Experiences of Atom B1 Hosting a Team From Finland!

Dec 26 – Jan 01, 2012.

 

What a great experience for our 9 – 10 year old boys and their families to host a peewee team of 10-11 year olds.  A team of 15 boys was hosted by families residing in Almonte, Pakenham and Clayton. 

Espoo, Finland is a metropolitan area of Helsinki, its capital.

The APMHA Atom B1 team cheered on the Finland boys as proud families do.  On several occasions strangers would ask if the APMHA fans we were from Finland because we were cheering so hard.  Finland Flags and friendship pins were purchased so our home team could show our support.  The Finnish team was very appreciative of all our enthusiasm.

During the Bell Capital Cup our own Almonte Pakenham Atom B1 team played well, tying Athens Aero’s 2-2, Beating Ottawa Centre Ice Storm 9-2, and losing a tight game to Rockland Nats 3-2.  We were very proud of our boys.

Espoo played and defeated, Gananoque Islander 4-2, Cumberland Jr Grads 5-0 and then American team Syracuse Blazers 1-0.  They then proceeded to the Quarter Finals against Barrie Colts where they out played them the first two periods but in the third, Barrie Colts had an advantage of a couple penalties to put them ahead 4-2.  Espoo boys were very sad but held their heads up high as they raised their sticks to the fans to thank all the Finnish and Canadian Fans.

There was not a whole lot of down time between the hockey games but when there was a few hours of fun they spent it playing mini-sticks, road-hockey, tobogganing, snowmobiling, or the shopping mall.

A few outings with the Finland team included, Ottawa Senators game Dec 30 where we all travelled together from Almonte to Kanata by bus.  The boys all had a great time bonding.  At the start of the Senators Game one of our players, Kurtis Dunham was the Flag Carrier and during the period our Espoo Finland goalie, Riku Tuomi was part of a shoot-out competition.

On New Year’s Eve, the Espoo Finland boys played in the Quarter Final at the Sensplex, unfortunately they were defeated but they afterwards joined fans & family upstairs at the Stanley Cup Grill pizza and social.

Meal times were always fun!  The Finnish boys were not familiar with some of our traditional foods like chili or maple syrup on pancakes.  One of our boys said “my heart almost stopped” when he ate maple syrup.  

Amazingly these Finnish boys all spoke English fairly well or if they did not they were coupled up with another boy whom did.  Each family hosted 2 Finnish boys.  For many of them, they spoke Finnish, Swedish and were learning English in school.  One of our boys did not speak English well, but by the end of the stay he was attempting to speak English and was saying “yes” to everything, which was entertaining.

All of the families became very attached to the visiting Espoo team.  One of our moms, when her billeted boys scored, she would shout “that’s my boy”.  This was noted by the Finnish coaches which made them feel very much part of our families.  

On the last day, the two teams participated in a fun game where the coaches mixed the two teams so the Finnish Billeting boys could play with their Billeting Almonte player.   Afterwards was a pizza party for the kids and social for the parents.

Once the families said farewell to the boys there were many sad boys and parents from Almonte & Pakenham.  Our son Brendan often asked “what would Daniel and Antoon being doing now?” with Finland being 7 hours ahead of us.

After leaving Ottawa, the Finnish Families continued their Canadian tour to Toronto and Niagara Falls.

For our team, it was an experience of a life time.  The families are all now in touch sharing photos and stories on Facebook and email.  Some families are making plans to visit Finland in the future.

This is an experience we will never forget!

Sharon Ryan