World Hockey Championship in Bern

Apologies for this post being so late, Windows Life Writer seems to have given up.

Not sure how many of you are hockey fans (shame on you if you’re Canadian…), but this year the World Hockey Championship was played in Switzerland, splitting time between Zurich and Bern. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get a ticket (or afford one!), but fortunately the Swiss aren’t as excited about hockey as football. That meant that I was able to go and see a quarter-final game at pretty much the last minute.

I went to the game with Ben Mueller (who I met because of an introduction from Mr. Hobson) and his wife Cornelia. They live in Bern and although they aren’t huge hockey fans (although Ben mentioned he had seen a Mooseheads game when he was in Halifax) they decided to give it a try (perhaps on my account).

We bought tickets before the matchups were decided and hoped for the best. The game ended up being USA v. Finland, which although not Canada, was a great matchup with lots of history. I had also heard great things about the Finnish hockey faithful.

Each ticket included return transportation from anywhere in Switzerland, so I took a train from Zurich and met Ben at the station in Bern. We then went back to his place for a quick dinner and then took the tram to the game. We had standing room tickets, but the view was great:

View from our “seats”

Team Finland pre-game warmup

The game was good and it was hard not to cheer for Finland when their fans were awesome (lots of noise throughout the game with many SU-O-MI (Finland) chants).

Lots of Finnish flags

All of the scoring took place in the second period with the Finns opening the scoring and then the States scoring 2 and then taking the lead (for good) with an odd-man rush near the end of the period. I think the Finns played better, but Robert Esche was played outstanding.

As you might be able to see, the place wasn’t even close to being full. Perhaps this was because it was only a quarter-final, but a huge factor was the price of tickets (I paid 77 CHF for a standing room ticket, the price to sit down was 129 CHF). I heard the IIHF was disappointed about the prices. One thinks they might have mentioned that to the Swiss organizers before the tournament started…

All-in-all, a great experience. I just heard that the Blackhawks will be playing a game against the Zurich Lions in the Victoria Cup next September, so that may be my next in-person hockey experience.