There is one thing that really surprises me regarding Stiga Tablehockey: It is invented from the swedes!!!! It is against law of nature that these people could invent such a genius funny game like this. This is a game where you don't understand the fun before you play it. This makes men in the age of 40's and 50's feel like teenagers again. What a wonderful way of getting out all the aggression one has built up inside oneself during the 5 minutes a match lasts.

I played this game when I was a kid with some of my friends/neighbours. Then it was all gone until the 1st of April 1997 (and that is no joke). 6 men aged from late twenties until early forties gathered at the same place and proclaimed the opening of Jæren Tablehockey League!!! It was a step in the right direction for mankind. Men were again allowed to be boys!

The idea was to meet once a month for a competition. It was dead serious. Due to increasing interest we had to divide into two leagues with relegation and promotion. We also had a rule that all partakers had to make a nickname for their own team, and they had to paint all players (home and away side) in the same colours with name and number on the back (just like in NHL icehockey). Other men and women thought we had turned completely nuts! They wondered if something had gone wrong in our heads. I just ignored it, of course, because these sad people could not even imagine what fun we had.

It was natural for me to call my team for "MIGHTY RAMS". As a very keen icehockey and football supporter was this a mix between two teams. MIGHTY comes from the icehockey team Anaheim MIGHTY Ducks, and RAMS is the nickname of the famous club from the heart of England playing in white and black; Derby County. Simply, there were no other choice. My stadium was called PRIDE POND. PRIDE after the best stadium in England; Pride Park, and Mighty Ducks' arena is just called the Pond (no wonder when they are sponsored by the Disney corporation).  I also need to mention that my NFL favorite team is St Louis RAMS, just to let you know there are no coincidences. Everything was planned in the smallest detail.

On our first official tournament I was of course disappointed of many of the other glory hunters nicknaming their team, stadium and players with regards to Scum United, Liverpool and so on, but there were two very good exceptions. A team was called Rebel Heroes consisting of freedom fighters like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and so on. Another one was CNN. This manager was a nurse and CNN means Constipated Neurotic Nurses and he named his stadium Medicine Square Garden. His players painted in all white nursery coats! Very clever and stylish!!!

A devoted scum United supporter and booklover named his players after different authors on his all time favourite list. That is fair enough, but he managed to get a player with "Fowler" on his back (the author Christopher Fowler it was referred to)! Didn't he think of a Fowler then playing for Liverpool later moving on to Leeds? Both those clubs are scum United hate teams! Impossible in my eyes. Even if a good Derby County player had been called Rush or Beckham, I could never ever have been able putting such a name in my team. It would have ruined my integrity!

In the beginning, all tournaments were won by Highlanders. This was the player I loved to play, and still loves to play against. He is dead serious. If he lost, he could hardly sleep at night afterwards. I also used to play a lot of games for fun against this player, and there is no better look in life watching him grinning while taking the puck out of his own goal after I've scored a brilliant goal. Then you just sit there on the other side, saying nothing, but just have a very special smile on your face. You know the opposition nearly gets a heart attack. 

Just recently, after I hadn't played for 6 months I met him in a local tournament. I buried him 6-1. He hardly threatened my goal. I was on top. I could smile 6 times. He was speechless until he had a chance of goal with 1 minute to go. Who cared? I was already 5 up!!! Of course, I needed to have a go at him with an SMS afterwards, and he kindly replied the day after: "The shock from yesterday is still in my body. The worst was that I was very well prepared and should not let in any early goals, which happened. It was a total humiliation.....". No more comments necessary.

This is just a little piece of all the fun.  Some of you won't understand anything of this at all. I just recommend you to run to the shop, buy this game, subsidise the swedes so they get some hard earned currency. I just hope you want to play this wonderful game. It takes a minute to learn, but a lifetime to master (the problem is when you get older you tend to get a bit slower in your hands). 

I have included a link, but what you read here is unfortunately only available in Norwegian: www.puck.no. 

I will update this page later with some special stories for those being special interested. 

Finally, once more: HAVE FUN!!!!