2004 World Junior Hockey Championships

[cinch]

Helsinki and Hameenlinna. Be there or be square.

http://proicehockey.about.com/cs/int..._world_jrs.htm

The Russians edged us out last year, but this year we're back for more. We've got a good, young team... We've got Sydney Crosby (actually, I'm not really expecting much from him.... YET.)... And most importantly, we've got our ace in the hole:



Fleury is God.

But there are a lot of good teams out there this year. The Americans are bringing back over half their team from last year. The Russians are always potent, and they're not afraid to spit in your face. And you can never discount the Swedes or Finns. Now, if it's the Swiss, I'm prepared to eat my hat.

Anyway, who do YOU think has the best chance of taking hom the gold?


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Here are the pools, for reference:

Group A -
Russia
USA
Slovakia
Sweden
Austria


Group B -
Canada
Finland
Czech Republic
Switzerland
Ukraine
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Eh?

[cinch]

Well, of course, I didn't include Bananastan as they are obviously the undoubted favourites, and I wanted to keep things interesting...

[cinch]

COME ON, people!

Not even Pekka? I'm so very disappointed in you all.

[Pekka]

Finland will take it!!!111111

I haven't yet studied our team though. I'm not familiar with most the players there.. I used to know what's going on with the junior teams, but now I'm a bit unaware. I think we'll come up with a good and solid team, is it enough, I don't know.. traditional countries always comes up with good teams.

What's your take cinch?

[Kirnwaffen]

Haven't you ever seen the Mighty Ducks? Of course the USA will win!

[Pekka]

I have seen it. UNFORTUNATELY!

[Pekka]

But sure.. the US will come here with a strong team I'm sure.. as well as Canada, Russia and Sweden... Czecs too.. Swiss are a small question mark, they have had good junior teams in the past. It will be a good one!

[Imran Siddiqui]

How is the US's Junior Team anyway?

[Pekka]

Junior WC are always good.. players are so hungry, they play their hearts out there. Quality is also good.
Some of them still needs to show to scouts that they'll deserve to be drafted... it's a big tournament IMO.

[aaglo]

Junior WC's are always interesting. The youngsters are so hungry (and sometimes quite reckless), that occasionally we (the spectators) have a chance to see some serious gang fights (like in Prague(?) in the late 90's).

Well, my choises would be one of these:
- Russia, always very strong
- Finland, playing at home
- Canada, almost always very strong, sometimes they tend to under-perform
- Switzerland, true wild card - they have decent junior team. trust me on this (if they win, I'm SURE to point that out in this - or some other - thread )

[cinch]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
How is the US's Junior Team anyway?

I don't know details... but the "big thing" about the U.S. team is that they're bringing back 10+ players from last year's Junior Championships, which some argue is a big advantage. Alot of teams have almost entirely new lineups this year because all of the kids from last year are in the NHL or are too old now.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh great, so we have the kids who weren't good enough to go to the NHL .

[aaglo]

Imram, You get what you deserve

[Pekka]

Imram, yeah but you have to consider the fact, that most Europeans players don't go to NHL before 20. Not when they are drafted. THey usually like to play and mature in their leagues more. We think that there is no point going out there and then dropping to the farm team and playing there, so majority of players play until they are in the level of making it to the actual playing team.

Plus they are encouraged to play 'few years more', teams want to have them naturally for little longer.. We don't have Uni etc leagues here, so these players have made it to the premier league in here, and maybe are just getting noticed by the scouts. So, there might be few players who are not yet scouted. There always is. Like few years back, there was Olli Jokinen, the captain of our team, well he was scouted but he wasn't in NHL.. and now he's the captain of Panthers.. I'm not claiming he's a huge mega star, but surely has and had the potential to play at high level.

And yeah, there are few players who won't make it to NHL, there are players who don't even make it to adults national teams, and few players who don't even make the playing teams of their own adult teams and play in junior team still. But they realize it's their big chance now, so they alwyays play with their maximum capacity, it's really good. They all want it. For foreign teams it's like this 'if I play a good tournament, I'll be drafted' or if already drafted '..I'll get a contract soon'. So it's a big deal to youngsters..

[Pekka]

damn it.. we took our first and hopefully last loss against Canada.. Did you see this game? I think it was pretty good. Canadians just were better today. I do expect us to step up more and bring the game more to our advantage when the games go on.

I'd say we had too much problems with strong Canadians behind our own net, and defense had too much troubles and couldn't control the situation enough... also our tactics failed clearly.. it was clearly about fast counter attacks, 3-2, 2-1..but I don't remember seen to many of those.. we couldn't capitalize on taking the puck in the center and turning the game faster, also too many offenses were directed into corners instead of coming strong in the center. Also the huge problem was keeping the guys in front of our own goal, there was usually always one guy free, and we didn't push enough our own guys to the goal either. Big problems, but opponent was of quality and played pretty good so.. I'm not that worried. I'd say we need to dump that whole counter attack strategy, it's not working, we didn't get any good offensives from that and had to battle the strong wings and center guy too much in our own corners leaving that one guy open... that's due to the quality of the opponent naturally, but I think we should concentrate on playing the game, back to basics, old school, and not try to fiddle flashy 3-2 with second waves because obviously that didn't happen.

Anyway, congrats to Canada, victory deserved, I think you'll win this starting games and advance to semi finals automatically. I also think we will be on the semi finals, and not against Canada but Sweden or the US, and hopefully in the finals.. against Canada I'm afraid. We'll see!