Hyva Ilves!
Hyva Ilves
It could also be because the Ilves mascot is the most adorably weird creature you’ve ever seen.
But most of it comes down to random chance. It’s one of my favorite things about sports – you pick a team to support for any number of arbitrary reasons. You could have chosen any team. But you chose this one. And now that you’ve made your completely arbitrary choice you’ve sworn a blood oath and will defend that team till your dying breath. For whatever reason, Ilves is our choice.
One interesting wrinkle is that both Tappara and Ilves play hockey. In fact they are the two most successful teams in the Finnish hockey league. Though most of Ilves’ success was a long time ago. Tappara dominates the league at present and has won the last three championships. But Tappara and Ilves hate each other. Yankees – Red Socks; Ducks – Huskies, that kinda hate. You pick your team, and spend the rest of your life hating the other team.
Only here’s the thing, Tampere only has one soccer team. And it’s Ilves. And everyone supports them. Even fans of Tappara. Like they have a Tappara hockey jersey hanging in their closet, alongside an Ilves soccer jersey. And they don’t seem to think that’s strange in the slightest. It’s a bit jarring. But we’ve been Ilves all the way, so it makes our life less complicated.
We wanted to see a game while we were there. Luckily we could use some of our Finnair miles for tickets which made them basically free. We rode on the tram to Tammelan stadium, which was built just last year. It is a UEFA category 4 stadium, which means that technically it can host all UEFA events – even a Champions League or Eurocup final. But it only seats about 9,000, which means it would never actually happen. It’s a beautiful stadium though.
There was a bit of a mixup with our seats. We had just bought the seats that seemed to have the best view. We stopped in the concourse to grab a couple of beers. But when we went to try to sit in our seats a security guard stopped us. He didn’t really speak English very well, so he called his boss. It turns out there was some bad news. In Finland you can’t drink beer in your seats. But there was good news – we had bought seats in the one row in the whole stadium where you can drink beer in your seats. But more bad news – kids aren’t allowed to sit in those seats. Luckily security was incredibly accommodating and found us different seats that the kids were allowed to sit in. We did have to chug our beers in the concourse before we could go sit down, but if I’m being honest I probably would have done that anyway.
It was a beautiful day for soccer. The crowd was lively, with lots of chanting and singing (“Tampere Ilves! Ole ole ole!).
They also sang some song to the tune of “Sway.” It was in Finnish so I didn’t catch much of it but instead of “make me sway” they sang “Tampere!”
For our kids the highlight by far was the mascot, Ipa the Ilves!
They got several pictures with him, and even timed their snack runs to try to maximize the chance they would get to see him again.
He was a lively character and moved around the whole stadium. Both on the field, and also up in the seats. He even took someone's baby and carried it around with him for like half the game. The parents didn’t seem to bothered by that. I was secretly hoping he might take Milo and Oscar next.
The game wasn’t very competitive, but the home team won! We were playing a team called EIF from down near Turku, and they had a rough time of it. It seemed like one or two of them were still learning how to play soccer. We won 5-0. I missed three of the goals getting my kids popcorn, but the ones I did manage to see were exciting.
Overall it was a beautiful fall day watching the best team in Tampere play some beautiful soccer. If you are looking for a team to support in the Finnish league, I hope you pick the Ilves. Because there’s only a few other teams and most of them aren’t any good.
As a soccer fan, I'm gonna combine a cheer from my favorite American team with a cheer from my favorite Finnish team. It's called fusion, and it's all the rage.
I'm Ilves till I die, I'm Ilves till I die, I know I am, I'm sure I am, I'm Ilves till I die! Hyva Ilves!!
Hei
Hei
Comments
Post a Comment