Reindeer Games

By Muna Noor  •  05 Feb 2009 in News

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It’s day 2 of JUICE’s Finlandia press junket journey. A combination of technical issues and fearing that our man on the ground, Matt had been trafficked by Santa into an elf sweat shop led to a delay in us getting this update out to you. Fortunately out fears regard’s Santa (yes he exists but no he is not evil) were unfounded. So here’s the latest Finlandia feed.

After brekkie, the Finlandia fun continued with Reindeer Man Olympics. It sounds a lot like Finns have been cross breeding with their favourite pack creature to produce a superior form of animal-human athlete. But it’s not. Instead it’s the Finlandia Vodka hosts putting the international bartending contestants and global media through their paces.

Held about a half hour from Levi Spirit, the team games included lighting a fire, cross country skiing, snowshoe walking, running into a smoky tent (don’t ask), pulling a bale of hay in a sled and lassoing reindeer antlers. Fortunately for contestants no live reindeer were attached at the time, not so fortunate for the reindeer. Here are Matt’s snaps….

 

In the foreground is Thai competitor B, with our Malaysian rep Ben and some random there’s always a random. Everyone on the junket was given these outfits to wear. Daytime temperatures average about -5C for this time of year with another -5C thrown on for windchill, so it was important to be suited up. (You don’t want us to dredge up our “frozen nuts” joke again, do you?)

 

Traditional Finnish outfits!

 

The Finnish equivalent of a mat rempit. 

 

Snowshoes at the Man Reindeer Games.

 

Reindeer. There were loads of them and fortunately they were tethered as they can be quite aggressive. Guess not all of them are Santa’s little helpers….

 

When the world runs out of oil (and hell freezes over) this is how we will get around.

 

Ben makes a snow angel. Pix of Ben writing his name in snow not shown.

More Finlandia fun tomorrow as we reveal the winner of the 11th International Finlandia Vodka Cup Finals.