President Sauli Niinistö’s head was spinning on Saturday afternoon after he pulled on his skates, grabbed his hockey stick and stepped on the ice carousel at the Töölö Bay on Saturday afternoon. This was the world’s first knit cap hockey (amateur hockey, “pipolätkä” in Finnish) tournament arranged on an ice carousel.
“It’s an experience. A spinning rink on ice made by nature,” said President Niinistö in an interview for MTV News. “The spinning itself doesn’t bother that much, when the head is spinning already,” Niinistö said laughing.
The tournament was arranged to raise awareness of climate change, and one of the arrangers was the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation. If the climate gets warmer, the future of knit cap hockey could also be endangered.
According to the reports from the scene, Niinistö scored several goals. “How the blind chicken finds the grain in the end,” Niinistö described his skills humbly.
