Hannu-Pekka "Hoopi" Hänninen (born 27 July 1952) is a Finnish sports commentator who works for Finland's National Broadcasting Company

Yle Yleisradio Oy (Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, founde ...

. He works both as the real-time

play-by-play In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

commentator and the sports reader in Yle's sports news ''

Urheiluruutu {{Unreferenced, date=June 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) Urheiluruutu is a daily sports magazine produced and broadcast by Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle. The programme originally launched on August 18, 1962. The sportsreader was Anssi Kukkonen a ...

''. His career as a sportscaster started in 1977. Before that, he had a short spell as entertainment staff on the

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

. He was born in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, and trained as a telecommunications engineer. Hänninen is a multi-skilled sportscaster who can comment on almost every

sport Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

. Nowadays he usually commentates only on

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

, ski jumping, and Nordic combined. In the 1990s he also commented very much on

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

, usually with Kari Hiltunen. Among others, he commentated on

Kimmo Kinnunen Kimmo Paavali Kinnunen (born 31 March 1968) is a Finnish former javelin thrower. He won gold at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo and silver at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart. His other achievements include a 4th-place finish a ...

's World Championship-winning javelin throw in 1991 Tokyo,

Sari Essayah Sari Miriam Essayah (born 21 February 1967 in Haukivuori) is a Finland, Finnish retired race walking, racewalker and a politician, former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Member of Parliament since 2015. She is the president of the Finn ...

's World Championship-winning 10 km walk in 1993 Stuttgart, and Aki Parviainen's World Championship-winning javelin throw in 1999 Sevilla. He has also commentated on every

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

on television since

1984 in Los Angeles Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...

. One of his main moments in the Olympic games is the commentation of Matti Nykänen's gold-winning jump in the

1988 Winter Olympics The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games (french: XVes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Calgary 1988 ( bla, Mohkínsstsisi 1988; sto, Wîchîspa Oyade 1988 or ; cr, Otôskwanihk 1998/; srs, Guts� ...

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

. He has also been the main commentator of swimming in Yle for a long time. "Hoopi" has also been one of the main commentators in the

Football World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has ...

and

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

since 1986 Mexico, but had his first football World Cup commentation almost ten years earlier in

Argentina 1978 The 1978 FIFA World Cup was the 11th edition of the FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football world championship tournament among the men's senior national teams. It was held in Argentina between 1 and 25 June. The Cup was won by t ...

, when he commentated a couple of the first-round matches from the studio in Pasila, Helsinki, because the main commentators Anssi Kukkonen and Pentti Salmi were unable to do so because of the number of games and traveling. The greatest moments of his football commentating career among others are the

Euro 92 The 1992 UEFA European Football Championship was hosted by Sweden between 10 and 26 June 1992. It was the ninth UEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and supported by UEFA. Denmark won the 1992 championship, having qualifi ...

final in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

and the

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

final. He is the main football commentator in YLE together with Tapio Suominen.

External links

Video clip from normal hill ski jumping competition in World Championships 2007. Commentator: Hannu-Pekka Hänninen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanninen, Hannu-Pekka Association football commentators Finnish sports broadcasters Sportspeople from Helsinki 1952 births Living people