Final games and the Niagara Falls

On Wednesday it was freezing cold! Again. The wind was terrible. We ate breakfast in the morning and then headed to the White Oaks mall to buy a new winter jacket for my dad. We just hang around and tried to get the time to past before the semifinal game. 

The semifinal game against team Canada West was ready to begin with a crowd cheering and the cameras rolling. :P The crowd was full of Canadians and we were maybe around 15 Finnish there.. Still at some points we were much louder than them. Four older people sitting in front of us changed their seats because we cheered so loud for the girls. Exciting game ended for our girls 11-3 win! What a feeling to silence the whole Canadian crowd! 

Things that caught my eye:

•  LOTS of churches
• low buildings expect the hotels 
• beer could only be purchased from the beer stores
• train track through the "city" center
• most of the cars where pick-up cars
• people were reaaallyy friendly there

On Thursday morning I was excited to wake up: it was the day of the final. As my friend said to me: the last day of us holding the title of U19 Champs. We left for the near by city plaza to make the last shoppings done since I surprisingly still had some money left. 

The bronze game ended 7-1 when the Canada West won the Russian team. I was excited for the gold game to start having water and throat pastilles with me since after the semifinal game I didn't have that much voice left.. I really don't know how to write about the game since our girls lost it 6-2 and the gold went back to the Canadians after 10-years! The last time, in any category, when Canada had won was in 2002 Champ games. Though though place for our girls, not only to loose but then to watch all the long ceremonies after the game. :( I'm still proud of the girls since they played really well and didn't give up. I lost my voice for good after shouting and cheering the entire game like a maniac. 

On Friday, on our last day, we packed our luggage and left the hotel around 9 am and headed towards the Niagara Falls. The trip there went fast and being lazy I'll let the pictures talk for themselves. :P 

Some HUGE bridge 

BIG casino where I got in after showing my ID. Old people with rollators and pints..

Toronto

Yes, I drank coffee?! 

Toronto Pearson Airport

Somewhere above

Back to home

The first day of 2013!

The first day of the year was full of exciting ringette games! We started our morning by having breakfast and after going for a walk to the Victoria park. It wasn't the "magical" as it had looked the previous night on tv when it was full of people and all the trees there had christmas lighting on. Now the lights weren't on so it looked, well, just like a normal park.. It was so cold outside!! The wind was ice cold! 

The church next to the park

Victoria Park

Angel Tree

People had decorated the tree in memory of children who had died young. The tree had  pictures, poems, stories etc. about the children and told about their life. :/ 

Another church on the other side of the park..

Then we hopped into our car and drove to the rink to watch team Finland's morning practice. After that it was one of the Canada's  team's turn and we were kicked out because it was a closed practise?!  We headed to Subway to eat and after took a nap. I slept for 3 hours! I can't understand why I was so tired all the time there! Loved my big bed though. :P I was planning on going to gym to put my sneakers to use which I took with me from Finland but instead I decided to sleep..

Then it was time for Finland - Russia game. Not much to tell about the game, only that Finland won by 9-0 and in my opinion this was the first game were they actually played and scored as a team not as individuals. It was a really nice game to watch. :) BUT THEN the Canada West- East game! It was by far the most fastest, even and exciting game I've seen. I can't even describe it but it was really fast, both teams played well, all the scores were really well played and finished accurately. The game ended in a tie 3-3 which meant that Finland actually didn't win the division instead East won it by the made-goal-difference against Finland and team West.. And this meant that Finland would have to play the semifinal game against the tough Canada West team.. 

What ringette used to look like..

Link to an article about ringette: Not your grannys ringette any more

As you read ringette is celebrating its 50 year anniversary so at the arena there were lots of things put up about the sports history and they also sold lots different anniversary stuff like t-shirts, keychains, pencils etc.. 

Ringette Hall of Fame

The next day the girls were about to play for the spot in the FINAL!! 

"the GIRL" (IRF=internationl ringette federation)

Jet lag, shopping and ringette

On Sunday morning I already woke up at 7 am to check my whats app messages since it was already a day in Finland.. Also I couldn't sleep no more. Must have been jet lag or something. For our surprise the breakfast at the hotel was buffet and I a really nice one! They even had porridge there! :) Later on we went to drive around the city and it's small streets which most of them looked identical. We easily found one of the  shopping malls called Masonville but, as we had forgotten that it was Sunday, it was still closed. We also visited my sister's hotel which was really nice from outside and inside also. 

My sister's hotel: Delta Armouries hotel

After 12 o'clock we drove back to Masonville to shop.. It had really nice stores like Victoria Secret, Carson Crew, Roots, Foot locker etc.. :) We ate there some nice wok food. Then it was time for the third game! 

Before the game we posted our cheering sheets on the walls! :) 

The game was against the other Canadian team West. As the previous game the day before this was an even game also! Team Finland didn't play their best but fought the game to an even score again, 6-6. Right at the end of the game West made the final  score and both ended up getting one point from the game. When the game ended we watched one period of the game France - Canada East.

In the evening we went out to eat to this nice sports bar kinda place where all the waitress and waiter people had KILTS on! Then it was time to sleep! I was exhausted! 

During the day we also talked about going to Detroit, but we ended up deciding not to go. :( We didn't have any good day to do that since on 31st we figured that there would be so many people coming and going between the borders and that day was basically the only option for us. And on the other hand we didn't wanna miss team Finland's games. :) :/ 

On Monday it was New Year's Eve!! :) Last day of the year! My dad didn't feel so well so only me and mom headed to breakfast and straight to watch game France - Finland. The beginning wasn't that good but then the girls started to play and it ended 7-1 for us! :)  From there we left for shopppppiinggg and my mom was co-driver with a map and we got lost quite a few times at first... This time we went to the other mall, White Oaks, it was also big with many stores. :) Then I dropped mom off at the hotel and headed alone to Masonville since team Finland was going there to shop for a few hours. :) I spent the time mostly following my sister as she went crazy and shopped around..

First time I ate was at 5.30pm! I was so hungry and tired! From the lobby I asked things to do and places where to go in the evening, I was so excited! Well, my enthusiasm ended really fast since I fell asleep for over two hours when I was supposed to take a short nap before getting ready for heading to Victoria Park to watch the live show and the fireworks. After I was supposed to hit some bar or club for a while. So I woke up around 10 pm and I was sooo tired I just couldn't get up from my lovely big bed. I watched the New Year's Eve show from the park from tv.. Lame, I know. I didn't recover from the nap. At least I stayed awake until the year changed. Next year another try, hopefully also in Canada then! 

Taken from our living room

Finland - France

From one of the center streets

Team Finland white ready for a fight! -part 2-

Helsinki

On Saturday 29th we left from home at 6 o'clock towards Helsinki-Vantaa airport. The first flight was to London, UK and it went really fast. 

The airport was huge! It was by far the biggest one I've ever been in. We had to take a metro or whatever they call it to different terminal and from there we had to take a bus ride for 10 minutes. It was good that we had some time between the flights. The other flight was to Toronto and it took 7 hours and 55 minutes. In my opinion it went so fast! All the passengers had their own tv-screen in front of them with games, music, tv series, movies etc. I watched two movies, listened to some music and played Who Wants To Be a Millionaire.. :D ..didn't win.. anything.. 

Toronto, London and also North bay where the next year's women's Champs are held! 

Toronto suburbs

At Toronto airport we waited for our bags for one hour!! After we found the car rental place rather quickly and were off to London, which was a 200 km drive away. The drive went fast and soon we already were at the hotel. It was so nice hotel and they had done something (didn't explain it) but we got an upgrade on our room so we eventually got a kingsize suite! 

Highway 401 to London

My room

We just left our bags in our room and were off the see Finland's second game against Team Canada East. They had won the morning game against USA 13-0. When we found the ice hall I didn't quite believe we were at the right place since there were so many cars on the parking lot! The ice hall was big and in total it had four ice rinks of which only one was the game arena. The ice hall had bar/restaurant, hockey store, lots of space and some other fast food (hotdog, pizza etc) place..

The tickets cost 20 canadian dollars for adults and under 19-years-old got in for a half price. The event pass for all the games was 100 dollars. When we went to buy the tickets to woman told me that "you're under 19, right..?" and I just answered that "I could be" and she just laughed and let me only pay the half price. The feeling at the arena was so awesome! There were actually people there watching and getting ready for the game to start! We soon spotted the other Finns and joined them in the crowd.

The crowd was loud throughout the game and we cheered our girls the best we could! It was so weird to see the difference between the games in Finland. (Of course these were the championship games but still). Young girls took photos of their favorite players, they had made signs for them, they had t-shirts which said for ex. "I wanna be just like Sydney". Also the ringette 50 year anniversary mascots Junior Jacks and Samatha Belle were present to take pics with the youngest ones in the audience. The game was even and it ended 2-2 when Finland came even only about 30 seconds before the final buzzer. :)

The mascots

The first impressions and some facts about London, Ontario:

- population around 360 000

- 200 km from Toronto

-London Knights play in the OHL

-seemed rather small at first, only couple of "main streets"

-beer can only be purchased from the Beer Stores not from the local markets

-lots of christmas decorations outside the houses
-CHURCHES!! A LOT! In almost every block there was some church!
-the houses had a lot castle like features like towers etc.

One of the churches nearby

Main street

Christmas necorations

The beer store

Hotel lobby

London, Ontario, Canada

It's been way too long from my last travel and blogwriting so I'm so excited to tell you that I'm going to travel to Canada tomorrow! My sister is also playing ringette and now it's her chance to play for the gold medal in U19 ringette World Championships! I'm so excited for her! 

My spring here in Finland has gone past both fast and slow. I've been missing Greece and all my friends a lot! I've also been working, well, too much and at the same time tried to balance with school, practical training and ringette.. I've been struggling a bit with my future, mostly with next spring and summer trying to figure out what I wanna do with my life in general, with ringette and with my desire to travel. I had three great trips planned for the spring and summer but now I can probably only make one come true. I'm too close to my dream to make it to take national team so I can't jeopardize it by not giving it my all and to travel too much at the same time.. I'm also graduating from my school and it's distressing that I'm soon gonna have an occupation which means that I would have to get a full time job, move out and act like an adult. No way am I ready for that! I just wanna travel and see the world and enjoy my youth.. Anyway, so much about my boring personal life here in Finland and back to my next trip! 

We (me and my parents) are gonna leave tomorrow morning on 29th of December to London, Ontario, Canada. (See the link for more info: http://www.londontourism.ca/ ) We are first gonna fly to Heathrow airport in London (United Kingdom) and then take the connective flight to Toronto. From there we are gonna rent a car and drive around 200 km to London. I've already planned, of course to watch the games and cheer the girls, but also to shop, see the neighborhood and maybe also drive to Detroit, Michigan, to USA. :) I just got one problem which is that I'm not sure about the Visa or could I only survive with the ESTA. Also I'm not that eager to wait on the lines many hours.. We'll see if we are gonna go there or not. I would reaallllly love to see the place, "the motor city".

Detroit waterfront (from google) 

The best part of the whole trip is that I didn't have to pay for it.. Thanks to my dad for that! I'm gonna write more about the trip when we come back to Finland!

Here is more info about the Championships and the team: Team Finland U19

You can also follow the games live: Live games