Often times, traveling to a different city means exploring the culture of the city. The museums. The restaurants. The architecture. Europe has plenty to offer in terms of culture. But culture has many different aspects. Sports being one of them.

That’s how I found myself taking in a professional basketball game in Solna, a suburb of Stockholm. Basketball isn’t exactly a quintessential Swedish sport, but it was a Swedish league.

Of the 11 teams that comprise Basketligan, the professional Swedish basketball league, two are in the Stockholm area, with two additional teams less than an hour away. Despite this, the sport is very much a fringe sport. It was exactly this reason that attracted me to the game. The fringe of Swedish sports culture meeting the mainstream of American sports culture.

For just 150 SEK I was able to see a semi-final basketball game. The level of basketball was better than expected. The crowd was small but vocal. The intensity of the players was nothing short of professional. Which, to be quite honest, should be expected of all professional athletes but is sometimes lacking.

The game demonstrated the passion so often associated with Swedish sports. Both from the players’ perspective as well as the fans’ perspective. And while the sheer numbers couldn’t compete with the crowd watching the Swedish hockey team, those few fans that were there made it into an event worthy of the ticket price.

A basketball game in Sweden is not a classic tourist attraction. In fact, it’s not even one of those out of the way tourist attractions. But it is a part of Swedish culture, no matter how small, and one that very few people have experienced.

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