Oulu is unseasonably warm and, as I’ve discovered, unreasonably slippery. With the temperature hovering around freezing, the snow thaws during the day and refreezes at night, and all the grit in northwestern Finland can’t stop me slipping and sliding across town as though I’m on a curling rink in my socks. I wish I’d brought spiked shoes with me, or possibly crampons.
But that’s OK – I didn’t come to Oulu to sightsee. And luckily for me, I’m not at significant risk of breaking my neck, as a fleet of cars decked out in Champions Hockey League livery are on call to ferry everyone between my hotel and Kärpät’s arena. The CHL is a maturing competition, and as the clock ticks down to tonight’s final, touches like this make it feel like a bigger deal now than at any point in its history so far. The players and coaches love it; tickets for the final sold out barely two hours after being made available to the public; and extensive work is going on both in public and private to make tonight feel like a real event. Everything from a large sign welcoming CHL players and fans to Oulu Airport to the carving of an ice sculpture of the CHL trophy outside the arena adds extra grandeur to the occasion.
Tonight’s broadcast will also be much more elaborate than usual. For example, I’ll have a partner: Isabel Boltenstern, studio host of Eurosport’s CHL coverage in Sweden, will be at ice level interviewing players as they leave the rink after each period and hopefully chipping in with other comments during the game. My pregame commentary will last 15 minutes instead of the usual five and will feature “Road to the Final” video montages for both teams, video inside each locker room, and the singing of Sweden’s and Finland’s national anthems. We’ll have extra cameras covering the game – a total of 15, including a “Bowcam” aerial camera suspended high above the ice on a cable running diagonally between opposite corners of the rink. And the postgame ceremony will be extensive and intricate; I witnessed an animated conversation within our production team about exactly how the CHL trophy should be handed to the winning team to avoid confusion and possible embarrassment for the presenters. (Someone has to think these things through, you know!)
If we have a lot of moving parts to contend with during the broadcast, in a sense the opposite must be true for Kärpät’s and Frölunda’s players and coaches. At yesterday’s pregame press conference, Kärpät captain Lasse Kukkonen said his team’s game plan to defeat Frölunda was “to try and score one more goal than them”, and it really is almost that simple. Because if the domestic league season is a 60-game marathon, full of twists and turns and dips in form, tonight is a 60-minute sprint: a Game Seven without games one to six. I wonder if Frölunda’s first real SHL slump this season has something to do with their eyes being on another prize? I certainly expect that in this big clash between the irresistable force (Frölunda’s offense) and the immovable object (Kärpät’s defense), everyone will leave everything out on the ice.
One of the ladies driving me to the rink yesterday asked me who I’d be rooting for tonight. I’ll tell you what I told her: I don’t care who wins, but I’d love to see a close, dramatic game, maybe even one which goes to overtime. Luckily, as the two best teams in the competition from the two best leagues in the competition are in the final, I suspect my wish may well come true. I can’t wait to find out if I’m right.