If it weren’t for the unfriendly attitude of Helsinki’s beautifully expressive people, the city would most likely already have a new modern event arena and no one would be talking about Ilmala’s forced labor.
Pekka Holopainen Sports journalist
The goals were suddenly counted when the World Hockey Championships ended for Finland on the evening of May 25: Canada 4, Finland 1 and the hosts were showered out of the second consecutive home games.
After the disappointment was smoothed out in the Tampere area and the Finnish Ice Hockey Association, we got to work with significantly more comfortable ball deliveries.
For the second spring in a row, the association makes a hard result out of the home games that fell unexpectedly into its lap, and the economic region of Tampere, thanks to the games and its new arena, has a jackpot with multiple effects.
The Ice Hockey Association calculates its expenses and income in its office premises, which are located on the side of the Ilmala event arena, which turned into a haunted castle in last year’s spring winter.
Where do you shop?
The arena has been closed for almost a second year, as its oligarch owners are under severe sanctions due to the Russian aggression.
Based on the news, several parties are interested in the arena, but a deal does not seem to be ready.
In this situation, it is not about a basic transaction taking into account the background of the sellers, but the sanctions supervisor, i.e. the Enforcement Agency, is involved in the plans.
The arena in Tampere was opened a few months before the seats in Ilmala were set up.
From Helsinki, we have watched with gritted teeth as manna from heaven has rained down on Tampere, Finland’s only arena city at the moment – and it will continue to rain.
When a huge part of this is from Helsinki, which has become an indoor event host, the lords of the capital, i.e. the mayor Juhana The guard (cook) and Paavo Arhinmäki (left) tried to give an energetic statement on the subject.
The two are proposing separate legislation to make it possible to essentially take over the hall closed by Russia’s criminal war of aggression. Mayor Vartiainen said that he had already approached the state government about the matter, and Arhinmäki’s acoustic guitar played beautifully.
The ring fox of state and municipal politics believes that such exceptional legislation could be completed already this year.
With a good thing
Although Vartiainen and Arhinmäki are certainly on the move for the good and sincere cause of Helsinki’s sports and music lovers, when reading these statements, I honestly didn’t know whether to cry or laugh.
The year was 2008, when the then management of Helsinki IFK first publicly presented the idea of the arena project, later named Helsinki Garden.
In connection with it – as in Tampere – apartments, various services and a hotel would be built. Nordenskiöldinkatu, next to the ice rink in Helsinki, was finally chosen as the location for the project planned with private money.
In about 12 years, a site plan enabling construction has been completed, but the building permit procedure is in progress and the final realization of the protracted project is quite a long way off.
In the economic sense, such a long time is an eternity in the construction and financial industry with its world political upheavals.
The attitude of the city of Helsinki towards the Garden has been, to put it nicely, a kind of quadruple braking.
During the lifetime of the Garden project, Deputy Mayor Arhinmäki has had time to act in many important positions, such as minister of sports and chairman of the state sports council, which is important for national sports infrastructure projects.
He is not held in the matter his candle by no means under the bushel, but was completely consistent. Arhinmäki has justified his nuivuta by, among other things, Keskuspuisto’s scenic reasons and the exceptional grounding of building rights related to the Garden project.
The fact is, however, that if Helsinki’s trust and civil service leadership had promoted the Garden as enthusiastically as the mayors now the “separate legislation” opening the factory, Helsinki would probably have gotten its state-of-the-art arena before Tampere’s competitor, and no one would be talking about Ilmala Hall anymore.
Pekka Holopainen
The author is a columnist based in Pori and the only sports reporter who has been selected as Journalist of the Year in Finland.
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