Hockey night in Helsinki

After my enjoyable visit to a Swedish hockey game, I thought I'd try the same here in Helsinki. So last night I went and saw a Jokerit vs Saipa game in the largest stadium in Finland: Hartwell Arena.

The game was not as exciting as the one in Sweden. There was only about 50% attendence in the stands.

Here is some trivia:
* Referrees have EA Sports patches on their uniforms

* A finnish guy told me that lots of Finnish players who are not playing in the NHL are playing in the Swedish league. He wasn't sure why, but thought that it might be related to taxes.

* No english was spoken at all during the game. Most of the music was in english though.

* They had about 10 cheerleaders who formed a path for the players to skate by at the beginning. The cheerleaders then went up into the stands and did their cheers between any breaks in the play.

* One player on each team was wearing a reflective gold helmet. Why you ask? I thought it might be the captain, but noticed that other players had the C on their jersey. I asked someone and he said it was the best player. I asked if that meant he scored the most goals (as opposed to say points or plus/minus or something) and he agreed. I'm pretty sure he didn't understand my question and would have agreed to anything.

* At the end of the game, they hand out player of the game awards and each player shakes the hand of each opposing player.