Finland vs Sweden: How intense and when it began?

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Ippenator

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Finland were also the moral bronze medallists in the 1976 Olympics but this is probably also of no interest to you.
Oh please. Sports are always result oriented. Who cares what could’ve or should’ve happened in any sports? The only thing that matters in the end is the end result. And thus - Finland won absolutely nothing in the 70’s. And the first medal they won was really as late as in the 1988 with the Olympic silver medal. Of course we have achieved numerous medals after that, which of course is the result of hockey being in Finland on a completely different level since the 90’s than what it was like before that.
 
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Lepardi

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Oh please. Sports are always result oriented.

Absolutely. But when you change the tiebreaking rules at the end of the tournament to give the bronze to the Germans instead of Finland like they did in Innsbruck, "well just look at the results" isn't such a relevant argument anymore. There was a three-way tie on positions 3-5 between Finland, West Germany and USA. They looked at the games among those three. Every team had two points, Finland's goal difference was 9-8, Germany's was 7-6 and USA's was 6-8. So clearly Finland had the best record among the three. But no, once they saw these results, they suddenly came up with a reasoning that enabled them to give the bronze to the Germans: 7/6 equals 1.17, whereas 9/8 only equals 1.13.

If you don't think that is shady as hell, I don't know what to say.
 

Ippenator

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Absolutely. But when you change the tiebreaking rules at the end of the tournament to give the bronze to the Germans instead of Finland like they did in Innsbruck, "well just look at the results" isn't such a relevant argument anymore. There was a three-way tie on positions 3-5 between Finland, West Germany and USA. They looked at the games among those three. Every team had two points, Finland's goal difference was 9-8, Germany's was 7-6 and USA's was 6-8. So clearly Finland had the best record among the three. But no, once they saw these results, they suddenly came up with a reasoning that enabled them to give the bronze to the Germans: 7/6 equals 1.17, whereas 9/8 only equals 1.13.

If you don't think that is shady as hell, I don't know what to say.
I know all about the history of that incident. It was of course unfortunate and someone might claim it to be even unfair. Still the result was after all that Finland didn’t get a medal then. And anyway even if they would have got it, it wouldn’t have really magically made Finnish hockey any better than it really was those days. In the long run our players got pretty much what they deserved with the quality of their play. There can happen lucky wins and unfair incidents, but in the long run the truly good teams and nations have managed to get medals pretty darn often. Finland wasn't at those days even close to being that kind of a hockey nation. But as I said, they started clearly changing it in the 90’s, and since that Finland has been truly one of the real hockey powers of the world.

Hats off for the generations that played in the 70’s and before it, as they did gradually make hockey more and more popular in Finland. And they were also the generations that started gradually having more and more of professionalism in the sport. But skill-wise and result-wise they still got pretty much what they deserved. The later generations have had so much more talent - even relatively, that they have been on a completely different success level, and have been really deserving the success that they have got.
 

llwyd

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A win against Sweden in any sport has long been for Finns a way to keep down the nagging sensation that they are, in fact, second-rate Swedes. Historically, both Finns and Swedes have been your garden-variety Nordic Lutherans with an almost identical mindset, but Finns have been a bit poorer, a bit scruffier, a bit less fortunate in geopolitics, a bit less successful and connected internationally. There's also the tiny issue that Finland was, for centuries, under Swedish rule, and while thinking about that in terms of oppressor/oppressed is simplistic revisionism, the fact is that Swedish was the language of power and Finnish most definitely wasn't.

There was also the massive economic diaspora of the 60's and 70's that made Sweden a sore spot for many Finns: if your team/athlete beat Sweden, you could forget for a moment that you were, in fact, welding Saabs in Trollhättan and your Swedish superiors were looking down at you. This was reflected in hockey as well: a stereotypical tournament team of the 70's and 80's only started drinking after they had beaten the Swedes. (Which often led to glorious results like losing to East Germany.)

That dynamic is probably changing quickly nowadays, what with Finns not only doing better in team sports but also becoming more affluent, less traumatized by war and less obsessed with their own miserable history.

Good post! Yep, lots of history behind this thing - especially on our side - but it's fading now quite quickly as we are now rather similarly wealthy and modern countries. A while ago I listened to Oslo 1952 50km cross country radio broadcast from Yle Archives and my god how bitter the commentators were about the Swedes and how positive about the Norwegians. I think the war really reinforced these already strong attitudes of the late 19th and early 20th century: Finns dying in Karelian forests while Swedes were happily practicing winter sports etc. Luckily these factors are getting less and less important both as regards Sweden and Russia. Let's just have pure sports rivalries!
 
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Bruce Granville

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Finland were also the moral bronze medallists in the 1976 Olympics but this is probably also of no interest to you.
What is your agenda?
1976 has nothing to do with the rivalry between Finland and Sweden, medal or not.
Try to stick to the topic.
 

Porvari

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Luckily these factors are getting less and less important both as regards Sweden and Russia. Let's just have pure sports rivalries!

Then again, those national hangups have fueled hockey's rise to become the #1 sport in Finland, as the countries where hockey matters have mapped almost perfectly to Finnish mental geography: it's a game where you can fear the Russians, envy the Swedes and yearn for North America. (The Czechs/Slovaks are traditionally the only hockey powers Finland can engange purely on a sporting basis, without any emotional baggage.)
 

Stubu

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Then again, those national hangups have fueled hockey's rise to become the #1 sport in Finland, as the countries where hockey matters have mapped almost perfectly to Finnish mental geography: it's a game where you can fear the Russians, envy the Swedes and yearn for North America. (The Czechs/Slovaks are traditionally the only hockey powers Finland can engange purely on a sporting basis, without any emotional baggage.)
This meme is obsolete, and that's a good thing. Maybe it's just the time we live in, with everyone having access to 24/7 news and worldwide social media and all, but Sweden isn't automatically the first comparison point for everything any more. I just discussed this with some friends in Stockholm I've known for three decades and they say they've noticed it too. Good thing too. (And if you think about it, there really isn't any reason for envy, or for schadenfreude or any other negative feeling either. Sweden is a good neighbor, a bit bigger than Finland, very similarly aligned in all the important issues, and it's priceless to have a completely reliable ally in these somewhat turbulent times in Europe. That's how most of the people I know see it.)
 

Albatros

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I think in winter sports there might be generally more heat against Norway nowadays than there is against Sweden, especially in skiing the hate is real.
 

JustaFinnishGuy

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Mar 3, 2016
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The rivalry is fading. I don't think there are many people left that genuinely think that Sweden is the happy-go-lucky capital of the world and are beating themselves up thinking that they want to be like them and ridiculing them at every turn. I think the mentality is fading with the change of the new generation of fans and the most important thing is just to beat the other team. The saying 'the most important thing isn't that we win, it's that Sweden loses' doesn't hold up as well as in the early 2000s.
 

jfc64

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Jul 2, 2006
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I think in winter sports there might be generally more heat against Norway nowadays than there is against Sweden, especially in skiing the hate is real.

Lock up the porcelain. The brothers...
 
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sr edler

gold is not reality
Mar 20, 2010
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It's only tongue-in-cheek. It's also true Finland's little brother complex is fading away to an almost vanishing level, partly because of fairly recent societal development that has made large parts of Sweden say a bit less attractive, to put a diplomatic wording on it. Only thing being envious of these days is that Sweden still makes way better music.
 

ES

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There isn't really Swedish players that irritate majority of Finnish fans. And that has cooled down some of the rivalry. Russia has some players in that category and I would put Kovalchuk as the biggest villain.
 
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sooni

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I can't hate more players a like Sundin, Forsberg and Lundqvist. I know that they are good players, but they all have been huge pain in our arses years by.
 

Stubu

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Dec 16, 2015
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A win against Sweden in any sport has long been for Finns a way to keep down the nagging sensation that they are, in fact, second-rate Swedes. Historically, both Finns and Swedes have been your garden-variety Nordic Lutherans with an almost identical mindset, but Finns have been a bit poorer, a bit scruffier, a bit less fortunate in geopolitics, a bit less successful and connected internationally. There's also the tiny issue that Finland was, for centuries, under Swedish rule, and while thinking about that in terms of oppressor/oppressed is simplistic revisionism, the fact is that Swedish was the language of power and Finnish most definitely wasn't.
I'm not disagreeing per se, but that's a somewhat limited view. Finland's history, as a nation, does go meaningfully back to times before the Swedish rule. Those traditions do continue in the national mentality too. (Finland wasn't some chaotic barbary, even if you don't find any pyramids or other impressive relics anywhere...)

While Swedish was indeed the language of administration and politics (with French dominating diplomacy) and higher education (where Latin wasn't), that still leaves the vast majority of Finns jabbering away in Finnish in their everyday biz. This accumulating "cultural matter" is easy to overlook in historic summaries focusing on major events only.

One important detail/tradition in Finland's history is the fact that even at the apex of Swedish nobility, before the Great Reduction of nobility estates by king Charles XI, the vast majority of Finland's cultivated land was nevertheless owned by independent Finnish farmers. The practically complete lack of Feodalism and land slavery over the centuries, unlike most of continental Europe, is one factor that affected later wars and the resilience and reactions to perceived oppression by later Swedish and Russian rulers.

Water under the bridge now, for sure, but interesting stuff to study.
 

VMBM

And it didn't even bring me down
Sep 24, 2008
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It's only tongue-in-cheek. It's also true Finland's little brother complex is fading away to an almost vanishing level, partly because of fairly recent societal development that has made large parts of Sweden say a bit less attractive, to put a diplomatic wording on it. Only thing being envious of these days is that Sweden still makes way better music.

They do huh? Better pop music for the masses, do you mean?

Obviously Finland has never had an Abba or a Roxette, but when thinking about singer-songwriter type of music, progressive rock or metal, for example, I think Finland can at least hold its own vs Sweden. And we did have Sibelius (Sweden had only Hugo Alfvén, he he).
 

sr edler

gold is not reality
Mar 20, 2010
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They do huh? Better pop music for the masses, do you mean?

Obviously Finland has never had an Abba or a Roxette, but when thinking about singer-songwriter type of music, progressive rock or metal, for example, I think Finland can at least hold its own vs Sweden. And we did have Sibelius (Sweden had only Hugo Alfvén, he he).

Partly better pop/dance music for the masses, yes. Avicii and all that, y'know (not necessarily a fan myself).

Robyn's pretty big and her latest album is really good. Jens Lekman's apparently pretty well known in the transatlantic anglosphere too.

I hate ABBA, by the way, their music sucks. Dancing Queen is a damn catchy song though but with a very infantile tonality to it.
 
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