The first week in Kuovola, Finland has been a very exciting change from life in America. I have already been picking up on some cultural differences, and have also befriended many Finns. I arrived on Wednesday May 25th, after two five-hour flights, one from Boston to Iceland. I then went through the volcanic ash of Iceland to land in Helsinki. Mika Lindholm, the man who runs the Kuovola Indians (my team), picked me up at the airport and drove me the hour and a half up to Kuovola.
We had practice that night, but I watched because my equipment was not ready and I was pretty jetlagged. Afterwards I went to a teammates house and experienced my first sauna. The Finns are the proud founders of the Sauna, even though the damn Swedes try to take credit for it as well. Basically every household, as well as most apartments, has their own personal sauna inside of them. This was unlike any that I had experienced in the states, as the fire heated a group of rocks that would saturate the air when a bit of water was thrown onto them. This Sauna got up to a “very average” 100 degrees Celsius.
The following day I had my first meal at Lounaskahvila, which is the place where I get free lunches Monday through Friday. This has been a great place to experience real Finnish cuisine, and besides the fish it has been very good. After this Matt and I ventured into the downtown area on our bikes. Matt is the other American player that I live with he is a recent graduate of Monmouth College in Illinois. This area is mostly filled with bars and shops, and one interesting part about it is that there are a few blocks where cars are not allowed. These areas are constantly filled with people walking and on bikes.
That night I participated in my first practice in Finland, where we did some simple drills, and light conditioning. I played predominantly outside linebacker at this practice, but it looks like I will be floating from safety and linebacker depending on our opponent, and the down and distance.
On Saturday of that weekend I traveled to Vantaa with our coaching staff to watch our next two opponents play each other. Vantaa is a city on the outskirts of Helsinki, and the Vantaa Taft were playing the Helsinki 69ers. This coming Saturday we play the 69ers in Helsinki, and next weekend we play Taft at home. The amount of talent in the game was not all that high, but it was obvious the Taft was better coached, and they had much higher numbers. The result was Taft 35-0. One important part of scouting the teams in my league is identifying their American players. Each team is allowed two players that are not European citizens, and they can never be on the field at the same time.
Following the game I went to my head coaches apartment where we watched some recorded NFL games he had recorded. I was surprised to find out that he was a Patriots fan, and is currently reading Bill Belichick’s, Education of a Coach, but since this day I have realized that most Finns who are interested in football are also fans of the Patriots. The success of the Patriots is clearly to blame for that. I went out on the town that night with many teammates and a few coaches. I was impressed by certain elements of the bar we went to. For one there are two distinct areas, one has the feel of a pub, and it had a live band that night. The other is much more similar to a nightclub, with extremely loud music and a crazy light show.
The Monday of my first full week in Kuovola was filled with coaching. In addition to our playing responsibilities, Matt and I are expected to coach the junior teams, and also help teach people the game of football in the hopes that they may become interested. Monday we did both of these responsibilities. First we went to a school where we taught 16 and 17 year olds football for the first time in their lives, and it seemed that they had a great time. Ideally we could get a few of these teenagers to come play for one of the junior teams. That evening we helped coach the Junior-B team, which is under the age of 16.
The coaching has proved to be challenging as I try to remember the things that I first learned about football in the 4th grade. It has been fun though as the Finnish kids are very interested in the sport, and cannot complain since I can’t understand them. This language barrier has proved to be difficult only with the youngest of the kids though, as the older ones are more experienced with English. It is required in Finnish education that students begin learning the English language when they are in the third grade. This has made it easy to communicate with my teammates and coaches.
That is a summary of what I have been up to for my first week, now here is a summary of what I have noticed about Finnish people in my first week. The first thing that I have noted is that most men wear black athletic socks, even if they are wearing white sneakers. This was peculiar to me, as my only pair of black socks are dress socks. You may think it is strange that I would notice people sock color, you may be right, but the reason it is so obvious is because everyone is required to take their shoes off whenever they enter someone’s house. There are even shoe brushes outside of buildings so that you can rub the dirt off of your shoe before you enter the breezeway. I have never seen anyone violate this rule, except for Matt and I inside of our own apartment.
The drinking age is somewhat strange in Finland. The general age is 18, where you can purchase and go into bars. The only adjustment to that rule is that if you are under the age of 20 you cannot purchase anything over 20% alcohol content. This means no liquor from 18-20. But it does not mean that you cannot buy liquor from bars in the form of shots or mixed drinks. This rule is somewhat strange, but I have yet to see this rule enforced.
My teammates and coaches have been extremely conscious to make sure that I am well fed, and that I am having a good time. They have cooked us food many times, and also buy us drinks when we are out consistently. I think this is because they realize that Matt and I do not have a ton of money. This really helps out, as I don’t think we could go out on the town at all if we were completely on our own. This has been really nice, and helpful. Something completely different I have noticed is that it is not customary to say 'bless you' after someone sneezes. I am still trying to figure out why this is, more in the upcoming weeks. That is it for week one; I hope you continue to follow the blog as we get deeper into the season, and Finnish culture.
