Almost the entire Finnish gold team from 1995 is in place in Stockholm. Profiles like Saku Koivu, Jere Lehtinen, Ville Peltonen, Timo Jutila, and Jarmo Myllys are here to watch the World Championship hockey – Sweden against Finland on Monday evening – but also to mark the 30th anniversary of one of Finland's greatest sporting moments.
And to meet and pay tribute to Curt "Curre" Lindström, the Swede who made it possible.
I hope he has understood how important he has been for Finnish ice hockey, says Saku Koivu, who with 832 NHL points is third among Finns, only behind Teemu Selänne and Jari Kurri.
Barely Remembers the Celebration
Koivu was one of the big stars in the World Championship 1995 and part of the iconic Knatte-Fnatte-Tjatte-chain, which also consisted of Ville Peltonen. Peltonen became the match hero in the final against Sweden (4–1) with his hat-trick.
It was something incredible and broke new ground since Finland finally got to go all the way. We had been waiting for that for many years. Everything that happened after the final is a bit of a haze. But the last seconds of the game you remember. I just thought "we can't take anything for granted before it's over", says Ville Peltonen.
It was controversial when "Curre" Lindström, as the first Swede, was appointed captain of Finland's hockey team in 1993. Two years later, he was almost canonized by the Finns.
Then Lindström had built an extremely cohesive national team that, after the Olympic bronze and World Championship silver in 1994, finally reached the ultimate goal: gold in a World Championship. That it took place in the lion's den, the Globe in Stockholm, did not make the matter worse.
Sweden had always been a ghost for us, we had lost many matches against them and they had turned it around in the last minutes several times. So to Sweden, to their home arena the Globe, and manage to win. It gave so incredibly much joy, says Sami Kapanen, a long-time NHL forward who scored six points in the World Championship 1995.
Crisis in the Homeland
It was the small things that Lindström did that transformed Finland into a gold team, says Saku Koivu. Above all, the now 84-year-old Swede got "The Lion" to believe that they could beat any team.
He talked about "a little better" all the time, and that was an attitude that was new to us, says Saku Koivu.
The World Championship gold also meant a lot for the nation of Finland as a whole.
Finland had just gone through a very tough economic crisis. But with the World Championship gold in Stockholm, it somehow turned around. It's the kind of thing you notice later, but somehow everything fell into place there, says Koivu.
