Svea Svin rates the World Championships 2006 in Riga

MOTIVATION: The world Championships in 2006 in Riga was absolutely ok. We had expected better weather, but unfortunately the weather gods were not happy this year. We will remember the Championships in 2006 as a tournament with lots of fun, lots of heavy drinking and good motion. But we will also remember the people (taxi drivers) that did their best to relieve us from our money. That Sweden took the Gold is worth a 10 in rating, but various things reduce this rating.

- That Sweden wasn’t able to kick finland out of the tournament this year as we have done so many years before.
- The weather.
- That the REAL motion outside, as well as inside, the arenas were really got started, and
-  That it wasn’t as cheap in Riga as one expects from old Soviet republics.

Well, all of this makes the total score for the 2006 World Championships in Riga gets a 7 out of 10 after all the members have cast their votes.

Tre Kronor – The Swedish national hockey team.
We felt it already during the World Championships in Austria that this could be something good. It seemed like Tre Kronor had gotten back the joy to play and that big things were about to happen. Sure, Sweden ended up on fourth place last year, but anyway, the feeling was good!
This feeling proved to be right.
The success in Torino during the Olympics is nothing that we shall talk about again, since that might get us to fall into coma of admiration for Sweden. Bengt-Åke, the Swedish coach, gotten himself a place in the history books by doing what none of the other Olympic Gold medalists (Soviet Union, Canada, USA, Czechoslovakia/Czechia, Great Britain) had done before him. That is to take the Gold in both tournaments during the same year. For us that were on location in Riga when this happened it is a privilege to be able to say for the rest of our lives “I was there when Sweden became historical in Riga in 2006!”
The IIHF almost filled their entire issue of Ice Times to the Swedish accomplishment during Turin and Riga in 2006. Download your issue here [752kb]. And since this issue is a tribute to successful hockey nations, finland is not mentioned.
For us supporters we can now put the time (1999-2004) behind us. A time where Sweden didn’t get one single Gold in Ice Hockey and where there were three dark years of losses to finland (1999-2001). This was all ddone during the “Hardy-era” meaning the time when Hardy Nilsson was head coach for Tre Kronor.
If you read this Hardy, Gabbe is wondering if you got the message that Gabbe sent to you via your niece. If not, you get it here:
-You suck, you suck, you suck. Thanks a fucking lot for Salt Lake city, you bastard!!!
By the way, do take your time to download and look at the IIHF world ranking that you’ll find here.

The finnish “lions”
The finnish wave of losses continues, to the never-ending happiness of the entire Swedish nation. Finland has today the most over rated hockey team by its supporters and journalists. What ever they do they loose. If they try to play in World Cup, they loose, if they try to play in the Olympics, they loose, if they play in the World Championships they… loose! Since they had a Swedish coach in 1995 (and of course took Gold because if that) there have been nothing but disappointments for the finns. Lost World Championships finals, Olympic finals, the quarter final in Helsinki in 2003.
That the kittens won the bronze final against Canada is nothing to get excited about since transatlantic teams never has been interested in winning anything but Gold. Therefore it was like a walk in a park for finland to get the Bronze. The outcome had probably been different if they had met an equally good team like, Slovenia, Italy or Germany.
The last year we have also heard from various finnish supporters that “What happened eleven years ago will never happen again.”, “we only come to the playoffs and the qualifying round so that we are sure to see finland play.”, “finland is in a transition period (damn long one if you ask us) where the old professionals disappears and none is coming to fill their place.” It is in other words more obvious than before that the poor finns need all the help that they can get, being one of the main underdeveloped hockey nations in the world. One advice is that the finnish kittens zzzxxwawesersescompete in the Paralympics next time; maybe they win if they play Hockey against people without legs or something.

THE SURROUNDINGS AROUND THE ARENAS

We had heard from people that were on location during the first week that it was “completely dead”, “just some tables and nothing more” and so on by Skonto arena, so we had no hopes at all for that place. But we don’t know what they had been drinking because along one side there were beer tents, Skoda tents and places where souvenirs were sold.

By the newly built Riga arena they had created a HUGE area with beer- and food places. We are not exaggerating if we say that there were at lest 20 of those inside the beer area. They had also put up a huge beer tent. But this was completely empty, probably due to the fact that it was located on the outside of the beer area and that it was no live music there. Our experience is that if you are to get people to come to a beer tent you just got to have live music!
But it was always people on location outside the arenas before game, and when it got to the semi- and final games it was crowded with people for all different kinds of nations that was cheering, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and so on. The motion by the arenas was always very good.

THE ORGANISERS

During the World Championships in Riga it was always very important too be updated on the game schedule. It changed and was then changed again. Games in the evening were moved to the afternoon and vice versa. A poor organization and a feeling of hobby craftsmanship was the total feeling of the Championships in Riga.

The organizers had not fixed something in town for us supporters. But this was instead taken care of by local restaurant owners that made sure that there were big-screen TV’s in Old town and thereby got us into good Championships mood. Weak!
It was also bad that we had to get tickets to the games BEFORE it was possible to get into the beer area by the arenas. They explained this with “we don’t want rubbish people and alcoholics to crowd with the supporters.”
Ok, we can understand that in one way. But for example in Ostrava in 2004 this selection was effectively done during the body search that took place before entering the area at Beer-arena. The Czechs organized this so much better.

GUARDS/STAFF

When we got to Riga the guards, from having been very strict, had become quite reasonable. Pernilla, for example, managed to negotiate better places for us inside the arena. Very good! The Swedish journalist Tommy Boustedt had earlier called the guars “Concentration camp people” but that we think is unfair.

SOUVENIRS/SALES PEOPLE

The people that were taking care of different merchandise and food was amongst the most miserable that we have experienced since the Championships in Norway 1999. That these people were not able to for example “learn” that the best thing is to pour up tons of beer five minutes before the period is over is a scandal! That way they could just have “thrown” out beer when the crowds came. But no! Not possible. AMATEURS!!!

The souvenir stores was another tragic chapter in this story. “Closed” stores inside Riga arena often met us. We saw how the sales people just shrugged their shoulders when we said that we wanted to shop. “we are closed” was their only comment.
BUT FOR FUCKS SAKE!!! We want to give you money in change for goods, and there you are, sitting picking your noses and claims that the store is closed! The lack of will to make money was obvious in Riga and this is just two examples. If we also had gotten the opportunity to get into the beer-areas (see above) then more money would have been spent to the organizers and not to local pub owners. For us it was shit the same, but for the organizers it was probably a big loss of money.
The number of souvenirs though consisted of t-shirts, pins, patches, pennants and other stuff was sold and was very good!

The two, according to us, most important souvenirs that shall be on sale during the World Championships.

This year’s scarf was of the same miserable quality as last year in Austria. A very, very tragic thing in some thin nylon material that made no one happy. This cannot even be called a scarf since it more or less seems to be something that hastily has been produced to sell to supporters that don’t know better. The scarf was produced for all competing nations and there was also a so called “event scarf” for sale. (Move your pointer over the scarf to see the reverse of it)

Was this year’s mascot the worst looking ever? Yes, lots of people think so, but it is in big competition of the terrible one produced by the West Germans for the Championships in 1983. The patch this year was in other words as miserable as the mascot. But we managed to get in contact with a Navy officer working at the Latvian ministry of war that said that they had produced patches with the logo (!?) Which patch do You want to wear on your jersey to show that you were in Riga in 2006?

THE WEATHER

The weather during the time we were in Riga changed from terrible to miserably. It was windy, rainy and was cold and just pure pain. From time to another it was double hockey jerseys that was worn by us. We had been looking forward to a Championship in the sun, and because of the Olympics the Championships had been put forward so that it was later than ever before. But no, this was not the case as we were freezing almost the entire time that we were not inside some place drinking.

THE ICE HOCKEY WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP:S…

The Latvians are really getting their asses kicked during the 1936 Olympics in Garmish Partenkirchen.

…Worst lack of memory.
Had the Latvians. They became completely crazy after the game against Canada that they lost with 11-0. They behaved like bastards inside the arena and was throwing in coins and stuff on the ice. They even went to the referee-hotel after the game and was yelling and threatening the referees and stuff. But one thinks that they should be used to this since it was with exactly the same result that they lost to Canada during the 1936 Olympics in 1936. How could they have forgotten that???

…Strangest idea.
Jörgen replied after the final “It will not be better than this. Sweden has no players that can take over after Sundin, Forsberg and the others that are thinking about quitting.”
You are so right Jörgen! Sweden could never had taken the Gold in Riga if it hadn’t been for Peter Forsberg, Mats Sundin and Tommy Salo…

…Best insight
had Ellu that was complained that “Why do some people (the Swedish) always be teasing us when finland looses? When finland wins over Sweden, I am not… Ok, now finland don’t win over Sweden. But IF we were to then…”
Exactly Ellu, finland don’t win over Sweden and that’s the end of story. It would be so great if your fellow countrymen should realize this as well.

…Biggest Casanova
was without doubt Strandbergs son that after having being fined after having thrown up at the square by the Yellow tents, not only manages to get the police woman’s phone number at the back of the fine, but also get a date with her! We bow our heads in the outmost respect for this.

Worst (Greatest) action taken against the finns.
Without doubt Fredner! We thought that we had seen it all. We thought that the line that couldn’t be crossed had been painted a long time ago when he walked in on the ice during the game SWE-fin in Canazei in 1994. We thought that he couldn’t make worse comments than he did during the Championships in 2000. He might had some limits left after 2001 and 2002.
But Fredner showed us all, after having been away for four years, that he is still the king of crazy maneuvers during the World Championships in Ice Hockey.

When he manages to find the finnish player bus after the Czechs had kicked them out from the tournament, bangs on the door and demands to be let in, starts to bang his drum inside the bus and yells: -Everybody that hates finland, clap your hands!
Then we realize that there can only be one. There can only be one person that actually does what we all wants to do, but don’t dare to!…

…Worst photographer
is Patrik that has an ability to make strange priorities when it comes to filming events that takes place during the Championships that just wants us to almost start to cry and wonder “What the hell is he thinking???” Some examples:

Filming our visit to the terrible Russian market in Riga, 5 min. 32 sec.
Filming trips from Old town to the arenas, a total of 29 min. 02 sec. (we are talking about a continuous clip from within a f*****g Taxi!)
Filming when we accidentally ran into the coach of the Olympic Gold Winners, Bengt-Åke Gustafsson, 26 sec!!!

Has there EVER been a reason during all these years to film it was then! But no.
Why, why didn’t you film, you sober bastard? What little voice inside your head told you that “this dude is not interesting enough to film, so I turn off the camera and maybe I can film some old shit later and spend expensive film on.”
Holy shit!

…most gay?
Must without doubt have been the finnish hockey supporters. As a Swedish supporter we have gotten used to that these people (that never wins anything worth mentioning) constantly are referring to us as “homosexuals”, “gay” and so on. The homosexuality seems to be very central in the mind of finnish men since they are nagging about it so very much.
We on the other hand don’t care about people and their sexuality since it simply isn’t interesting. But during the World Championships in Riga we really found out who are the true gay-community in hockey when the entire finnish support group came out of the closet during the Eurovision song contest. For those of you who are not Scandinavian, the only people who are interested in this “contest” are the gay community. But the finns ran around like little ladies and yelled “we won, we won the Eurovision song contest!”.
We mean, who cares about a bloody song contest? We went to Riga from all over the world to support our Hockey team, but it seems like the finns liked the gay-contest more.
Then it has been proved what we all have known for so many years.

…Most annoying
They had stopped handing them out for free when we go to Riga, but those terrible horns that the Latvians constantly was using were a matter of irritation that almost everybody just hated.

…Most boring joke
was Johnny’s when he after a hart night at Go-Go La Vita asks:
-Do you know what that place would have been called if it had been in Tel Aviv?
-???
-SynaGo-Go La Vita!
We know, it is really a truly boring joke. But after like 24 hours of drinking it was really so fun, then at 06:00 AM.

…Least educated
was the little guy that after the final game was standing and screamed at us by the Yellow tents that “You are not the best country in the world. You don’t have the best team. Because we are the best, we are, for real we are!”
Ok, now we don’t wants to neglect a small Canadian hockey boy’s opinion about international Hockey. Maybe he had like made this great essay in school about hockey. But to neglect the fact that the Swedish national hockey team is so completely superior to the rest of the world is today something that not even the worst alcoholics of the finns can claim.

Svea Svin recommends: A very good place to stay when visiting Riga. Well cleaned and nice, located in central Old town. Staff on location 24/7 even though we think that the female staff was porn-surfing a little bit too much for what can be healthy. Just remember that there is a disco in the bottom floor so the place might not be ideal if you are going to Riga for a quiet time.

Infront produced a video that we think sums up the World Championships in Riga in a very good way. And of course some members of Svea Svin are seen at the end of the video! © 2006 Infront.

Those of you that have generously helped us with this report are all listed on our Thanks-page.