World Champs done and dusted

So the IIHF World Championships have concluded and the champions have been crowned in Yevgeni Malkin… I mean Russia. Russia was the dominant team throughout the tournament and perhaps no player was as dominant as Malkin. Where Russia won, I thought it’s play wasn’t harmonious and at times it was disjointed, but thanks to strong individual players who WANT to play, game-play mistakes are easy to overcome.  Apart from Russia’s championship, I think the story of the games has been Slovakia. Last year in Bratislava, the games ended in tears when the Slovakian team ended up outside the medal games. Where as a Habs fan it might sound weird me saying this, but the gesture from Zdeno Chara after the game was classy. Wearing Pavol Demitra’s jersey to the medal ceremony was a really classy move.

 

Demitra undoubtedly was the Slovaks’ sixth player on the ice in each of their games. Causes like these are great to rally behind that can carry a team a long way. Demitra, who is a legend in Slovakian hockey, lost his life in the tragic plane accident that claimed the entire Yaroslav Lokomotiv team in September.

 

First off, let’s review the tickets, that have been talked about in the press and on my blog in great extent. From that point of view, it has been one of the most embarrassing World Championships I can remember. Watching the games via YouTube (I’ll get to that later) saw empty arenas in nearly all of the games in Helsinki and it wasn’t that great across the pond in Stockholm. I honestly think that the organisers of the games failed big time. Comparing to the games hosted in Slovakia last year, the TV coverage that I saw showed that the tournament was well publicised in the host towns, but judging by what I’ve seen on videos, there hasn’t really been that much in terms of visibility in Helsinki or Stockholm. Even one of the Russian players went on to say that these were the worst World Championships that he has played in.

 

Furthermore, a bit of an embarrasement, the organisers now have to get advice from Edmonton who arranged the World U-20 championships recently. Finland and Sweden aren’t exactly new to the hockey thing so it is embarrassing to say the least that they have to get help on how to make everything work. The scary prospect is that the two countries and the same organisers are in charge of arranging next years’ tournament as well. Hooray for another year of empty arenas and overpriced… well… overpriced EVERYTHING (€7 for a “pint”).

 

I do hope that the Finnish Ice Hockey Association is true to its word and guides the profits directly to junior development. It is in the grass roots where hockey has to be nurtured and talents developed. Additionally, though I know hockey isn’t the cheapest of sports to play, the Finns need to attract kids to start playing hockey as well and the sport shouldn’t be for the privileged, neither as a hobby or as a spectator sport.

 

But anyways, what did the games leave us with? Well there were some interesting games, who would have thought that one of the best round robin games was between France and Kazakhstan. In fact during round robin, it was the ‘smaller’ countries that provided more entertainment than any other game in the schedule, except maybe apart from USA vs Canada.

 

Speaking of Canada, I know my post about the Canadian team antics was read quite a few times, but I realised that the point that didn’t come across properly in it was the fact that I don’t have a problem with players going out during the tournament, it happens and as players we’ve all been there and done it. However, it was more the outburst that caught my attention. Other teams were seen in Helsinki nightlife and conducted themselves appropriately. Granted it was only a onetime thing and I guess the reason why Getzlaf’s and Perry’s exploits were followed closely is because the Ducks have been under a magnifying glass in Finland because of one Teemu Selanne. But let by gones be by gones and all that jazz. I could say many colourful things of what I think of Getzlaf as a captain of a team, but I will only say, I feel sorry for Saku Koivu and Teemu Selanne.

 

For me personally, the low point of the games was when the IIHF pulled the live YouTube broadcasts, hence why I reduced the amount of ‘ink’ and space I gave the IIHF.

 

That is something unheard of in sports broadcasting and I’m sure the IIHF has had a huge backlash from people all over the world. I had numerous conversations on Twitter and Facebook about the decision to pull the feeds and all were equally disappointed. The common factor among the comments was this: “Shame, I’ve never watched the world championships and I was quite enjoying it.” Or “What’s the point of watching them with 30 minute delay if I can get another stream from the Internet.” There you go IIHF. Even if you tried to protect the TV broadcast deals you talked about, people will find a way to watch the games live and un-interrupted. I really do hope that the IIHF figures this out. You have a year to do it. GET IT RIGHT!

 

The one thing that I do think that the games needed and it is something that I have been saying for years when talking about it with relatives and friends. Kalervo Kummola needs to move over from the helm at Finnish ice hockey. I have nothing against Kummola personally and if anything we should all be grateful for what he has done to Finnish hockey and the way he has cultivated the sport. But it is time to move over now. I feel that Kummola is past it and ‘not with the times’ anymore and that his views of the game and the way things should be done are somewhat archaic.

 

Kummola’s hockey resume is something to envy, but right now I feel that what would be best for Finnish hockey is to get some fresh blood in and get new views and expand our horizons further. Finland has a great legacy in hockey and the sport means a lot to the nation and I think now, if ever, would be time to mix things up a bit.

 

Personally, I don’t think Kummola’s successor has to be a someone with a background in hockey, but someone who can bring an innovative new way to develop players and who is not stuck in the same mindset as the current core of the powers that be.

 

With Russia now the reigning world champion’s we are waiting for another 365 before Sweden and Finland again host the games, with this time Sweden being the lead country for hosting. Good thing the organisers have already come out and said that they’ll review the ticket prices for next year. Oh, I do hope that they mean review the prices on basis of reducing them, not hiking them up even more.

 

IIHF World Championships: Finland Scores Two Goals in 120Minutes… Good Thing It Hasn’t Allowed a Goal (yet)

Finland’s start to the World Championships has been somewhat slow. The team has scored only two goals across 120minutes of play and luckily have not given up a goal as yet. I’m kinda happy that we haven’t allowed a goal as yet, as I said prior to the games starting that Finland won’t have any problem on the goal tending department. I won’t go into an in depth analysis of the playing style or the timing of the passes, because this post would probably be about 5,000 words long and my internet stream cut out so much that I gave up taking indepth notes half way through.  I

 

Speaking of the stream though, it was frustrating to have it cut out with about 10 minutes left in the game. I got it back with two minutes to go and then lost it again, only to have it back when Jukka Jalonen was shaking hands with  his assistant coaches after winning the game. The YouTube comments that run next to the IIHF Video stream were understandably filled with rage when the image cut out.

 

Finland has now had numerous power play opportunities in the two games it has played but has not mustered anything on them. The power play, as far as I can see it, is about nifty puck movement but there is not enough shots coming in on goal and the players are not quick enough to react to second chances on the rebounds. Somehow I feel that the guys are trying too much instead of keeping it simple. Whether it is the pressure of playing in front of a home crowd that’s getting to them or the 24/7 TV access to training and whatnot that is disturbing the flow of the game, but I have a feeling that there is something not quite clicking with the team yet.

 

If we look back to last year, Finland did have a slow start to the gamest then as well, but at least the team was scoring more goals in the first couple of games. I don’t know if the puck control game, or “Our Game” thesis that Jukka Jalonen is coaching with is causing the lack of scoring. Where I think that the style of play suits Finland from the point of view that the team is controlling the puck and flow of the game there is always that little bit that makes me think that they should be more direct and drive hard to the net.

 

On many of the offensive rushes that the Finns have had are like a throwback to Juha-Matti Aaltonen’s playing style. Drive hard from the boards and go behind the net. The Finns are trying to use Gretzky’s office as a place to create offence and there’s one player who can do that on the team and it is young Granlund. He dished out a nifty pass to Pesonen from behind the net. Pesonen fluffed the first shot but made good by getting his backhand shot to go top shelf.

 

Whatever it is, the team has to start scoring and playing a more up-tempo game as now it looks more like the players are going at walking pace on the ice. The opponents will only get harder as we are yet to play USA or the party-hard Canada team. Finland has to improve drastically for those games if it is to have any kind of hope for a repeat of its world championship. You simply do not win championships by scoring one goal per game. That is unless you are a soccer team and you score one goal and then go into a turtle defence mode. But that’s not the way hockey is supposed to be played like.

 

The goalies have both been solid. Vehanen dropped the puck a bit more than Lehtonen, but a shutout is a shutout. It poses an interesting problem for the Finnish coaching staff as to who to play more in the games, with both goalies being in good form and with Karri Ramo waiting on the wings.

 

I would expect that Jalonen realises the fact that he can’t have his team score only one goal per game and expect to go to the finals. He definitely needs to get more out of the power play and from Jussi Jokinen, who has been terrible in the first two games. Jalonen needs to also work on some issues that the Finns have on normal 5on5 game.

 

Good thing is, we have not (yet) seen anyone talk about the old Finnish adage of “Scoring is difficult” or “we had this many scoring chances in the game” it’s not the chances that win you the game, it’s the goals that you actually score.

IIHF World Championships: Ticket Debacle Continues, Fans Ejected From Arena For Displaying Their Displeasure

The ticket price debacle goes on and I fear that it is going to be the thing that is most remembered from the 2012 World Championships. Yesterday, the Finnish organisers said that they are not going to be lowering the ticket prices to the games following Sweden’s announcement of 70% slash in prices.

 

The organisers are saying that there have been plenty of tickets sold and even went as far as to claim that the Finland vs Belarus game was sold out. However, the prices continue to be a thorn in the fans’ side. Some tried to stage a protest against the prices in the France vs Kazakhstan game. However, from the opening game between France and USA the organisers had barred the display of banners that were larger than 1mx1m, though if the rule applies to all banners displayed, shouldn’t the organisers ban the display of national flags in the stands as those are bigger than 1mX1m. There was one banner displayed in the Hartwall Arena saying “Kale Hinnat Alas, Kale on varas” loosely translated to Kale, lower the prices, Kale you’re a thief. The banner was visible for five seconds before a group of security officers descended on the group displaying the banner and “kindly” asked for the group to vacate the premises.

 

Though the group was later allowed back into the stands sans banner, it still says a lot about the way that the organisers are treating the fans. As you can see from the picture below, the group of guys is clearly happy about the prices and of the treatment they have received in the  games (Picture courtesy of Esko Seppanen: https://twitter.com/#!/EskoSeppanen) .

 

The organisers clearly have a stand of “No opinion will be listened to unless it is the approved one by the organisers”. I know that may not necessarily be the case, but that’s what it looks like to me as a spectator and lover of hockey.

 

In my humble opinion, the games have turned into a joke. Not because of the hockey but because of the fact that the games are played to half empty arenas and the organisers have adopted a “we will not negotiate with terrorists” policy. I guess if the organisers lower the prices it is them admitting that they got it horribly, HORRIBLY wrong.

 

If Rene Fasel, the guy at the top of the IIHF admits that the ticket prices and the debacle around them is not good advertisement to hockey or to the tournament, there should be alarm bells ringing at the organisers’ office. Oh I forgot, there has been alarm bells ringing and they have admitted that they’ll take these games on board and rectify things for next time. Why next time? Why not now? Is it that bad to slash the prices to games so that there would actually be FANS in the stands cheering the games? 

It is ironic that the France vs Kazakhstan game has attracted more or less the same audience as the USA vs Canada game from yesterday and that it is LOUDER in the arena than it was during Finland vs Belarus or USA vs Canada.

 

In either case, I think Finland and the Finnish Ice Hockey Association will have to wash its face for many months after the games. I’d like to see what some of the stars who are playing in the games think about playing to an empty arena. I know Pavel Datsyuk didn’t seem too happy about the attendance figures in Stockholm and I guess playing to a dead crowd is difficult for the NHL guys who are used to playing to a sold out crowd for the entire season.

 

For the sake of hockey, I hope that the attendance will get better and that there is going to be cheering at the games. However, something makes me think that this is not going to be the case.

 

IIHF World Championships Day 1: Stream issues, empty arenas and Canadians night out in Helsinki

IIHF World Championships got underway today. The games started with a ton of media critique over the ticket prices and it showed in all of the games of the opening day. For the first game of the tournament between USA and France, the Hartwall Arena (with capacity of 13,000) in Helsinki drew 8,402 spectators (see picture below), while in Stockholm (Globen capacity is in the 10,000 region) the first game between Germany and Italy drew just over a 1,000 pairs of eyes to watch the games

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It didn’t go much better for the other games as Canada and Slovakia, with some super-star  names in their respective rosters, drew an audience of 6,400, which was depressing as under the bar stands of the Hartwall arena, there was not a single spectator watching the game (see picture below). Good on the Slovakian fans for making a lot of noise, cheering on their own. It seems that Slovakians love hockey no matter what game and at what level of play they are watching it

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The games themselves were a bit sluggish. France held on valiantly for a period and a half before the US team finally clicked and started controlling the game. Rather empathically the French kept trying but the USA team had just way too much skill and speed on its roster for the French to match it.

There’s a lot that’s been said about team Canada, with its deep roster of NHL players. However, the game against Slovakia left me unconvinced that the team was something that would send shockwaves across the world. Perhaps part of it was due to the fact that several of the key players on the Canadian roster (Tavares, Getzlaf, Perry among others) were seen in the Helsinki nightlife the night before the game. There was a lot of speculation that the teams’ moist night out lead to the cancellation of the morning skate. Canada was visibly sluggish in the first period and the Slovakian’s held on to the very end, even if the Canadian team started to find its legs. I wouldn’t say that Slovakia will be a ‘pushover’ in these games as it was in the last years world championships. Canada won the game 3-2 in the end, but again, there’s a lot to be desired for from the Canadian team looking at the names they’ve got on paper.

Let’s hope that the guys on the roster aren’t treating the World Championship tournament as a roadie with the boys and a chance to have some fun away from home and play a few games of hockey while they’re at it. It is an easy thing to have happen in the world championships. I guess all the Finns remember the rumours from the Moscow world championships a few years ago with supposed helicopter rides to Helsinki and back and not all players being fresh for game days.

The Finland vs Belarus game did draw a big-ish crowd, reported at 12,354, which still left almost a thousand empty seats at the arena. The game itself was… well… it was boring. The Finns were in control for most of the game but couldn’t really get anything going. It seemed that the audience in Helsinki woke up to a hockey game in the 3^rd period when the first full arena “Suomi” chant was heard. Finland had plenty of power play opportunities in the game but didn’t make anything of it, except maybe prove that the team can pass the puck really well. That being said there were some good things to take away from the game and I’m carefully optimistic about the teams’ chances in the tournament. We won’t know our full capability until games against the likes of Slovakia, Canada and USA. Kari Lehtonen was definitely Finland’s MVP in the game. He had two saves in the first period and was sharp throughout the game when Belarus had some good scoring opportunities.

Even Finnish D-man Anssi Salmela had his bit to say about the attendance to the games. In a post game press conference he was quoted saying “I normally don’t pay attention to the stands, but I have to admit that it was quiet today.” I guess the Finnish teams’ PR person has to have words with Salmela again, just like after this interview after last years’ world championships: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03nIcG6mXVQ

EDIT:It didn’t go that well in Sweden either, where the game between Sweden and Norway only drew a crowd of 5,985 to Globen. Across the three games played in Globen, the games have so far drawn a total of 8,000 spectators. Now on any standards that is poor, specially if it is across three games.

One can only hope that the organisers will do something, ANYTHING, to the ticket prices or hire people to come in to watch the games. Otherwise, the 2012 World Championships will forever be remembered for the low attendance. People at the top can say what they want about the cost of organising the games, but no one can ignore the rafts of empty seats at the arenas. It’s not good for hockey or for the reputation of the World Championship tournament.

However, the YouTube streams of the games are a welcome plus. I can’t commend the IIHF and its media rights holder enough for getting the games on the web, live and for free. It’s a great feat and its a great way to follow the games, even if the commentators cause some hilarity, bless them though as for most of them, English is clearly not their first language.

However, the YouTube streams did cause somewhat of a debacle in Finland. At first, like reported here yesterday, it was said that Finland would be on the geo-blocked country list, but by the time the puck dropped for the USA – France game, people could tune into watch the games on YouTube. It wasn’t until midway through the game that the feed was blocked in Finland. It appears that the MTV3, who has exclusivity for TV rights in Finland had to place numerous calls to the IIHF to get the games blocked as it went against the contract they had signed for the games.

Oh well, there are ways around it with different proxy settings and so on, so all is not lost.

Hopefully the games will pick up from here and we are in for some great hockey in the tournament and that we will see both the arenas, Hartwall Arena in Helsinki and Globen in Stockholm, filled with fans. Though with those ticket prices the sarcast in me thinks we’ll not see a sold out arena, except for the final.

IIHF Announces World Championships Will Be Streamed Live via YouTube

EDIT: Please see post here about recent developments: https://pushforpros.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/iihf-world-championships-iihf-bins-live-youtube-streams/

The news has literally just broken on Twitter with the IIHF announcing that all of the games from the 2012 Ice Hockey World Championships will be streamed live via YouTube.

In a move that resembles the KHL’s startegy of showing games free of charge on YouTube, is bound to attract more fans to look at the games and watch the videos. However, it is still expected that the IIHF will offer paid for packages for the games where you can buy rights to watch the games of your chosen team.

However, the offer is not available to all as some countries have been geo-blocked. The list of Geo-Blocked countries includes: Belarus, Denmark, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine and the USA. EDIT: It has now emerged (at 14:46 GMT) that the games will also be geo-blocked in Finland.

(Edit: I have deleted the paragraph about the Finnish TV rights for the games) I can only suspect that the YouTube streaming would’ve hurt the TV and media partners of the games, though I doubt that the decision to stream the games came from the Helsinki/Stockholm organising committee but from the IIHF itself. However, it is a welcome move to offer the games via YouTube.

I for one (based on my geographic location) applaud the IIHF’s decision to move. It is a bold new strategy and will expose the sport to a wider fan base, which will be great for the sport.

The YouTube channel can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/icehockey.

The schedule for the games is here: http://www.iihf.com/competition/272/home-oc/tournament-info/game-schedule.html Please note that the game times are in Swedish and Finnish times respectively.

Your move NHL!

IIHF World Championship Ticket Prices A Total Rip Off

The IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships are just around the corner. In the host nation the anticipation for the games is at its peak. The reigning world champions are hosting the games with Sweden and Finland is ranked at number one at the IIHF rankings. Not bad for a nation of 5.5million and who have only won the world championship twice and is eagerly waiting for its first Olympic gold medal (no pressure guys).

 

However, one thing that has actually hit me quite hard after reading an open letter by the editor of the Finnish Urheilulehti. The editor, Esko Seppanen, criticises the Finnish Ice Hockey association’s chief, Kalervo Kummola over the pricing policy of the games.

 

I have seen stories written about the high priced tickets at the games, but the letter written by Seppanen really hits the nail on the head.  In a letter published in Urheilulehti on 26.04 and the magazine’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150772714449851&set=a.10150689498594851.420270.358693599850&type=1) Seppanen writes “Dear Mr. Kummola, You have deserted the Finnish hockey fans with your extortionate ticket prices. You have shown that the fans do not matter in your money making scheme.” (see translation of the letter at the end of this post)

Harsh words on the eve of the games in a nation that has seen a huge boost in hockey since last years’ World Championship finals. In fact, the hockey boom was evident in nearly every news outlets’ reporting. The local professional league Sm-Liiga was covered more widely than ever before and attendance was up, not to mention the emergence of some of the greatest young talents the Finnish hockey system has produced in years! Even the NHL was covered to the point that it didn’t matter whether a team had any Finns on its roster. This maybe a slight over exaggeration, but this years’ coverage has been a real pleasure to follow and it feels like for the first time in years that hockey is generating discussions around the water cooler again.

 

While I have been relying mainly on the news papers and Twitter to get a feel of the preparations to the games, it would appear that the marketing effort for the games has not focussed on the ticket sales, but rather to push TV packages to watch the games from the comfort of your home. In his letter  Seppanen calls out this fact by stating “The tournament in Helsinki starts next Friday. Mr. Kummola, have you seen a single advert that sells tickets to the games? No, you haven’t. Neither have I, or anyone else for that matter. What have we seen? Buy this super-turbo-mega package of channels. Watch the games from your couch! Better yet! Upgrade to a HD-Package”

 

Every time I visit Finland, I am confused of the TV packages and what provider offers what channels and what bolt-ons one would have to buy to get the channels that show hockey. Trust me, I feel sometimes feel like you need a degree in astro-physics to make sure that you get all the games. What I have learnt is that in Finland Nelonen Pro shows the NHL. For the World Championships the TV rights for the games were sold to MTV3 from Yle (think of Yle like the Finnish BBC). With MTV, I have no idea what channel in its vast plethora of pay to view channels the games are going to be shown on. It is incredibly confusing. Imagine if you are a tourist and want to catch a game in your hotel room. Chances are the hotel doesn’t have the channel on its channel list, or then there is the option of calling reception to ask what channel a game is on, go to a bar to watch it, or just simply give up.  

 

But what of the ticket prices themselves then? One would like to think that Finland being the reigning champion and the games being hosted in Finland (and Sweden) that the prices would be competitive and comparative to the other World Championship tournaments. Well, according to the letter by Seppanen a family of five would have to pay €1000 ($1,320) to go see Finland vs France. A THOUSAND Euros for Finland vs France. Comparatively, tickets to Canada vs USA would cost €196 ($258) and the semi-final would cost from €175 ($231) to €226 ($298), though I have seen a tweet of someone getting a ticket for the afore mentioned CAN-USA game for €40.

 

I need to take a breather here as I’m about to faint from just looking at that. How can a family of five afford a €1000 in this economy to go watch hockey, not to mention all the other expenditure (parking, refreshments, merchandise etc etc) associated with a trip to a hockey game. To some the €1000 is half of their monthly salary, if not all of their monthly salary. As Seppanen points out in his letter, it would be cheaper for that family of five to go watch the Champions’ League Final in Munich than to go watch Finland play France.

In fact just to put it into perspective, I saw someone tweet earlier in the week that in 1998 when Finland last hosted the World Championship, they were able to buy a ticket to the final in the black market for €90. That’s cheap for a ticket to the finals… on the black market. I dread to think what a single ticket on the black market would cost to go see the 2012 finals. And yet, Kummola has the audacity to wonder why the tickets aren’t selling as expected, or proclaim that the prices are on par with NHL regular season game prices. Well, him and his peers have set the prices and it’s too late to back out now.

If I was to go and watch the games in my native Finland, I would have to shell about €250-300 on flights alone and then pay almost the same to go watch Finland play France? Give me a break. I love my hockey, I really do, but there has to be a line somewhere. For those kinds of prices, I’m expecting that I would be treated like a royal.

I would rather use that money and go on holiday somewhere. At least the holiday would last longer than  60 minutes.

I really do feel bad for hockey fans in Finland and those foreign fans who have paid a top dollar to fly over to support their nation in the games. It is a huge expenditure just to watch a few games, not to mention the fact that Helsinki isn’t exactly the cheapest capital city in the world. Don’t get me wrong, I like Helsinki, but it is expensive.

I really can’t help but feel that these games are for the elite and that there is a them and us mentality between the organisers and the fans. It is almost like a throwback to the good old days of societal class structure. I’m sure there are fans who will pay tooth and nail to go see the games, but my mind boggles at how someone can seriously think that the pricing structure for the games is fair? To be honest, if I was in Finland, I would rather go to a bar to watch the games than shell out money for an additional TV package or one of the ludicrously priced tickets

 

I fear that the cheapest way to watch the games for any fan would be to buy their nations’ game package from the IIHF website, hook their laptop to their TV and put the radio on for commentary. That’s what I’ll have to resort to as there is no way that I can justify spending what would be probably two month’s wages to go watch some hockey, or less if I just wanted to soak up the atmosphere.

I don’t know whether we’ll see a colourful cavalcade of fans at the games, like we are used to with the World Championships, due to these prices or whether we will have arenas full of men in suits. I for one want to see people decked out in quirky outfits and that dude dressed in the cat costume drinking a (blow up) bottle of Fisherman’s Friend flavoured vodka.

Seppanen sums up three key facts that the organisers have done well and I have to agree with him. “Mr. Kummola, you have succeeded in three things: 1. You started to cash in on the national pride, which died at the collective level really quickly. 2. You abandoned your core fans. Those fans who lived vicariously with the Finnish team throughout the whole 2011 World Championships have been ruthlessly cut off. 3. You have turned our home games into a neutral event, where the home team has no advantage on its side as the stands have been turned into venues for the games’ corporate partners.”

 

Seppanen fires off a great finish to his letter by stating “I know that you don’t care Mr. Kummola. But the Finnish hockey fan does care!”

I hope that the games will be entertaining and that people will fill the arenas as otherwise the games might go down in history, and not in a good way. My fear is that this will leave a massive brown, smelly stain on the Finnish hockey credibility if the games are not sold out. Could you imagine either the semi-final or final that would be played to a nearly empty arena?

 

Thanks to Esko Seppanen at Urheilulehti (www.urheilulehti.fi and http://www.urheilulehti.fi/jaakiekko/leijona-liput-hapeallisen-kalliita-kummola-vaihtoi-aidot-faninsa-kylmasti-rahaan) for permitting me to quote and paraphrase his article. You can follow Seppanen on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/#!/EskoSeppanen (tweets mainly in Finnish). Also thanks to Teemu Lindfors (https://twitter.com/#!/TeemuLindfors) and Jan Johansson (https://twitter.com/#!/JanPPa) for ticket price information.

The letter translated:

 

Dear Kalervo Kummola,

 

You have shockingly abandoned the Finnish hockey fans with the ticket prices at the World Championships. You have coldly shown that the fans mean nothing in this money making scheme.

You have also shown, that ticket sales are just a part of the whole concept. Mr. Kummola, if we are honest, ticket sales have nothing to do with the games. It is only a plus in your cash flow at the end of the games. Look around you and you’ll understand.

The tournament in Helsinki starts next Friday (4^th May). Have you, Mr. Kummola, seen a SINGLE advertisement that would sell TICKETS to the tournament itself? No, no you haven’t. Neither have I – or anyone else for that matter. What have we seen?

Buy this super-turbo-mega package of channels. Watch the games from your couch! Better yet! Upgrade to a HD-Package! (It is perverse that these adverts are displayed at Hartwall Arena, and there is not a word that would push sales of tickets!)

This is what we have seen, however, perhaps more now than at any other point in time in the Finnish sporting history. Regardless of what Finnish website you visit, you will see advertisements for the TV packages. You will not see a single advertisement that would encourage you to buy tickets to see a game.

 

How can this be Mr. Kummola?

 

When you shrewdly out-priced the “people” out of your games, you are in the position where you can sell your TV packages for prices that don’t look half bad to the average consumer. If a family of five went to your friends’ Arena to watch Finland – France match, the head of the family would have to pay over a thousand euros for lower level seats! And you have the audacity to wonder why the tickets aren’t selling like hot cakes.

 

Did I forget to mention that the TV Package providers are the biggest sponsors of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association?

 

Your goal was never to allow the average income fans to the games at all. That is why you have bolted the doors shut to the average Joe at the Arena. You know full well that the family of five’s wallet will choose the TV package rather than pays a THOUSAND euros for ONE Finland – France match. Unbelievable.

 

 

Mr. Kummola, you have succeeded in three things: 1. You started to cash in on the national pride, which died at the collective level really quickly. 2. You abandoned your core fans. Those fans who lived vicariously with the Finnish team throughout the whole 2011 World Championships have been ruthlessly cut off. 3. You have turned our home games into a neutral event, where the home team has no advantage on its side as the stands have been turned into venues for the games’ corporate partners

 

This letter will carry on in the Urheilulehti World Championships special, which goes on sale on the 26^th of April.

 

I know Mr. Kummola, that you do not care. But the Finnish hockey fan does care!

For the love of sports

 

Esko Seppanen, Urheilulehti