“These [ad stickers] have been glued on them, and we didn’t want to take out to see what’s underneath. They handed these out to us when we left the rink, but I bet they were made for the Swedes,” said Artturi Lehkonen, who also said he had got five pain killing shots to be able to play in the final, and will be sidelined for a while now.

The final had about a million viewers in Finland, and the broadcast peaked at 1,3 million, which is about 25 per cent of the country’s population. The media went wild.

“Small lions made Sweden weep,” wrote Iltasanomat. The newspaper also reported on people bathing in fountains in Helsinki – something that’s much more enjoyable in to do in May, after the Worlds – and passed on congratulations from Finnish NHLers, such as Tuukka Rask and Jussi Jokinen, and reported from the empty market square in Malmö – where the Swedish party was supposed to have been.

“Captain Teräväinen’s mission accomplished,” wrote Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s biggest morning paper.

“A fantastic night”, said Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö.

“I owed it to the team,” told Rasmus Ristolainen to Iltalehti.

And then, of course, Finnish media eagerly recapped the Swedish newspapers’ disappointment to their readers.

And it was huge.

“Gold thiefs”, “Silver tears”, but also, “Revenge plans”, wrote Expressen. “This loss has scarred my heart for life,” wrote Magnus Nyström of Expressen.

Aftonbladet wrote about how the Swedish management group was preparing to support the disappointed players – which also made news in Finland, only not as supportive as the original reporting.

But by the time the players met their fans in Helsinki, Finns had got the spite out of their system, and it was replaced by love. Love for Teräväinen, love for Ristolainen, love for coach Karri Kivi, love for them all.

The question everybody wanted answered was: “How was it possible?”

And the answer Kivi gave them was:

“Every team needs its cornerstones, and ever since May when we first met, Teräväinen and Lehkonen have taken the leadership roles and have been fantastic. They’re two artists, but they bought in, and their admirable attitude was infectious,” he said.

During the tournament, Kivi had written his notes to the team on a flip chart, but before the final, he had simply left the page empty, and told the players that it was up to them to write the final chapter of the story.

After the final, he made his final note on the flip chart. He simply wrote “1” on it, before the players carried him to the shower, a Finnish championship ritual.

The tournament’s over, the celebration’s done, and it’s back to the grind for the players. But for no-one as much as for Topi Nättinen who couldn’t even make it to the public celebration in Helsinki.

He had to report to military service at 7.30 the next morning. His service for his country wasn’t over just yet.