Pond Hockey World Cup held in Levi – 1500 players from Finland and around the world

The Czech team marvelled at Levi’s real winter and its natural ice. 

Blue cap, red cap, green cap, hel­met, fur hat, swim­ming ring... From 27 to 28 Ja­nu­a­ry, Levi was the ve­nue for the Pond Hoc­key World Cup, the first ever pond hoc­key tour­na­ment held in Levi.

There was no point in ex­pec­ting pond hoc­key te­ams to pro­vi­de a ri­go­rous ana­ly­sis of the ga­mes – the event was all about en­jo­ying the com­pa­ny of friends and ha­ving fun.

“We’ve had some luc­ky wins. In the last game our op­po­nents didn’t show up, so we won that one too,” laug­hed the Czech team.

So far, the trip had been not­hing but a suc­cess for the boys from Pra­gue. 

Ma­rek Ne­čas said that they main­ly play in­doors at home. It’s no use dre­a­ming of the great out­doors.

“We’ve en­jo­yed our stay and this is a real win­ter here at Levi. It’s just as we re­mem­ber our child­hood win­ters. Back then, when win­ters were real win­ters, we pla­yed on na­tu­ral ice.”

Levi has pulling power

Na­tu­ral ice is the key ele­ment in pond hoc­key. For the Levi Pond Hoc­key World Cup, com­pe­ti­ti­on ice rinks were built at Lake Im­mel­jär­vi and be­low the front ski runs on fro­zen Lake Tun­tu­ri­jär­vi close to Zero Point.

“The ga­mes have been going well, even though we are at the mer­cy of the we­at­her out­doors. Yes­ter­day it sno­wed and to­day wa­ter had see­ped on to the ice from the cor­ner of one rink. We’ve had a lot of help from lo­cal pe­op­le. The ski lift crew at Zero Point have wor­ked hard, as has Es­ko, ow­ner of Im­mel Ma­nor. There are eight rinks in all,” exp­lains An­ni­na Ra­ja­huh­ta, the event’s exe­cu­ti­ve pro­du­cer.

The Pond Hockey World Cup rinks were located at Zero Point and Lake Immeljärvi. Present at Friday’s opening ceremony were Levi Ski Resort CEO Jouni Palosaari and Finnish hockey legend Esa Tikkanen. Palosaari dropped the opening puck on to the ice. On Saturday, a charity game was held, where the big names in the hockey world together raised €1300 for FANC’s (Finnish Association for Nature Conservation League) Lapland chapter.

Ra­ja­huh­ta prai­ses the fact that Levi cle­ar­ly has pul­ling po­wer. It is of­ten dif­fi­cult for a new event to hit the ground run­ning, but Levi al­re­a­dy at­t­rac­ted around 1500 pla­yers.

“We have par­ti­ci­pants and te­ams from se­ven dif­fe­rent count­ries: Fin­land, Swe­den, the Czech Re­pub­lic, Slo­va­kia, Den­mark, USA and Ita­ly,” she ad­ds.

“We are very sa­tis­fied. Whe­ne­ver you start to or­ga­ni­se so­met­hing new, you first have to make pe­op­le awa­re of it. We’ve re­ac­hed out to the pond hoc­key com­mu­ni­ty re­al­ly well. Ho­pe­ful­ly we can grow this event for next ye­ar, so that it will be­co­me an an­nu­al fix­tu­re.”

Ra­ja­huh­ta would be hap­py to get out on the ice. She is a fa­mi­li­ar stri­ker from the Fin­nish Wo­men’s Li­ons na­ti­o­nal team, who was a mem­ber of the 2019 World Cup sil­ver me­dal li­neup, among ot­hers.

“My own pla­ying ca­reer be­gan on na­tu­ral ice, and pond hoc­key is close to my he­art.”

Revenge next year?

When we in­ter­vie­wed them, the Czech guys still had se­ve­ral ga­mes to play. Their dream was of cour­se the pla­yof­fs.

“Thanks to this trip, we al­so mis­sed our pre­si­den­ti­al elec­ti­ons. If our can­di­da­te lo­ses, we’ll have to move to Fin­land,” the team clai­med from the si­de­li­nes.

The guys’ de­ci­si­on to come to Levi could be desc­ri­bed as ‘semi-in­ten­ti­o­nal’.

“This is our first pond hoc­key trip. One of us hap­pe­ned to see an ad on Fa­ce­book and we thought it wouldn’t be such a long trip here, com­pa­red to Ca­na­da or the Sta­tes.”

The Czech guys were so in­sis­tent about their pond hoc­key pro­wess, that they may well be back for next ye­ar’s fi­nals…