Finnish reporter seeks out curling world's 'hotties'
Published Friday April 10th, 2009
Katja Kiiskinen keeps an eye on what's hot, fun and downright quirky as Moncton hosts the world
Finnish reporter Katja Kiiskinen is in Moncton this week to capture curling beyond the scoreboard.
Bringing a European perspective to Canada's The Curling News through its website, she's also adding a bit of cheeky fun to the game with dispatches like her ranking of the Ford World Men's Curling's top hotties, her tale of a hot Moncton weekend and the bird who now calls the Moncton Coliseum home.
Katja happened to be in Toronto last fall when George Karrys of The Curling News hired her to report from a grand slam event in Waterloo.
They had met in Europe at a number of events because, in addition to owning The Curling News, George is also the World Curling Federation's media relations officer.
Katja has a solid curling pedigree, having been a member of the Finnish women's national team that competed at the European championship in 2005, even though they were juniors at the time. She was also an alternate on Finland's 2007 national team. Sidelined from curling for now by an injury, she has both the eye for the game (she's also sending news releases back home on behalf of the Finnish Curling Association), and an eye for what's going on around the sport as well.
"I think it brings a nice perspective to the game," she says of her assignment to share her views of the sport or whatever else tickles her fancy. "It's just to bring out the fun stuff a little bit more, because everyone is doing the results and speculating who is going to be top four."
Part of the fun is curling's sex appeal and, to that end, she has filed a story this week on the hotties of the tournament that's a must-read for female fans.
To answer your question, lest you put down this newspaper article to check out The Curling News online, the vibes she's picking up around the Coliseum all lead to this top three:
"The favourites seem to be Thomas Ulsrud from Norway, John Morris from Canada, and I think David Murdoch, from Scotland," she says. "They're all very charismatic on the ice. You can feel the strong personalities. They have such a presence. For me that's very attractive, because they're confident and they're such excellent players."
She confesses to having a soft spot in her heart for Finland's skip as well, but stops well short of calling him a hottie. Kalle Kiiskinen is after all Katja's brother, a solid curler who was part of the Finnish team that challenged Brad Gushue's (and Russ Howard's) rink in the gold medal game at Turin in 2006.
She's also picked up on another cutie seen around the Coliseum this week, a small bird living in the rafters of the building. We mentioned the bird in the Times & Transcript as well this week but, thanks to the Finnish correspondent, we now know him as Bernie the birdie.
"Spring is in the air... everywhere I look around..." she wrote in last night's dispatch, "you can definitely tell we are heading towards the end of the curling season and here's some proof of that... starting with Bernie."
That she keeps talking about the positives of warm weather in Moncton, even last Saturday when some media were treating the day as a catastrophe because of its effect on the ice, is enough to warm hearts and win fans here.
In her first dispatch of the championship, the ice took second place to the summery day.
After passing though a number of "airports full of tanned travellers, I must confess Moncton was not the destination I had in mind," she wrote, saying she was jealous of all those people going on or coming from southern vacations instead.
"However, after finally making it here this afternoon, and after putting on three pairs of leggings and a couple of sweaters, I was armed and ready to hit the cold, cold media bench.
"Turns out, however, I had gotten it completely wrong. What I should have brought with me was a beach towel, bikini and a bottle of piña colada."
"Yes, it's that hot. Looks like I didn't have to take that Barbados flight after all."
Thanks for that, Katja. We're sure Tourism Moncton thanks you too. Perhaps someone will even buy you a piña colada before the week's over.
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