Nörds Ice Hockey

Hey Readers,

Alex and I at the Arena Photo Credit: Aleksina Seppä

Yesterday, April 7, 2018, I was looking for something to do. I checked the Visit Rovaniemi website and I found out that there was a Ice Hockey tournament at Lappi Areena for the weekend. It was called Nörds on Ice 2018. A free event to attend but the level of hockey was not obvious. I read that it was just forbidden to be a player in the 3-division and upper tiers of the Finnish Hockey Leagues.


The tournament was a two day event that started Friday Night (which I did not attend, as I did not know about it), I attended some of the games in the afternoon on Saturday. The games were 45 minutes long, and at the end players of the game were announced. There was a no slap-shots and body-checks rule on the tournament, which made the talent of the players shine through. A few of the teams were from Rovaniemi while others were from Helsinki and Oulu.

HockIt Beta vs Fortinet
HockIt from Rovaniemi Won 5-1
Photo Credit: Danielle Gadsby

In the end the defending champions HC Tieto from Oulu won the tournament again. This did not surprise me since the earlier game of theirs I watched they won against one of the Rovaniemi HockIt teams 13-2. HC Tieto was a team of only 11 players while other teams had 15-20 players. With only 11 players that allowed them two full lines and a goalie, not a lot of time for rest between shifts but their endurance for the 45minutes allowed them to dominate the tournament.

I was happy to be able to watch this, though there weren't a lot of spectators at the arena (I believe lack of advertising was the problem). I hope to keep my eyes peeled for more things like this here in the city. It was a afternoon of quick and eventful games.

Stay tuned for another blog coming soon as Saturday April 14th I will be going to Ranua Zoo. I am hoping to see the polar bear and its baby from last year (won't be much of a baby now). It was the second baby polar bear born in a Zoo in Finland that has survived.

Bye for now...