Helsinki Incident

The Helsinki Incident was recently cited in the 2004 film "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller. During the final match sportcaster Cotton McKnight (Gary Cole) announces "Let me tell you, a double-fault final-play elimination hasn't occurred since the Helsinki episode of 1919, and I think we all remember how THAT turned out!" The 'incident' refers to a Finnish milk maiden named Oona Maarit Lohtander held captive as a rebel after the Finnish Civil War in 1918. While a prisoner on the fortress island of Suomenlinna in Helsinki she learned that her fiance Jarno Enestam was summarily executed by one of the guards of the camp. Vowing to avenge her lover's death, she arranged for her brother, also captive, to strangle the guard that night after she lured him into her bunkhouse for sex. It was absolutely pitch black in the compound and the bunkhouse, and after entering he approached the bunk where he thought his sister was 'engaging' the prison guard. He efficiently dispatched who he thought was the guard and retreated back to his bunkhouse. It turned out that he visited the wrong bunkhouse and strangled a young pregnant woman who was trying to quietly give birth, thus the reference to "a double-fault final-play elimination". Both Oona and her brother were subsequently executed for their role in the murder.