Day Nine: Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

As the Hawks families tried to stuff their gifts and shopping into their bags for the return trip, they found themselves intensely grateful for the requirement to save six pounds in each player bag for gifts for our hosts. The space and poundage was easily filled by Fazer chocolates and gift bags from the Viikingit, not to mention Iittala birds and floorball paraphenalia.

As of arrival at the Helsinki airport, we were 7-for-7 on passports lost, then found. Five of these passports have been mentioned in previous blog posts. A sixth, belonging to a Hawks player (who shall remain nameless), was thought to have been taken to Vierumaki and lost there; after two days of searching, it was found in his parents' hotel room safe, giving us all not only a tremendous sense of relief, but also a source of teasing for the family for the rest of their lives. The seventh passport was lost, then found, within a nerve-wracking half-hour on the morning of our departure, delaying the buses from the hotel by a few minutes. But by the time the group reached the Finnair check-in counter, everyone had a passport in hand--success!

We were less successful on getting everyone's stick home, as the party at the ice rink the night before our departure seem to have left the sticks disorganized. A few don't seem to have made it into the stick bags. However, all of the new floorball sticks fit neatly into those bags--a huge relief, since they were a little too long to put into the other luggage, and since our players didn't seem to be able to imagine life without them.

It was a long day of traveling, especially since exhaustion replaced the anticipation and excitement that had marked the beginning of the trip. All through the airplane, boys could be seen napping, and voices were subdued. One flight attendant remarked on how well behaved the boys were--not a surprise, since they didn't have the energy to stir up any trouble.

After a mercifully uneventful flight, trip through customs, and bus ride through rush-hour traffic from JFK, the players and the other Hawks travelers were deposited at the Skatium to be reunited with the rest of their families. The thirteenth year of the Hawks-Viikingit Exchange was done, and by every accounting, it was the best one yet.