have hopes for my team actually even winning some games.

Because on Saturday, it sure didn't look like it. At that point, we had lost two of our top defensemen, before the season even started. One to "mild" concussion, and the official word has been that he'll return next week, for two weeks now, so in other words, who the hell knows when. The other needed leg surgery, and will be gone for four to six months. And then at the season opener our first line center got slashed on the wrist and will likely need surgery too, so no word yet on how long he'll be gone.

And then there's of course our goaltending which can be described as not good at best, and our coaching blows, and there aren't many good words that can be said about our management. Oh and lest I forget, there's the absolute horror show that is our power play. The season opener started with a five minute major, during which Kärpät managed a grand total of THREE SHOTS ON GOAL (!!) none of which had even a change of going past an actual competent goalie. In the second game of the season total of 23 power play minutes resulted in not a single goal.

Which, is kind of where we get to the root of the problem. Because Kärpät don't score. And then they don't score some more. In the two games played so far (both of which they've lost) they've totaled for three goals. And when you add all those problems on the ice to the ever growing injury list and the fact that our coach prefers keeping his head in the sand pretending nothing's wrong and our guys are battling great, then well. It sure looked like this will be a really bleak year for Kärppä fans.

And then the lockout happened, and as much as I hate that it did, I will grab any positive side effect it has on SM-Liiga and especially my team and run with them. Because the first SM-Liiga related news about the NHL player exodus was that Jussi Jokinen was coming to play for Kärpät starting Wednesday. I might've squealed when I first heard about that. Top six forward, who can play center? Why yes, that was exactly what we were in a desperate need of. And then it was reported that Jason Demers might be coming over to play for us as well, and what you know, our injury plagued defense got bolstered as well.

And suddenly I'm exited for hockey again. Also, I should have a chance to see them play live in three weeks, meaning that I'm pretty much like a kid on the day before christmas. Living 500 kilometers away from the team you support really sucks.

As for other lockout side effects, there's been talk that Selänne might come to play for Jokerit, should the lockout become a long one. I'm some what pessimistic about this happening, and somewhat hoping that it doesn't mostly because the sooner the lockout ends the better. But the latest What We've Learned on Puck Daddy changed my mind somewhat.

Reading about Northern American hockey fans lamenting about maybe not getting to see him play for one more time, made me think about the other side of that particular coin. How many finnish hockey fans have grown up hearing about how Selänne is the greatest finnish hockey player ever born? And just for how many seeing him play live if only just once in their life would be the greatest thing ever? North America has had him for nineteen years, would it really be such a great tragedy to give him back for a month?

Besides, Getzlaf still has some hair left so Selänne will be able to use those as a voodoo sacrifice next spring, meaning that he'll be back for the 2013-14 season.

I'm actually thinking about signing up for the hockeybigbang . Which, is really not something that I should do, since writing challenges always just make me choke up and panic and I end up unable to do anything, even in the cases where I already had a working draft to start with..

It's just I've been doodling with an idea for a Koivu/Granlund fic, which seems like it could end up being reasonably long and sort of perfect for a big bang. And also, the more people being exposed to the pairing the better. (Seriously, they're pretty much the Finnish version of Staal/Skinner pairing, so you know, age difference angst with some added moodiness. Also long-distance feels.. What more could you want?)

So maybe, for once, I could turn this into a motivation to write the god damn thing for real.

While on the subject of things that are crazy. Someone please tell me that trying to get someone to lend me a car for tomorrow so I could ride 200 kilometer just to watch an exhibition hockey game is not worth it. Especially when I really don't have the money for it. Not even to see Rinne in the grease.

For my prompt at the

hockeypediaprimerfest, I chose the LA Kings' incredible goaltender Jonathan Quick. For most part this will be a pretty straight forward vidspam, but before getting to that, let's take a brief look at his

( Career so far )

I can't believe this is actually done. I can't thank thefourthvine enough, for taking my jumbled second-language English and making something sensible out of it. None of this would make nearly as much sense as it does, if it wasn't for you. I really and truly could not have asked for a better beta.

Also, as a heads-up: this here is a very word heavy, possibly somewhat overly long primer. If you're just looking for a picspam, I'm sad to say that you're in the wrong place. Hopefully, it's still enjoyable regardless.

With that being said, let's get to it

..this however will not be it.

So Hillary Clinton is visiting Finland. A fact of which I was reminded hourly, at the least, while listening to the radio at work today. Mostly the whole thing was just stupidly over covered by every single Finnish media outlet possible but there was the one moment of utter hilarity, of reading about how our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Erkki Tuomioja, who looks like a overly nice sixty year old grandpa, while actually being a really sharp minded far-left wing politician and social activist, gave Clinton a Finnish designer bag as a present. Exactly the same one, that he has himself, expect in different color.

I'm not usually one to go for gender stereotypes, since they're usually wrong and just make life harder, but just the public image that Tuomioja has as a no-nonsense, hard-ass, makes the image of him buying and using what's essentially women's accessory all kinds of hilarious. And also awesome.


There's an article on NHL.com about the big questions of this years free agency, and part of it had to do with speculation about Ryan Suter and Shea Weber in which one of the points was that they might both of them want to re-sign with the Predators, so they could stay there with Pekka Rinne. I know it's kind of a thing for d-men to develop in to inseparable duos / married guys (yes, Duncs and Seabsie, I am talking about you) but since when have goalies been part of the equation. Of course, at this point my mind went to the gutter where it's natural habitat is, and came up with all sorts of reasons why all three of them would want to play on the same team. Hockey reporters, PLEASE STOP GIVING ME PLOT BUNNIES!

Everyone should go and watch Joffrey Lupul cover the NHL awards for Yahoo! Sport. For one thing, hockey players being awkward on camera will never not be cute and awesome.

Talking with Bettman and making bad jokes, which is refusing to embed so have a link instead.

Also, as a side note, I'm still not over how ridiculously attractive voice Lupul has.

The Saga of Canucks Goalie Problems continues. If something doesn't happen soon about it, I'm going to start breaking in hives. With the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up starting the season with no goalie at all. HAVING TWO GREAT GOALIES SHOULD NOT BE A LEGIT PROBLEM, YOU GUYS!