Finland wouldn't be Finland without some weather-related moans, and at present the main gripe is around dust. Spring brings snow-free streets, but that means that all the gravel that has made icy pathways walkable is now rubbing against tarmac and sand and dust to blow around the country's towns and cities. The current dry, sunny weather only exacerbates the problem, and southern Finland has therefore been coughing and spluttering through the week.
Both Helsingin Sanomat and Aamulehti carry stories on the street dust problem. Aamulehti notes that the particles in street dust cause some 1,300 deaths each year, and suggests that people avoid walking along the streets that have the worst dust problems. Helsingin Sanomat also carries tips on avoiding dust, suggesting masks, changing filters and, yes, walking a little further away from main roads.
There is little relief in sight, as the rain that usually dampens down dust problems is not on the way. Some local councils do sweep away the dust. Helsinki for instance has had a street dust fighting plan for years, and Tampere also sweeps away the dust. Espoo and Järvenpää, meanwhile, are less prepared to fight the dust.
Soini 'wins' tabloid dust-up, blanks Swedish paper
The election campaign is in full swing, and all the main media are planning their coverage. Here at Yle News we're interviewing each of the party leaders in English, and the Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet has a similar plan. They hit a snag though: Finns Party leader Timo Soini refused their request. He says HBL is not impartial in its coverage of his party, and he's therefore not interested in giving them an interview. Instead they printed an interview conducted by the Finnish news agency STT, along with an editorial bemoaning Soini's decision.
Tabloid Iltalehti, meanwhile, held an election debate on Monday evening. The eight main party leaders gathered in Helsinki to be grilled by the paper's finest political minds, with a ranking system similar to that IL uses for sports events. The 'winner' according to IL was Soini, with a two-lion performance, while SPP chair Carl Haglund was the only other leader to get any lion at all. All six other party leaders were branded as 'lambs'.
In concrete terms, IL saw the leaders' stances on land purchases as the lead story. All the party leaders want additional restrictions on land purchases, after extensive coverage of a string of recent land deals that saw possibly strategic sites pass into Russian ownership.
Hockey crowds lowest in 26 years
Ilta-Sanomat has a story on an exodus from Finland's ice hockey arenas. This season's crowds have been lower than for 26 years, with an average of just 4,337 people through the doors at each SM Liiga game. That's a drop of 259 on the figure for last season (excluding Jokerit, who left this year for Russia's KHL).
Only one of the league's 14 clubs met their budgeted crowd expectations, and that was newcomer Vaasan Sport in their first season in the top flight. The drop leaves Finland with the tenth most-watched hockey league in the world, after the Swiss, German, Swedish and Czech leagues, as well as the KHL, NHL and three North American junior and farm leagues. It's not a pretty picture for Finnish hockey executives to consider.
"Clubs will just have to learn to live with lower incomes," said Lahti Pelicans CEO Ilkka Kaarna, who suggested the recession, the departure of Jokerit, increased TV exposure and the Champions Hockey League as possible reasons for the crowd slump.
