– I recommend visiting. The best saunas in the world.
The lions Nikolas Matipalo gave Urheilu tips for spending the day off.
The defender himself planned to head to one of Tampere’s legendary saunas.
Kaupinoja’s public sauna.
I had to take the recommendation. I asked a hockey coach to guide me Juha Juujärven, who goes to Kaupinoja for a sauna up to four times a week. Summers and winters.
Matinpalo lit up not only Kaupinoja’s pools but also the place itself. The defender is right. The landscapes are eye-catching.
The entrance fee is ten euros. It doesn’t seem particularly expensive for the world’s number one saunas.
I didn’t realize to bring my own plastic sandals, but you can borrow them on the spot. After all, I packed swimming trunks, since it’s a mess sauna.
I’m a newcomer, a rookie in hockey parlance, so I understandably get some suspicious looks. However, the atmosphere in the sauna is Tampere, i.e. calmly rigid, but friendly and helpful.
– It’s better to choose one over the other, advises an older gentleman, when I sip water before going to the sauna from the tap, which is intended for taking lukewarm water.
There are two clocks in the anteroom of the sauna. One is in the shape of Tappara’s logo, the other of course Ilves. A local saying says that Ilves’ clock is ten years behind Tapparaa. In recent years, however, tassel ears have bridged the gap somewhat.
Juujärvi advises to take a wooden seat base. Without it, there’s no point in swimming. The reason is quickly understood. The boards are hot. And without sandals, my feet would hurt.
I start cautiously from the second top shelf. Juujärvi immediately jumps to his place, to the top level. And takes over the duties of a shot putter with the assurance of a coach.
A couple of scoops is enough. Even after that, such a sauna featherweight realizes what Matinpalo was talking about. This heat is not accepted without grimacing.
The baths are wild, but feel heavenly at the same time. They creep out of the stove slowly and steadily. And then they take over the whole space. The heat lasts a surprisingly long time.
Ten minutes is enough for a first-timer. You have to go to the lake to cool off.
I walk down the long stairs to the water’s edge. When recommending the place, Matinpalo said that Kaupinoja is visited by some very nice “Sauna Timos”. I notice one of those coming out of the lake.
– The devil. The lake water is warm and the sauna is cold, the rotting man blows.
The local man’s r’s sound almost as beautiful as Tappara’s great match announcer Wrapped Petrin you are wrong.
I couldn’t disagree with the man more. Lake water is barely above 10 degrees. The temperature of the sauna cannot be determined this time, because the meter is out of order. Or is it completely broken?
Passionate sauna-goers have sometimes taken their hobby to the extreme, so to speak, in Kaupinojja. The sauna has burned down at least twice during its 45-year history. It has simply been heated too hot.
– If we were here in the evening, you could see the flames coming from the chimney, ‘s experienced TV cameraman Kari Alentola tells.
Now thick smoke rises from the chimney. Let’s go behind the sauna and see what’s going on there.
A bewildering amount of wood is consumed. There is a water heater on the back wall of the sauna. Its contents are burned in one day.
– I can handle that amount of trees at the cottage all summer, photographer Tomi Hänninen give a laugh.
It’s time for another splash. I venture to the top level for a moment.
– There is a rule here that you don’t ask for mercy on the upper decks and you don’t ask for more leeway from the lower decks, Juujärvi says.
For me, the experience of the upper boards will be short. I’m not asking for mercy, but I have to give in and sit a couple of seats lower. There, the slush still feels bitey enough for a beginner’s skin.
Even on the lower decks, the faces of many sauna-goers are stern, when higher up, people get excited to seriously throw water on the stove.
Kaupinoja is a favorite place for many hockey players. It will be proven when the familiar-looking duo walk to the sauna. Matinpalo, that’s it, together with moving to Äss for the next season Tuomas Salmelan with.
Hi, thank you very much for the recommendation! It was a damn good bath. Are you going to go to the upper decks?
– Well, let’s see how hot it is there, Matinpalo acknowledges with a grin.
Matinpalo got to know the Kaupinoja sanctuary while playing in Ilves in the 2018–21 seasons. The stresses of the hockey season can be taken care of here in the best possible way.
– The recovery is being handled perfectly. Hot and cold. That’s energy for the final crunch of the World Cup, says Matinpalo.
The feeling is downright euphoric after sauna. On top of that, the weather was perfect for the first visit. Näsijärvi sparkles, the sun shines from a cloudless sky. People taking saunas look serene and happy.
Yes, you people from Tampere are fine, I thought quietly in my mind. You have Finland’s most beautiful arena, in many ways the most attractive city – and such a sauna paradise.
And Kaupinoja is by no means the only oasis accessible to everyone in Manse.
Tampere and its surroundings have the most public saunas, no less than thirty. The most historic of them is the Rajaporti sauna located in Pispala, which started operating in 1906. It is Finland’s oldest public sauna still in operation.
Just a short distance from Kaupinoja you will find one of the classics, Rauhanniemi kansankylpylä.
The ice hockey capital is also the sauna capital.
With my own little sauna experience, I can’t say whether Kaupinoja’s saunas were the best in the world. They were for me.
Maybe Matinpalo was right.
However, one thing is clear. It’s good to be a person here.