In the wake of Tuesday night's Champions Hockey League Final in Oulu, commentator Darren Kilfara makes his final blog entry of the season, explaining the lessons he learned calling an big game in a packed house. 

by Darren Kilfara

Here are four things I learned while commentating on the CHL Final last night in Oulu:

1) Finnish spectators at sporting events are really well behaved – almost too well behaved. The silence which descended on the Oulun Energia Areena at numerous points during the game was almost spooky; for whole seconds at a time there was no chanting, no drumming, no random fans yelling toward the ice, no anything. This was when the score was still 0–0 in a European final, by the way – this wasn’t silence borne of depression, but rather politeness. It was quite endearing, even if the crazy singing of the HC Davos fans in Gothenburg while trailing by five goals on aggregate with five minutes remaining is more to my personal taste.

2) Some of the decisions you face as a commentator are unlike any decisions you face in other aspects of life. For example, when you need to go to the toilet and you have exactly nine minutes until you’re due to resume post-intermission commentary, and getting to the toilet involves a two-way trip up and down a ridiculously steep staircase and through a hall packed with people . . . and on your way to the toilet you enter a vortex of counter-flow traffic to the point that you really do feel like a salmon swimming upstream, your mind and your bladder have to join forces and make a choice together. This time I risked it, and on my way back I took a shortcut through the stands, dodging seated spectators and even leaping over several chairs to landing one row lower than I took off. (I made it back to my position with two and a half minutes to spare.)

Here’s another one: I wasn’t hungry before the game started, and I was concentrating intently on my preparations, so I didn’t eat any food. But during the first intermission I had sound issues which needed sorting, and during the second intermission I needed the toilet (see above). So when you have only a few minutes until you have to start speaking again, which is less likely to disrupt your voice: the food left in your mouth after eating two bites of sandwich, or the hunger pangs in your stomach after abstaining? (Hint: there’s no right answer to that question.)

3) You haven’t experienced true stream of consciousness until you’ve narrated a 15-minute trophy ceremony. This was the first time I’ve attempted this particular challenge, and I really enjoyed giving it my best, but whereas for a normal game I typically use only about 10 percent of the material I prepare in advance, I suspect last night that ratio was close to being reversed.

4) Anything can happen in a game of hockey. Actually, I knew that one already, but there’s nothing like a few fluky bounces and own-goals to prove it to you afresh. I can say that about the Karpat Oulu team as a whole, actually: watching Jesse Puljujarvi kicking a soccer ball at Markus Nutivaara and chasing him around the arena yesterday morning without a care in the world, I thought for sure Karpat would play looser, more expansive hockey than Frolunda would. Instead, if anything the opposite proved to be true. Frolunda Gothenburg are very worthy CHL champions for 2016 – I just wish Karpat had given them a slightly stiffer challenge, especially in the third period.

So that’s it, then. It wasn’t the best of finals, but it wasn’t the worst of finals either. I just wish I didn’t have to wait until August before the CHL starts all over again.

Darren Kilfara provides live English-language television commentary throughout the Champions Hockey League season – you can find him on Twitter at @DKilfara.

Listen to Kilfara's commentary on the Top Plays of the Final below: