# onnistui vetämään tyhjästä maalista ohi



## Gavril

Päivääpä,

I don't quite understand the highlighted phrase below:



> Harjoitusottelun meininki oli näkyvissä. Venäjän NHL-supertähti  Aleksander Ovetshkin surffaili puolivaloilla. Hän onnistui vetämään  tyhjästä maalista ohi.



"The activities at the practice match were on view. Russian NHL superstar Aleksander Ovechkin surfed around in the dim light. He was able to pull [??] from an empty net."

The whole quote seems to be written in a slightly idiomatic style, so let me know if you can improve my translation of the other two sentences as well. 

Kiitos


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## altazure

The style is indeed quite idiomatic and metaphorical, typical for sports journalism. 
A  translation/paraphrase of the meaning: "You could see that it was just a  practice match. The Russian NHL superstar Aleksander Ovechkin was only  putting in half the effort. He managed to miss an empty net with his  shot."

"Meininki"  doesn't mean just "activities", but the way the activities are  conducted. "Harjoitusottelun meininki" means the way they played was as  you'd expect in a practice match (i.e. not giving it their everything)
"Surffaili"  most likely refers to him skating across the ice, and the frequentative  ('surffaili' instead of 'surffasi') makes it seem like he skated around  in a carefree way, not really caring. I'm not a sports journalism  expert, but I don't think 'surffata' is a common image to associate with  skating, but probably just something the writer came up with.
"Puolivaloilla" comes from _puolivalot_ or _lähivalot_,  the low beam headlamps in a car. It's sometimes used to refer to people  who are just mindlessly going through the motions, not really thinking  or giving it their all.
"Vetää" in ice hockey context means "to shoot at the goal".


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## Gavril

Thanks, Altazure -- my understanding of that quote would have been completely off without your explanation! I think I need to start reading more sports articles, because they can probably teach me much more about colloquial Finnish than regular news articles can.

Can you say _vetää_ _kiekko_ with the same meaning ("shoot at the goal"), or do you have to leave out the object of _vetää_ for this meaning to work?



altazure said:


> The style is indeed quite idiomatic and metaphorical, typical for sports journalism.
> A  translation/paraphrase of the meaning: "You could see that it was just a  practice match. The Russian NHL superstar Aleksander Ovechkin was only  putting in half the effort. He managed to miss an empty net with his  shot."
> 
> "Meininki"  doesn't mean just "activities", but the way the activities are  conducted. "Harjoitusottelun meininki" means the way they played was as  you'd expect in a practice match (i.e. not giving it their everything)
> "Surffaili"  most likely refers to him skating across the ice, and the frequentative  ('surffaili' instead of 'surffasi') makes it seem like he skated around  in a carefree way, not really caring. I'm not a sports journalism  expert, but I don't think 'surffata' is a common image to associate with  skating, but probably just something the writer came up with.
> "Puolivaloilla" comes from _puolivalot_ or _lähivalot_,  the low beam headlamps in a car. It's sometimes used to refer to people  who are just mindlessly going through the motions, not really thinking  or giving it their all.
> "Vetää" in ice hockey context means "to shoot at the goal".


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## Joona

You can't really say "vetää kiekkoa", since "vetää" is the whole activity of shooting the puck. But you can use the word kiekko if you are describing what happens to the puck after. As in:
"Veti kiekon häkkiin" is "shot the puck in (made a goal)". Other word for "vetää", which I accidentally almost just used, is "vetäistä". "Vetäs häkkiin" = made a goal.

I might add to the definition of "meininki", to me it kind of means "the feeling you get from the overall activities". 

As in, "kova meininki" might mean the place (e.g. in a party) is buzzing and lively, or people (in a match) are doing their all.


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