Mikael

I thought this was pretty funny :

May 11, 2008, 6:41 pm
By Jeff Z. Klein

Finland scored - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER in Halifax today, a stunning victory ( - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER) that among other things will add another beloved hockey memory to the Finnish national consciousness. That memory, like so many of the others, will be narrated by the fantastic hockey play-by-play man Antero Mertaranta.

Mertaranta, 51, has done the call at World Championship games for Finnish television since 1994. And even if you can’t make out a word of what he’s saying — few non-Finns can, since Finnish is related to no widely spoken language besides Estonian and Hungarian — you can understand why he’s so popular. The sense in his play-by-play of drama, excitement and exclusive focus on the action emphatically transcend the language barrier. It’s the same sense Canadians and Americans remember so fondly in the work of Danny Gallivan and Dan Kelly (qualities, incidentally, now absent in hockey announcing here, which is instead marked by pointless side conversations, lame banter, and long-winded statements of the obvious that are passed off as insights).

Here’s an example of vintage Mertaranta — his call of a group-stage game at the 1999 World Championship in Oslo, with Finland trying to tie Russia in the last minute:




Here’s Mertaranta’s narration of an overtime goal that beat Sweden later in that same tournament:




At last year’s tournament in Mystischi outside Moscow he made this call of Jukka Hentusen’s goal against Russia:



And this is what Mertaranta actually looks like as he describes the action:





Having Mertaranta and - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER in the booth for the same game would be an interesting linguistic experiment, maybe even a dangerous one. In any case, you can see why this YouTube video calls Mertaranta the - ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER a point agreed to by the 65 people who have posted comments to the video since last December — at least as far as we can tell, given that no one can understand Finnish.

Unless Mertaranta is speaking it, of course.




- ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

The Diva

Wow!.... he's got to lay off on the caffeine!

Now that is enthusiasm

Mikael

LOL Yeah, he's into the game with his whole heart. And that's what creates the incredible atmosphere and feel that there is when you watch a game commentated by him. Sometimes it's so intense it gives me the the goose bumps!