One of the traditions adopted by the tournament is to have local teams host their international guests. This year the Cumberland Barons Minor Peewee AA squad is billeting a team from the Jokerit White team from Finland.
Seven Baron families agreed to take in two Finnish players each. Maxime St. Pierre’s family are hosting Mikäel Ignatius and Otto Kivinen.
Ignatius speaks a little bit of English, while Kivinen knows very little. In the three short days they’ve been together, Maxime has already picked up a bit of Finnish.
Maxime’s mother, Sylvie St. Pierre said what worried her the most about having the two young guests, was their taste in food.
“I wasn’t sure what to make or what they would like, but they’re just like any other kids. They like pizza, spaghetti and lasagna,” says St. Pierre who is also the team manager.
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 Maxime St. Pierre (centre) stands with his two new
friends Otto Kivinen (left) and Mikael Ignatius from the Finnish team Jokerit Bluewho are staying with his family during the Bell Capital Cup. Fred Sherwin/Photo
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It took the Finnish team 18 hours to get to Ottawa via Frankfurt, Germany and Toronto. They left Boxing Day morning and arrived the same night. On Thursday, they played an exhibition game against the Barons and then they joined the rest of the teams in the tournament at the Ottawa Sens game against the New York Islanders.
Not surprisingly, the Sens game has been the highlight of the trip so far.
“It was very exciting,” said Ignatius. “To see it in person with so many people, it was very loud.”
Several of the Finnish players’ parents managed to make the trip to Canada to watch their kids play including Kivinen’s father Tapio.
“It’s been wonderful. It was a long trip, but everyone has been very friendly and we’ve had wonderful time so far,” said Kivinen.
Jacquelin Virkamäki came with her son Eero while her husband and their daughters stayed home to clean up after Christmas.
“It’s been a lot of fun. I was just saying to a father that it’s too bad the other parents couldn’t come,” said Virkamäki who has been trying to send daily diary e-mails back to Finland. “I promised to update our team website, but we’ve been so busy I’ve hardly had any time.”
The parents are barely able to keep up with their own kids. They only time they see them is when they’re on the ice. Both groups are hoping to go to the New Year’s Eve fireworks together on Parliament Hill and possibly do some souvenir shopping.
Before they can do that, however, they must still finish the tournament.
Unfortunately, both teams will likely miss the playoffs. The Barons are out of playoff contention, having lost their first two games to the Rochester Rattlers and Jokerit Blue. They have one more game against Caledon, Sunday morning but it’s for little more than bragging rights.
Jokerit White had a shot at making the playoffs after hammering the Flamborough Sabres 6-0 on Saturday to even their record at 1-1-0, but a 3-3 tie against the New England Moose put them out of contention for the lone wild card spot.
The Bell Capital Cup has grown into the premier Atom and Peewee tournament in the world. The 10 and 11-year-old players look forward to the tournament for months – or in the case of the two Finnish teams which started planning the trip two years ago – even longer.
The tournament is exceptionally player friendly. Besides getting a chance to play at Scotiabank Place should they make the final, there is also an all-star game and a skills competition at each level and after each round robin and playoff game a red hard hat is awarded to the hardest working player on each team.
The tournament continues through until New Year’s Day, when the final set of division finals will be held.
