Game #2 Brooklyn Eagles BKK vs Rovaniemi Basket

Game #2

Game number 2 in my search for Nordic Basketball – the why, how, where…

The road took me to Bergskolans Sporthall near Luleå, and a game between Brooklyn Eagles BKK (Sweden) and Rovaniemi Basket (Finland).

League in question is Women’s 2nd Division (Norbottens BDF) – which has two teams from Finland : Rovaniemi and Oulu. And seven teams from Sweden : Sunderby Sportklubb, Brooklyn Eagles BBK, Basketklubben Gladan, Boden Basket, KFUM Umeå, KFUM Basketballklubb Skellefteå and Luleå Basketballklubb.

How did you find this league/game?

When you ‘know’ people and people ‘know’ of you … then you get suggested some cool games to go to.

And on my Instagram, I often ask people the question *Which game should I go to shoot this weekend?*

One week, there was a message mentioning this league, and I was sold on the idea right away! It just took a while to find a good game for it.

How to rate this?

Naturally, I can’t put the same criteria to this game, that I did to Luleå Basket in SBL Dam – so??

Venue

Bergskolans Sporthall – in the far away suburbs of Luleå, at the end of a snow covered road – is the brick building that is Bergskolan.

It took some knocking on various doors to get inside the venue – there was an innebandy game/practice there until about 45minutes before the tip-off.

So those teams had to quickly clear the boards and goals, before the basketball players could come to warm-up.

Court at Bergskolan is your typical sports hall in a school that has been built somewhere between 1970-1990 (my guess!).

There were more lines on the floor than they have on the map for the London Tube – also, the basketball lines were the OLD ones..

But – for these 2nd Division games – I kinda expect this kind of venue, they have a certain charm that the bigger venues just can’t replicate.

Interview with Noora Järvikangas

The audio interview is in Finnish – so you might not get much out of it, if you don’t understand Finnish. I will try to add some key points from it to this post later!

Game

Rovaniemi Basket were on FIRE !! – they have only lost a single game this season, and they were not about to lose today either.

The stats – well, even more basic than in some Finnish youth/lower leagues.. we just get points and fouls.

Stat Pack

Brooklyn Eagles BBK : Let’s give their #11 Jenny Sundström a double-double 15 points and 5 fouls – I think that’s the only kind of double-double I can stretch to with these stats 😉 But she was the top scorer for the home team, #2 Linnea Flymalm added 8 points, and #13 Annika Larsson 4 points.

Rovaniemi Basket : Noora Järvikangas dropped a ‘meager’ 34 points and 4 fouls, Johanna Juka added 10 points, Inkeri Venho 9 points, Laura Manni 8 points, Rosamaria Laurindo Da Silva 7 points and Kerttu Töllikkö 6 points

My journey in search of Nordic Basketball continues, and the next stop has already been planned. Stay tuned for the next chapter in this journey!