Hockey VM.It’s really called “Bastu”.

What happens when Sweden and Finland meet in a hockey tournament? Apparently, they end up in a sauna arguing about who invented it.

For the 2025 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, BANG Agency created The Swedish Bastu – a small wooden sauna built around one simple idea: what if the Swedish sauna was actually better than the Finnish one?

While Finnish saunas are famous for being steaming hot, ours was proudly lagom. Never above 50 degrees. Inside, visitors could watch classic Sweden–Finland hockey moments while debating the finer points of sauna culture, national identity and one very important question: is it called bastu or sauna?

Created in just two weeks and with a budget of only SEK 75,000, the activation tapped into the Nordic sauna craze sparked by Eurovision and Bara Bada Bastu. The result was one of the most talked-about attractions in the entire Fan Zone.

More than 15,000 visitors stepped inside, media on both sides of the Baltic picked up the story, and the sauna later raised money for Swedish and Finnish youth hockey.

Proof that sometimes the smallest idea creates the biggest crowd.

Awards & Nominations: Gyllene Hjulet.