Preview of a historic game for Finnish Women’s basketball!

Wednesday night in Kotka will be filled with history, as a Finnish Women’s team will for the FIRST TIME EVER participate in the current format of FIBA EuroCup, and for the first time in a very long time a Finnish women’s team will participate in European club competition. All this is just another step in the emergence of the Women’s basketball in Finland … following the improvement in National Team performances and the continued great results of Finnish Women’s youth teams over the past years.

So, I headed to Kotka a day early to capture some moments from Peli-Karhut training and talk to one of their coaches .. a fellow Lapinkoira person… Noora Järvikangas and talk all things about tomorrow evening.

The interview is in Finnish – but I will write a short recap in English over here… so Finnish speakers can click the PLAY button on the video below, English speakers can read the recap after the interview ‘box’.

Main things first, how is Halla (her dog) – and Halla is doing fine but unfortunately will not be allowed to part of the EuroCup experience …

Personally I think dogs should be more allowed into games.. but hey – that is just my personal opinion.. not necessarily the opinion of the person being interviewed 😉

EuroCup opener less than 24 hours away, how is Noora feeling the day before the game?

Feeling good, and excited in a good way… and today when I woke-up.. I started IMMEDIATELY cleaning the house and you could feel the excitement building ..and also the fact that a historic game is coming.

How about the effort, on court, training, setting up the game, hosting the visitors.. what sort of undertaking has it been?

It’s been a huge undertaking, we’ve had a big amount of volunteers helping making it all happen. And everyone from volunteers, players, coaches .. we all have extra duties this week to get the event come alive.

What about preparing to the game – how different is it from preparing to Naisten Korisliiga game?

Here in Finland we of course know the teams and players very well, and this is a different case with a new opponent and deciding how much of the information to pass onto the players and definitely a very different way to prepare. I also try to keep my players perspective on when thinking on how to help the players prepare the game as well as possible.

You have few very experienced Finnish players in the team who have played in these type of games before, how important that was to the team?

It’s huge for us to have players like Linda, Ellu and Anissa in the team who have played years in Europe and we actually will meet Ellu’s and Linda’s last years team in group stages so that might help us when preparing for THAT game.

What about the population in Kotka, do they know about the game?

Yes, I get people who I know and people I don’t know coming to me on the streets and asking or talking about the game..

What about the way the team will head into the EuroCup .. you have mentioned that you are heading there to compete and get good results?

For sure, it’s not like anyone will head into any game or tournament with the view of losing games, and with this kind of Cup style competition, where as we might be underdogs in some games – maybe in this style of competition it might be an advantage for us and also that we are bit of an unknown factor to many of our opponents. But we will definitely go into the competition to look for good performances and results.

What about the impact of these games for the women’s game in Finland in general?

One of the things is that now that we are taking part in EuroCup, it allows some of the top Finnish players a chance to stay in Finland and compete in a high level internationally during the season and also giving talented youth players a chance to play and be part of these kind of games and event.

What about the first game – what to expect and WHY should fans head to the game tomorrow?

I hope that we can offer a high quality basketball and really hope it is a great event altogether that will attract new fans to the game. And I know that there are people traveling outside of Kotka to watch the game. And I hope that many people find their way to see the historic occasion and we haven’t seen this level of club basketball in Finland in a LONG LONG time.

There.. short recap of the interview.. hopefully some of you found it useful.

And really I do hope that basketball fans, ex-players, anyone really.. I hope you will find the time to take train, bus, car… and head to Kotka tomorrow to watch Peli-Karhut start their EuroCup Women journey .. it will be a historic occasion and let’s hope the seats are filled at the Arena!!

See you at the game tomorrow!