posted Jan 14th, 2019 - Finland joined the World Tunnel League with the first 10-round indoor competition at the Fööni wind tunnel in Helsinki in September last year, and the NSL News covered the event live with several updates.

League organizer and Blackjack member Vesa Vuorenkoski was planning to follow up with more meets on a regular basis, and he hosted the next indoor competition at the same place last weekend.

The January meet of the Finnish Tunnel League was one of the three events that launched the 2019 competition season.

Nine of the eleven teams in September were back for the January meet, and one new team joined the AAA Class competition.

The Silver Knights are not a new team in Finland's 4-way community. In fact, the scoring history of the Finnish military team goes back to the 2010 season.

However, it was the first indoor competition that the Silver Knights attended last weekend, and it was a successful re-start on the AAA Class leaderboard after four years without any scores on NSL leaderboards.

World Tunnel League January 2019		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class - Finland	Q,E,F,18	3,9,11	D,K,21,16	14,G,M,17	O,L,B,7	5,15,6	P,A,12,20	C,13,1	10,8,N	22,J,H,4	Total	Avg
1	Pro Team	34	20	27	24	37	23	19	23	20	21	248	24.8
2	Blackjack	28	13	19	19	29	15	16	16	15	16	186	18.6
3	Tempo	23	17	21	19	26	15	15	17	14	17	184	18.4
4	Telakka	24	17	19	18	24	13	16	16	14	16	177	17.7
5	Silver Knights	18	13	16	17	24	15	14	14	13	16	160	16.0

Blackjack - Tempo - Telakka - Silver Knights at the WTL/FITL meet last weekend

The Silver Knights had started in the A Class of 2010 and 2011, with Pro Team member Kimmo Pohjola coaching the team.

They moved up into the AAA Class in 2012 and outscored the reigning 4-way champions, Tigers, at the national championships by two points. Then they competed for Finland at the FAI World Meet 2012 in Dubai.

They took a 3-year break and came back for another showdown with the Tigers at the national championships in 2015 that the Tigers won. It was the last 4-way competition in the NSL records before the Silver Knights attended their first indoor competition last weekend.

The Silver Knights met several former Finnish national teams and national champions at the WTL competition. In fact, all five AAA Class teams on last weekend's leaderboard are either former and current national teams (Blackjack, Silver Knights, Pro Team) or have former national 4-way champions in their lineups.

The Pro Team won as clearly as in September, while the other four AAA Class teams were close enough to each other that each of the teams claimed or shared their highscores for each round, including the Silver Knights in Round 6.

World Tunnel League September 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	O,18,17	6,L,14	D,7,3	5,21,A	M,16,F,Q	P,G,K,9	22,12,H	20,10,4	N,8,2	E,19,B,J	Total	Avg
1	Pro Team	22	23	23	24	32	39	18	14	19	30	244	24.4
2	Blackjack	17	16	17	17	27	25	11	13	13	27	183	18.3
3	Tempo	16	12	15	19	27	23	12	13	17	24	178	17.8
4	Telakka	16	18	19	17	25	20	13	12	14	19	173	17.3
5	Tahma	7	14	13	10	16	19	10	8	11	17	125	12.5

All five AAA Class teams improved their meet averages that they had posted in September, even though the two new blocks (1 - 13) were included in the draw (Round 8) and made their first appearance of the year last weekend.

It was most challenging for the Pro Team to beat their own 24.4 record average of September, and they added four points to their 10-round total. The ranking order behind the Pro Team was identical, while the teams moved closer to each other.

Tempo was the most improved team (178 - 184) and cut the distance to Blackjack (183 - 186) from five to two points. Telakka (173 - 177) moved one point closer to Blackjack.

The Silver Knights are within striking distance of the other AAA Class teams and could easily move closer at the next WTL meet. Only the Pro Team is completely out of sight for the other Finnish AAA Class teams and have other goals in their minds, including the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019 at Weembi Lille...