Week 17 - Cultural

This week in Turku has been an exciting week for Finnish people. There has been ice hockey on for the last few weeks and this week Finland made it into the final against Sweden. This is a momentous occasion because the last time Finland won the gold medal in the world championships was in 1995. This is especially competitive because it is against Sweden, and Finland and Sweden seem to be very competitive against each other. The final was played, and the centre of Turku was full of people, watching the final of this match in all the bars that showed the match. Some friends and I also went to watch the match. The atmosphere at the beginning of the game seemed quite tense, and obviously Finnish people take this game seriously. As the game began, the people would cheer and scream loudly once they showed Finnish fans, but any Swedish fans that they saw would get booed. In the first 20 minutes of the game, neither team had scored and the tension seemed to increase. However, as the game went on it became clear that Finland was going to win. In the final ten minutes of the game, the bar was noisy and Finnish people were celebrating as the score was 3 – 1 to Finland. However, in these final minutes, Finland managed to score another 3 times. The Finnish people were ecstatic and they were screaming, cheering and celebrating. Then, as soon as the match was over, Finnish people were chanting and singing. They seemed so joyful. When we left the bar, there were cars driving around with the Finnish flags, and people cheering out the windows of the cars to passer-by’s. When we got to the square in the centre of Turku, the square was full of people dancing, cheering, drinking and singing. For me, this was refreshing to see, because usually Finnish people are so serious and quiet. This reminded me of a big celebration we would have back at home, and some Finnish people compared it to winning the world cup of football. This showed me another side to Finnish people, where everyone was happy and carefree. It was great to see this from Finnish people, and I hope it will not be the last time!