Biathlon officials keep secret tradition Hush-hush Finnish Night involves steamy sauna, snow angels and memory-making

PRESQUE ISLE – For as long as Ray Kokkonen can remember, they’ve done it.

And for as long as they’ve done it, they’ve kept it hush-hush.

During a biathlon event, no matter if it’s a World Cup, a junior championship or an Olympic event, the International Biathlon Union official said that there’s a point when the skis and the rifles are put away for the day, and it’s time for a little international comradeship and memory-making – so long as you can speak Finnish.

Finnish Night is one of those gatherings that many talk about with nudges and winks, but which is seen and experienced by a just a few.

“It’s Finnish – that’s the connection,” Kokkonen said Friday. “I’ve been in situations [during biathlon-related events] where a whole group of people is speaking Finnish and not a single one of us is Finnish.”

Kokkonen himself hails from Miramichi, New Brunswick, but he speaks Finnish because he was born and raised in Finland until he was 10 and because of his decades of globe-trotting to serve as an IBU technical official at biathlon competitions.

At all of those events, Kokkonen said, it never fails that someone will host a Finnish Night.

During the 2006 Biathlon Junior World Championships at the Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle, Finnish Night took place on Thursday evening at the center’s lodge after almost everyone had gone home for the night. Getting Kokkonen to talk about it takes just a nudge.

“Well,” he said, “it always involves going to the sauna. Last night, we had six men together who could all speak Finnish. Four of them were Finns.

“We went downstairs, sat in the sauna and repeated that about three times,” he said.

Of course, trying to be discreet, Kokkonen left out the most important detail: in between the trips to the sauna, the group took a run around the penalty loop outside the lodge – naked.

“I don’t remember who suggested it,” he said. “But that’s the tradition. You go into the sauna and then jump into an ice hole and then go back into the sauna. You can also roll around in the snow and make snow angels.”

But of course, there are no ice holes nearby and the snow at the venue was not the right kind for making snow angels.

“So what we decided to do, we said let’s do a penalty loop,” Kokkonen said. “So we did, barefoot and with no clothes on. Then we ran back into the sauna and ran another loop and ran back into the sauna.”

Because the activity involves a sauna, Kokkonen said, the difference between the heat and the outdoor air temperature is so great that “you actually don’t feel the cold, but it was a little painful on bare feet.”

While the premise may seem a little silly, Kokkonen said, it’s actually a very powerful experience.

“There are memories made from this,” he said. “It’s about friendship, exercising comradeship together and knowing that you are creating memories.”

While Kokkonen did not have explicit permission to give up the names of the others celebrating Finnish Night, he did say that a few top biathlon officials may have been involved. It was also left up in the air as to whether alcohol was involved in the experience.

One thing he was pretty sure of, though, was that the night’s activities went unseen.

“Well,” he said, upon a little reflection, “we’re hoping we were alone.”