Sleep, read, eat and play.

So this is what the first exam week of London Metropolitan University feels and looks like. Seeing your classmates biting their nails and flipping out, hours spent just staring at slides, notes, PowerPoint presentations and word documents spiced up with googling every once in a while. This week and last week have delivered a high dose of studying, studying like no other since Finnish Matriculation Exams. Basic Sports Science and Sports Training Principles have been my lunch, dinner and snack whenever possible. While lying on the bed, sitting in front of the computer and when taking the bus to university or practices.

Practices... The lifeline that has been the light at the end of the tunnel now that Sara is not here. Not yet. She will be soon, and you will all know it. You will realize that the sun is shining, weather is nice and mild and birds sing the Four Seasons by Vivaldi. This day, mark it up to your calendars Ladies and Gentlemen, Girls and Playboys, will be 9th of  February. Until then, I will try to forget my sorrows by playing the game that has been the number one for me since I can remember. Sport like no other, the almighty, the fastest team sport in the planet. For those did not already know the answer, Ice Hockey. This week I have been on ice more than in any other week before. Monday was sports specific muscular endurance training (of course I did everything according to my highly scientific training program, modified for the exam weeks to balance between absorbing as much information as possible and keeping this fine tuned lean mean killing machine fit) at the fine London Met gym. On Tuesday I took the ice with Russian Standard, otherwise known as Eastern Stars. On Wednesday it was time for the most important session of them all, pre-game practice with our very own London Dragons A. Competition for places on the playing roster was fierce and everyone left it all out on the Lee Valley Ice Center's soft ice in order to play the biggest game of the season when rock solid Oxford Blues arrive to town for the battle of the giants this Saturday, or tomorrow. I managed to make it to the playing roster, accompanied by my fellow linemates, Kell "Canuck Truck" Lynch and Eric "Let's do this shit" Sewell. The white line will be ready to create mayhem and disorder amongst the Oxford team, and I can guarantee that not single one of the other lines will give any slack in that department either. On Thursday it was time to have a nice little puck handling and light scrimmage session with the B team, and this session was the one to do the trick. I also carried my camera with me, and this is what it managed to capture along the way. In chronological order as usual.

On the way to Lee Valley with fellow Finn Timo.

Controlled chaos at the so called locker room.

Kell @ Hackney

Just chillin' at Hackney streets.

Remember your heritage.

I am pretty sure that those luggage racks were planned with hockey bags in mind... Perfect fit!

Lee Valley public skating sessions, better entertainment than TV!

Mr June of SOAS male nude calendar.

DLR @ Mudchute

Canary Wharf. I just never get tired to this.

Now it just needs a needle and some yarn. For the first time, they will actually be able to name who ran them over.

While I have been having good time practicing and being on the ice, there was an terrible accident that I cant just bypass without noticing it. On Wednesday, while A team was holding pre-game practice at Lee Valley, our B team was playing against Imperial College Devils at Streatham. I wasn't on the spot, so following is based on stories that I have heard from fellow Dragons who play for the B team.

On 19th of January 2011 during a game between London Dragons B and Imperial College Devils a Dragons player by the name of Paul De Maupeou received an illegal hit next to the boards when not fully prepared for it at the end of the third period. He went crashing in to the boards head first and what followed sends a chill down my spine and leaves me searching for words. He laid motionless on the ice, ambulance was called instantly and when he was taken to the St. Georges hospital the diagnosis was devastating. Two vertebrae were broken in the impact when he hit the boards. Only good thing was that his spinal cord was not damaged. Both A and B team received a message from B team captain Sebastian Meng who visited him today with one of our goaltenders Spencer Chumbley. The concern shined through from his e-mail alongside with the pain of seeing your friend lying on a hospital bed in way bigger pain. I can only imagine how his family and all of his friends feel like.

All I can say that I hope from the bottom of my heart that he makes a full recovery from this horrible injury, and I hope him all the best. I am plan on visiting him too and I hope that as many fellow Dragon players as possible join me.

Only to make matters worse, the so called referee who was supposed to control the game and provide justice to everyone was everything else but that. I have seen the same refereeing collapse happen in A team games as well, but SO FAR no one has gotten hurt. I want to apologize in advance the language from now on. This is just pure concern of the state of this particular part of the game here in UK. Referee is the person who is supposed to be neutral and keep the whole thing under control. Put people in the sin bin or throw them out of the game if necessary. It is why they get paid for, do what ever it takes to keep the game as safe as possible for everyone and controllable. This shitty example of a human being wasn't able to control the game and let the game out of hand with simply horrifying results. It's me if someone who knows that emotions and testosterone take over in the heat of the battle more easier than Tube drivers call a strike. I have been in that situation many times during these years and I can with 100% certainty tell you that you will not think straight when that happens. It's almost like that the primitive animal inside you takes over the command center, starts pulling strings and people who don't wear same colors than you become a prey for you. This is the time when the people in black in white need to be on top of things and do whatever it takes to protect players, mostly from each other. This is extremely important when dealing with relatively unexperienced players who have not been playing for their whole life and who may not YET be so used to full contact and hitting, like in this case. Last straw was when this piece of shit did not call a penalty on the play and when Dragons demanded a penalty for boarding his response was, straight quote from Sebastian: "He didn't die yet, no penalties". What kind of a sick fuck can even say things like that to someone? I was also told that he left the rink before the ambulance arrived. I have seen terrible refs during my playing years in Finland, but all of them have been human beings with actual human emotions. I have no idea how a person like this is ever allowed to whistle an official ice hockey match, but this just makes me sick in the stomach. And yes, I am in a emotional state of mind and I may be biased as may be the stories from B team players, but the outcome still remains the same. One London Dragon in the hospital. I hope that this zebra is one happy son of a bitch because he got home earlier.

These kind of accidents are extremely unfortunate and luckily relatively rare when taking the nature of the game in to consideration, but I cannot say that this didn't make me think. I wont be afraid tomorrow when I step in to the box with 9 other skaters skating at full speed and there isn't actually place for fear when you are out there. The moment you start to be afraid, you should get out or you will only help your team to lose the game. Only fear there is supposed to be is the fear in your opponents eyes when they see the guys with Dragon on their chest steaming ahead with bad intentions and a little flame burning in the corner of their eye. This is the sensation everyone I wan't every player in our team to feel in their chest when they take the ice tomorrow.

Now that I have gotten some of the rage out of my chest (I am saving 99% of it for tomorrow), I can talk about something more positive. So far my blog has received some good feedback, even when I wrote in English. Intoxicated and high of this success and positive comments I gathered my courage and accepted the challenge thrown by our manager, Dmitry. I will be writing a report or our game against Oxford and later on a introduction about ice hockey to the Universities of London Union newspaper, London Student. Their official webpage can be found at http://www.london-student.net/. It may not sound like a big deal, but for some reason I feel kinda nervous. Don't get me wrong, my blog is massively popular (not) with readers from Finland, UK, USA, Canada, Thailand, Switzerland, Denmark and Germany for example. But I have never written for anyone but myself, let alone for a official newspaper with circulation of 12,000 every time the paper comes out. I will also be the person who decides what kind of picture will be given to students in London who are not familiar with the game I hold in the highest platform in my set of values. Last thing wan't to do is to make ice hockey look bad and to be non-interesting. I have never liked to hold back too much when I write and this may mean I have to censor myself slightly, but we will see when I send my first versions to the editors.


I cant wait for tomorrow, and 24 hours from this moment the battle will be raging on. It is your choice are you there or not, but I wouldn't miss one for anything. Except for Sara of course.

From the nice and slightly colder London than it has been, the Finnish with the red beard, over and out.


And Paul, get well soon!