Team finland world junior jersey variation

[spyboy1]

I was able to watch the Team USA vs. Team Finland game of the World Junior Championship on the NHL Center Ice package today and noticed something about the Team Finland jerseys that surprized me.

Normally, they say "SUOMI" on them, as seen in this photo.

But today, they were wearing jerseys that read "FINLAND" above the shield. First, I had never seen this version before, and second, thought that it was really odd that they would chose to wear this variation in Finland of all places, the one place you would expect to see them with the name of their own country in their own language, at home since they are the host country this year.

Here's a pic from and earlier game against Canada.

Is this a new version that reads "Suomi" across the bottom then? It must be fairly new if it is.

JeffB

[bods39]

why is Nike going and screwing up a perfectly fine jersey.

Ugh , leave well enough alone.

[Discrim]

*scratches head*

you don't see any team USA switching it up to Estados Unidos or any other translations, and I don't see why Finland decided the country name in the native tongue is suddenly not good enough, they gotta have it in english too. ???  what, they stopped speaking finnish?

[Stampman]

I remember one year--way back when--when the Canadian tema had "Kanada" or something like that for a tourney in the USSR (yes it was the USSR back then)

I also agree it is a good jersey as it was.

[IronChefShark]

Ive had an interest in international jerseys for the longest time, and i definitly agree that the country's native language should be used on thier national team jerseys.

when belarus changed the western script on thier jerseys to the cyrillic script, it made a great jersey all that much better