Football (of a sort) in knee-deep snow

The ice of Hyrynsalmi’s Syväjärvi Lake is the venue of Snow Soccer World Championships

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By Heli Saavalainen
     
      According to the thermometer it is not that cold out, but on the ice of the Syväjärvi Lake in the Kainuu municipality of Hyrynsalmi in Eastern Finland, the bitter wind causes the snow to hit the face horizontally, quickly generating a sensation of being frozen to the bone.
      At times the knee-deep snowdrifts turn into watery slush.
      Luckily the steely ice underneath is strong enough to carry the weight of an army tank, let alone a few footballers.
     
In any case, the players romping about on the ice do not seem to be anything like as bothered about the conditions as some of the spectators are.
      It may have something to do with the electric soup provided by the coaching staff.
      Many of the players seem to have tanked up quite substantially for the ordeal. Doping tests do not seem to be on the agenda.
     
Over the weekend Hyrynsalmi’s Ukkohalla holiday resort played host to no less a major sporting festival than the World Championships in an event called "snow soccer".
      The FC Löysät team from the southern city of Järvenpää has set itself a modest goal of scoring one goal.
      “Three times we have taken part in the tournament, and we have scored three goals", team captain Tom Koski explains.
      The icy wind does not faze the players.
      “One has to have some sporting spirit.”
     
FC Ellit from Nivala have also set their sights on scoring a goal.
      This is the team’s first visit to the wintry football mayhem.
      As the event takes place on a frozen lake the team has come prepared for every eventuality: each player is equipped with a snorkel and a pair of diver's goggles.
      The all-female team has invested time and effort in choosing the right outfit.
      “As far as snow soccer goes, we only had one pre-tournament training session. But the uniforms we have tried on several times”, the women declare in unison.
      Their joy knows no bounds when the game between Ellit and Happy Chickens ends in a creditable 1-1 draw.
      The Happy Chickens are no pushovers, and qualify from their group. The Ellit effort is not quite enough: five points from their four games leaves them fourth in the group and out of the tournament.
     
Having fun in a relaxed atmosphere seems to be main event with this arctic sporting discipline, but in the midst of the whirling snow one can also sense the genuine joy of physical exercise.
      The strength of one’s knees is sorely tested when dashing back and forth in the half-metre-deep snow, and occasional injuries are part of the deal.
     
The Los Pokemons team from St. Petersburg in Russia are snow-soccer virgins, but the team has experience from the past four years from the discipline’s older and messier cousin, swamp soccer.
      In soft snow, however, the team struggles, and manages just one win in four closely-contested matches.
      “Next time we will triumph", team captain Igor Koval states matter-of-factly.
     
Women’s third division football team FC Niin Ookoo (“So OK”) from the western city of Vaasa have also set their sights on winning the whole thing.
      “We came here with victory in mind”, confirms Johanna Tamsi.
      “We have prepared carefully. We trained not once but twice.”
      Pushing the team minibus back on the road from an excursion into the ditch the previous night also served as a last-minute fitness test.
      It seems to have helped: FC Niin OoKoo breeze through their qualifying group undefeated, scoring eight goals without reply.
      But they fall in the semi-finals and can hope for no better than bronze.
     
Snow whirls around as the FC Löysät squad try desperately to achieve their scoring target.
      The Järvenpää team does not really have any substitute players, so the men have their work cut out for them in the snow for the duration of the game. This time around, however, the sporting spirit alone is not enough. The one-goal objective remains unachieved.
      The Järvenpää team’s campaign in the tournament is over after the first day: four games, four defeats, and a dispiriting goal difference of 0-12.
     
Snow soccer has been played on the ice of Syväjärvi in Hyrynsalmi since 2000, and the World Championships have been organised here since 2002.
      The size of the snowy pitch is 60 metres by 30 metres.
      The playing time is 2 x 8 minutes, which doesn't sound like much, but you try it.
      In addition to the goalie, there are five players in each team. The number of substitutions is unlimited and the offside rule does not apply.
     
Snow soccer is the winter equivalent of a summer sport called swamp soccer, though smaller in scale.
      While in the Swamp Soccer World Championships more than 300 teams with 5,000 players compete on 22 pitches set up in the Vuorisuo marshland, the global hegemony in snow soccer is determined on a mere 6 pitches.
      This year around 70 teams and a thousand players took part in the event that includes separate series for male, female, and mixed-sex teams.
      As much as providing a lot of fun for the players, the two events each year bring in a decent amount of money and life to a part of the country that has suffered heavily from migration.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 7.2.2010
     
     
For the record, the men's snow soccer world champions for 2010 are the Swedish side Bakis BK, who came, saw, and conquered over Namut Kassit in a penalty shoot-out after the final finished goalless (scoring goals is not that easy in deep snow). The women's champions were the Happy Chickens referred to above, and the trophy for mixed teams went to FC Kuokkavieraat, who proudly did not concede a single goal on their way to victory.


Links:
  Swamp Soccer/Snow Soccer
  Swamp Football (Wikipedia)

HELI SAAVALAINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
heli.saavalainen@hs.fi