cerealjoe | Been waiting since 1995. (Reply)

So unless you've been living under a rock or are not a Finn or do not have any Finnish friends or friends who live in Finland or are not a hockey fan, then you've probably seen the most important news of all this past week - yes, Finland beat Sweden and is now the world hockey champion. Had they won against Russia or Canada, meh, would have been nice but no, this is Sweden they beat.

The last time it happened was in 1995 and if you go to Finland and hang out with some hockey fans they'll tell you about "Den glider in" and why that's the song that Finns associate to the Finnish hockey team even though it's in Swedish. What happened was that the Swedes were so stocked about that world cup and they were so sure that they were going to win it that they had already a song written for it... and then, bam!, the Finns won and decided to annoy the Swedes even more and took over singing that song. And since 1995 it's like a ritual, you have to karaoke to it at least once. Have I ever mentioned that Finns are rather huge on karaoke? They've even got "karaoke taxis", they're exactly what the title says, a taxi you take a karaoke system in it and you can sing while getting to your destination.

Anyway, 95% of the people I know in Finland were going mental during the game. Even peeps who don't really care about sports! And then they won, beat Sweden 6-1 and everyone got out and seeing the photos of the craziness in Helsinki at 2pm I can imagine that it was grand. Then on Monday everyone went to the Helsinki city center to see the team and, I'll be honest, I've never seen so many people in the Helsinki city center at one time. Crazy, crazy stuff!

Now some awesome stuff about Finland and the celebrations!

- A interactive photo of all the peeps in the city center. Told ya it was madness!
- Tons of photos of the night in Helsinki. (watch out, one or two are not exactly work safe)
- This video of the coach of the team coming down the plane... and being, well, a Finn after they've won the world cup - that is not too sober. Too cup thought! (thanks

annastesia for the link)
- And now the cup is being repaired
- Cute comic referencing the lion stabbing itself in the head (see Stephen Colbert pointing it out)
- Also this is a fun look at the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish coat of arms.
- Finally, some celebrations are deemed too offensive and full of nudity for YouTube. Ah... poor Manta statue, you've seen better days!

Moving on to other lions. In Braunschweig there is the well known Wolters but there is also the Schadt's micro-brewery. And the lion connection there because their website features a lion! Totally makes sense.

The stronger brew is not bad.

And so that's the "real but not really" (see their website for the explanation) set-up and there's also my reflection taking a photo while someone is taking a photo of me. All very meta.