Angry Birds and Hockey Fans
| | 19-May-2012 | Angry Birds and hockey fans have taken Helsinki by storm. The 2012 IIHF World Hockey Championship is being played here and the semi-finals are today: Russia vs. Finland (btw, Russia won 6-2), Czech Republic vs Slovakia. There are hockey fans decked out in their team colors everywhere and it’s awesome. Combine Angry Bird mania and hockey mania and you get this: HockeyBird, the 2012 IIHF mascot. Yesterday at the supermarket I saw Angry Birds soda. Crazy! They’re everywhere!
Zig-zagged around town today checking out local record shops for punk records. No luck with vinyl but picked up a few CDs. At least we can check those out en route, instead of waiting until we get home to a turntable. We also scored Iiris’s album – we saw her at Airwaves last fall. Lunch was at Belge Bar & Bistro …. fabulous. We had a 2nd floor window table with a nice view of the shopping promenade. It’s a beautiful sunny day here and everyone is out. After lunch we popped into a couple of the Finnish design boutiques. |
 Lamp post outside Johanneksen kirkko, a gothic church. Random stop on the way to the first record store. |
 Specializing in jazz, soul and funk, Levykauppa didn’t have anything we were looking for but the proprietor had some recommendations that confirmed our prior research so we forged on. |
Trams are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. This isn’t it, but in the afternoons and evenings, there’s a red one that operates a loop around the city (no stops) – SpåraKOFF Bar Tram. Yes, it’s a rolling pub. |
| Pleepleus enjoying a local brew before lunch at Belge Bar & Bistro. On the right is Jeff’s seafood pasta.
|
 Enjoying a cappuccino while people-watching in the hotel lobby.
The combination of somewhat-drunk Finnish hockey fans, staff and players of Team Sweden and dudes dressed for a metal show (complete with hair-metal wig and pleather pants), makes for good times! |
|
Finnish Design: leather and wood jewelry from aarikka.  |
