Esa Lindell Isn’t Joking, for Once

On Tuesday evening, upon the recommendation of some of the wonderful folks in Helsinki, I walked about mile to have dinner at a Finnish wing joint, Ravintola Hook. It was a bit of a surreal experience, as so much of my time in Finland has been thus far. But this time was surreal because of how familiar it all was. I walked in a bit after 5pm, which is early for dinner based on the largely empty restaurant I saw. I was taken to a table, given a menu with a QR code to scan for the English version, and I ordered some spicy wings and an orange soda. Then I enjoyed some second-tier English football(!) while I got my hands all messy with delicious spicy wings that weren’t noticeably different from the kind you’d get at a similar place in the US, which was a good thing in my view.

From there, I walked over to see a game in the second tier of another sport: Finnish ice hockey. To do that, you have to walk through a giant sports complex that features tons of soccer fields and stadiums, the most noteworthy of which was built for the 1952 1940 Summer Olympics, which ended up being canceled. It would later be awarded the 1952 Games.

But after that lovely walk past other fields and sports complexes— it was pretty great to see hundreds of children at soccer practice despite temperatures in the high thirties—I saw a long queue to enter the HIFK home rink, the Helsinki Ice Hall (or jäähalli, if you remember our Finnish word from yesterday).

It was eerily quiet, because so many things are peaceful and quiet here in Helsinki. The people, of course, see no reason to make a fuss, but there’s also not music blasting out into the concourse, which I find particularly lovely. But don’t be fooled, because the quiet outside belies the raucous joy that lies within.

But we weren’t all lined up to see HIFK, but rather their historic rivals: Jokerit, the jokers, who now play in a tier below HIFK. Jokerit are the beloved local team who left Finnish hockey in order to jump on what looked like a lucrative KHL bandwagon, only to be forced to come meekly back after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine soured the whole deal. The team isn’t even allowed to play in its own (larger) rink anymore, as it’s still owned by Russians, which is what led to the uneasy cohabitation they now experience.

***

The history between Finland and Russia is much the same as between Russia and some of its other neighbors. The Winter War was a less-taught (in the US) conflict where the Soviets, in 1939, demanded that Finland “trade” a bunch of border territories to them for other real estate on the pretense of protecting their capital. Most historians now will tell you that the plan was really just to conquer all of Finland, and that the Soviets knew the Finns would never agree to just handing over a bunch of their territories. You can read all the history for yourself, but the long and the short of it was that Finland repelled the Soviets for far longer than seemed possible, and that Finland ultimately accepted help from Nazi Germany to hold off the Soviets in the Continuation War shortly after the initial conflict, with Finland eventually getting some of their original territory back from Russia in 1944.

That sort of resilience is a key part of the Finnish identity. People here take great pride in taking care of themselves and their country, and it’s extremely rare for me to see, even in a capital city, a construction site that doesn’t also have a well-protected pedestrian path bordered by temporary guardrails and signage. Litter is almost non-existent, and there are numerous intersections without any clear stop signs or traffic lights, because everybody just acts like a sane human being while driving, and it all works itself out peacefully.

Anyway, the point of that brief history detour is that relations between Finland and their eastern neighbors have been fraught, to put it lightly. It is not a coincidence that Finalnd, in 2023, joined NATO. They’ve experienced what happens when Russia goes to war.

So you can understand why the nation’s premier ice hockey league decided that any Russian affiliation was a no-go, particularly for a team that had already seemed a bit too big for its britches by jumping on the KHL bandwagon in the prior decade to begin with. Something had to change, and almost everything did.

Back to the game, though. Once I got inside the arena, I was again struck by the quiet and peaceful concourses. At least at first. Because after initially stopping to use the restroom (which was pristine, of course), I then encountered something uncharacteristic: a hubub.

That’s because, on Tuesday evening, Esa Lindell also did something he hasn’t done before: he got to attend a Jokerit game during the regular season, as one of its owners. The season roughly coincides with the NHL schedule, which means he’s rarely been in Finland at the right time to see a game, particularly in recent years.

And here is where I point you back to Sean’s piece we mentioned yesterday, because you really need to understand the background here to even beging to appreciate what last night meant to Lindell. And while I don’t know that Jason Robertson, Logan Stankoven, Thomas Harley or Wyatt Johnston have quite the same feeling about Finnish hockey heritage that their teammate does, they gladly tagged along and signed some autographs for fans before the game in, by far, the most rowdy part of the concourse, which is to say it was slightly crowded and people were smiling a lot and taking pictures.

Remember, Jokerit is a team that was an institution in Finnish hockey for decades, the team that Teemu Selanne and Jari Kurri were drafted from. One of the assistant coaches of the Florida Panthers is former NHLer Tuomo Ruutu, who also came through the club. Esa Lindell and Teuvo Teräväinen also spent meaningful time with the club before pitching in to keep it from falling into obscurity last year. Heck, even former Dallas Stars players Kari Lehtonen and Juha Lind also came through the team.

Esa Lindell’s appearance, though, was the marquee event. He told Lia Assimakopoulos of the Dallas Morning News and I later that the chants during the game were special, as there were even some throwback songs and chants to his own playing days. (If you’d like to check out the lyrics of the fan club’s hymn book–yes, that’s what it is–you can read English translations here. It’s awesome.)

The Jokerit team anthem is an experience, man. pic.twitter.com/iVJ25Q3I8A

— Robert Tiffin (@RobertTiffin) October 30, 2024

And for someone who is pretty widely known for always having a smile on his face, Lindell resonates with a lot of what Jokerit stands for. And that includes team hymns such as the one that can be summarized as, “Yeah, we’re Jokerit, and everybody hates us, but F— it, we’re the Jokers!” It’s a team that unapologetically sticks out, that goes against convention. And that’s what drew Lindell to it back in his childhood.

“The logo is very unique and special, and people even from in the States say ‘it’s so cool’,” said Lindell, who grew up watching them before finally getting a chance to play with them as a junior player, and then later with the men’s team. In fact, fans brought some of Lindell’s old Jokerit jerseys (as well as his current Stars jerseys) to the game on Tuesday. “Yeah, [it was] special, unique,” said Lindell. “Feel like it wasn’t a long time ago, but it’s like a decade ago, so it’s really cool.”

That sort of connection is common to hear when you talk to people. In fact, form Stars player Juha Lind’s son, Onni, has now been playing with the club for four years, just like his dad. Onni grew up watching Jokerit games, as you would expect, and it surely isn’t meaningless that he’s now wearing the same uniform of a team that is, once again, Finnish.

As the 19-year-old put it after the team won, 3-0 on Tuesday, “I was watching when I was a youngster, Jokerit games when I was like 10 years old or something, when my father played. So yeah, it’s been very nice to play here, and hopefully I will play a for more years, and then maybe up some levels.”

This conversation took place in front of the logo of their historic rivals. Lindell mentioned that this was originally the Jokerit stadium until they moved into the bigger one that now sits empty because of it’s Russian ownership. Now Jokerit are back in the Helsinki Ice Hall, celebrating wins and doing post-game stationary bike rides to flush out lactic acid, but all in front of a reminder that they are not quite home yet.

But you read Lind talking about “moving up some levels. Ah yes, we should talk about promotion. Because as part of the whole KHL debacle, the top tier of Finnish hockey, SM-liiga, now has a close eye on Jokerit as it attempts to earn its way back into the good graces of the stakeholders in Finnish hockey. Part of that process is starting back in the lower tiers before earning promotion and being welcomed back into the highest (and most profitable) tier, SM-liiga. That means a careful dance for ownership where they don’t want to overextend themselves before they’ve earned promotion, as the business side of the whole equation has to make sense (as Tom Hicks could tell you).

That’s where the owners have to be patient, tough as it is to play a tier below their rivals, feeling like strangers in what used to be their own building before they left it behind for what seemed like greener pastures. Now they’re trying to build it back up the right way, which was why Lindell’s involvement was so crucial. Getting players who have ties to the club, and who (after a lengthy process making sure it was a wise investment) were willing to be financial backers of it, is a crucial part of showing SM-liiga that Jokerit really are content to be back in Finnish hockey to stay.

The person who decided to reach back out to Esa Lindell in the first place was another former NHLer, Ossi Väänänen. During the game Tuesday, Väänänen talked about how investing in sports usually isn’t the most lucrative thing, especially at this level. And, hey, even NHL teams could tell you that a huge chunk of the money was coming in through RSNs like Fox or Bally Sports in the past, so it’s been tricky even for NHL teams to ensure they can be profitable while also paying players, hockey ops people, and the landlord of the rink they play in. Imagine how much tougher it must be for Finnish teams in the second tier.

Ultimately it really does come down to relationship. That’s why fans chant throughout the game, and why Väänänen is so confident that the team really can get back to the top tier. He believes that the community is committed to what this team was and can be, and that with patience and dedication, they’ll be able to be back where they want to be.

***

Fans in the hardcore cheering section behind the Jokerit goal aren’t allowed to sit at any point during the game, which is a level of intensity usually reserved in the US for college football or MLS games with adopted European customs. Hence the constant hymns, chants, flags, and claps. Going to a Jokerit game reminds you of how much more deliberate and communal the game experience is in Europe, yes. But the history of the club is richer than most, and more unique, too.

“This club matters to people,” said Väänänen. “It’s a big family[…] We take care of our players, or in juniors, and they feel at home here. In years to come, you can see these kind of feelings, and they’re pretty deep.”

Väänänen knows that the team isn’t looking at the easiest path. “We faced a lot of obstacles along the way, starting from day one because of the past, the Russian ownership and the rink and everything,” he said. “We’ve really been under a microscope here. We’ve had to be so transparent, which we want to be, absolutely. We had a lot of fans that kind of left when the team joined the KHL, and they said they’ll never buy tickets again. But now, walking around the rink here, I’ve had so many people come up to me and say thanks for coming back,” said Väänänen. “We believe in it again and we bought season tickets once again.”

That’s the sort of story that Lindell and his whole ownership group hope to keep hearing while they carefully build for the future. Rather than try to rocket up the standings of Mestis (the league name of the second-tier of Finnish hockey) by getting aging veterans who demand more salary, they’re committed to sticking back to the development path so familiar to any Stars fan. You have to build from within, the owners know, if you want a strong foundation that will last.

***

There is one exception to that approach, however. Jokerit’s team captain is Valtteri Filppula, who you may remember for winning a Stanley Cup in 2008 after his Red Wings defeated the Stars in the Western Conference Final. After the game, Lia and I had a chance to talk to Filppula, and I couldn’t resist asking him about that series. Filppula remembers it well, as professional athletes always seem to do, and he brought up the infamous “off the face” goal by Kris Draper that sent Detroit on its way in the decisive Game 6.

The rumor is that Filppula isn’t even drawing a salary from the team, that all he wanted were some new gloves to match the team’s uniforms, and maybe a couple of sticks, if they had any to spare. Because Filppula, like Lindell, never forgot his boyhood club.

In fact, the initial conversation I had with Filppula’s (much) younger teammate Lind took place while a 40-year-old Filppula was riding the exercise bike right behind us. If you started thinking of a similar hockey lifer in Jaromir Jagr, I wouldn’t fault you. Though Filppula has another decade and change to go before he’s in that territory, this isn’t unlike what Jagr is doing with his own club right now, just for the love of hockey.

In a conversation with Jamie Benn last week, he pointed out that Jagr isn’t married or anything, so he’s sort of married to the sport. That helps him to stay focused on it for as long as he can play, and that same spark of love for the game seems present in Filppula, too.

Filppula says the things you remember Jagr or even Modano saying about a similar age. Playing around the younger players “makes me feel a little bit younger,” he says. “It’s been a tough couple of years for the team now, but starting to build up and hopefully rise again.”

Filppula also mentioned how odd his summer was until he decided to come back and play for the team, but he is showing a lot of humility in downplaying his decision. The owners have a different story: one where they teased fans by announcing that another player had to change their number over the summer away from number 51, which started a buzz around the Jokerit community. Fans were speculating about who could be joining the team that would mandate such a change, but a Cup-winning Jokerit product like Filppula, who had been playing for good money in the Swiss-A league? That seemed too absurd to even suggest, until it really happened.

“People lost their minds,” said Väänänen when the announcement was made. The road back to the top of Finnish hockey may not be the quickest one, depending on how the season ends. But Väänänen knows the goodwill still has to be happening in both directions. “It was fantastic to kind of offer the fans treats like that.”

***

After the game, the two teams line up and shake hands, even for a regular season contest. In the stands, the fans wait for the team to salute them before going ballistic,

This is what hockey can be, when people believe in what’s happening. The building wasn’t as full as it is on weekends, but even so, you can feel the belief and excitement, if you’ll grant me the artistic license to say such a thing.

It was surreal to be in a hockey rink where a good portion of the people there don’t know who Jason Robertson is, as became quickly apparent during the autograph session before the game. But that’s far from a bad thing. Despite the team’s obvious ties to the Dallas Stars (and you saw more than a few Stars sweaters in the crowd, though some were surely from US visitors), the real obsession was for the locals, both current and returning.

I asked Lindell if he heard a consistent message from the fans he met on Tuesday, and he demurred, saying it was mostly just people wanting selfies and kids being excited. But when pressed, he admitted that there was a lot of gratitude, which clearly pained him to say. And maybe that’s because of his typically self-effacing demeanor, or maybe that’s because he was also filled with a lot of gratitude for what he got to see. Because for the first time in far too long, he got to see the Jokerit club that he knew and remembered instead of the one the former owners tried to turn it into.

There is still a ton of work to be done, as any sports fan knows. The business and entertainment side have to coalesce with team success at the right time for growth to happen organically, and that always means some dicey financial times before the success really starts to sustain the initial outlay. That’s true in any league, whether it’s the one that Lindell plays for or the one he’s an owner in. But if Tuesday night was any indication, Lindell has already gotten a pretty great return on investment.