World Cup of Hockey '04

[Pekka]

What great game! I say this was the best game for me, I really liked it. Russia had some amazing performances.. the individual skill, it's just HUGE. Kovalev.. what a goal, highlight goal for a long time to come. What about Aginogenov? They just have a good thing going on for them. US was totally dominated by Russia, there's no two ways about it.

I'm not counting US out, but let's face it, they have scored twice in the whole tournament. Sure, against tough opponents. But look at their roster. They have scored TWICE. And if it wasn't for Esche, they'd have lost this game with UGLY numbers.

[Pekka]

Also, they should put few fans on a leash. Throwing beer at Russian players That's about the weakest thing I've EVER heard. sore losers.

[Tingkai]

Argh. The games aren't being shown in HK.

The Finn-Swede could be a classic.

[Pekka]

It will be.. hockey fans knows the rivalry, but only Finns and Swedes knows how it really is . It's goign to be a HOT game. Fast, and full of surprises. Maybe even the best game so far. It has a lot of potential. A boring game it will not be, it's a guarantee. The mind games have already started, when Sundin said to Swedisdh press that they are clear favourites, because our players still have their miraculous chase in their minds (they came back from 5-1 to 6-5 and won us in semi finals, Sundin was playing, and so was many other good Swedish players, we had Selänne and others too. Selänne scored a hat trick for example, wasn't enough )

[Fake Boris]

Kovalev, what a goal!

BTW, anyone knows why there has never been any Norwegian team? Why would Sweden and Finland be any good and not Norway? And what about the absence of the ex-Republics?

[Pekka]

Norway has a team. There are only 7 countries that play top level hockey. Those are: Canada, US, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia (new one... well .. czechoslovakia you see), Sweden and Finland. THat's it. This list is closed.

Now, this is the top tier, and it's non-negotiable. The fact is it takes some years of top level hockey to rise to these ranks.

Now, there are few countries that are coming and closing the gap a bit. Germany is one. Though they're not the top contender, they're still the 8th, and are getting better all the time. Switzerland has great juniors. They should have a great team right now, as they've been doing good in U18 and U20 games for some time now. And they're in the age of men now, but.. they haven't been able to step up from there, so for now there are just talented juniors. There are few good Swiss adult players, yeah.. Jenni I think and some other guys. But these are the two 'prominent' ones, to challenge the top 7 maybe at some point, but it's not very near yet..

The fact is, if you want to be a succesful hockey nation, you have to have a nation that really loves hockey, you need lot of fans. Because you need to have your own elite league, and of course 'farm leagues' as well. The elite league has to be in top level, not NHL, but .. better than AHL .

So you need a lot of good players to have a good elite league. For this, you need A LOT of juniors. You need tens of thousands, or more AT LEAST to have decent junior pool, most quit, and some will never become any good, and only some will become good, and you need to form many teams from those. And they need to be regional as well.

That also means, you have to have lot of ice rinks, and arenas. You go only so far with open ice rinks, you need arenas at some point anyway. That means a lot of money to Hockey. That means a good hockey association, a good organisation. Teams, they need money too. They need to pay salaries to the players, because if you have too many players who also have to work.. well, they don't have the time to practice twice a day, every day, and play long seasons. So, teams need money. So, they need owners. They need sponsors, they need a business culture, where Hockey is one good sport to sponsor. All this means, that there needs to be lot of fans, who come and buy the tickets, to see their team and cheer for them.

This is why you don't basically see lot of hockey in poorer nations. You can play hockey and become good by old standards, pretty poor by todays standards without these elements. SO it just won't cut it if these are not present. Kids can play hockey, but top level hockey, professional hockey is another thing.

It means it has to be on TV. Also, it needs professional coaching and supportive teams. It's complicated, well not really complicated, but it's like this HUGE living organism, the whole system of how you can have good hockey in your country, and if something don't work 100%, it means it won't build up to be great, thought it can still be OK, or 2nd tier, but it will NEVER become the challenger of these top 7 unless these are met.. years after years.

SO, the very basis has to be, that the country IS a hockey country to begin with. So the businesses come, so the money comes in, so they can build arenas, pro teams, everything. And this is the reason why new countries won't challenge the top 7 for a long time, with exception of few potentials (like Germany).

[Pekka]

Now SU had a different system, as we know with communism and all, but it was a working method too. They made a great situation for talented players to develop, well, they were able to play hockey 100%. They also had lot of good sports schools, and they still do. So scouting from these, getting the talented ones.. you got yourself a nice set of talented players. And one of the most talented and skilled players ever comes from Russia, and still do. When SU collapsed, it didn't so much effect to this fact, because they already had a good history of top level hockey. Plus the salaries for example these days in Russian league are good. Better than in Finland for example. So they're getting paid in there too.

[cinch]

What about Ukraine and Belarus and co.? I know they have a few all-stars (Zhitnik is a Uke, I think Irbe is Latvian...)...

Though I suppose, even Norway and Poland have NHL players... (Espen Knutsen and Krzystof Oliwa, respectively.)

Still, it seems like the former Soviet republics should have higher calibre talent. Hm.

[Fake Boris]

Pekka, I was asking why is it that hockey never stuck in Norway while it clearly has the wealth and the climate.

Also, why is it that Russia kept on while the ex-Republics didn't?

[Pekka]

WELL. Latvia IS pretty decent. I should say Latvia is right there with Germany and Switzerland. They are pretty good, they can play impressive hockey at times. THey just have to be more consistent on top level hockey, and not just flash some and then go to the closet again. But they have some talent there.

Norway, well, they're not a big hockey nation. They do other sports more. Hockey is not dominant sport in Norway.

Well, the ex-Republics don't have the elite leagues fo their own, it was SU's own league. They didn't have the whole system, and when they got out of SU, they also couldn't bring the things from SU, like the top league. And the players in those countries, they continue to play either in Russia or other countries. And because that is the situation, you don't have big enough junior pool basically, since it was organized by SU before.

[Fake Boris]

You mean that they unbuilt the arenas and brought them back to the Urals? Soooo Soviet.

[Pekka]

Umhhh no, but the elite league was in SU, and is in Russia now. THe people who played in there continued to play in there. The Elite league. They might have have regional leagues, but best players would have been forwarded to SU's elite league.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Pekka, I was asking why is it that hockey never stuck in Norway while it clearly has the wealth and the climate.

Also, why is it that Russia kept on while the ex-Republics didn't?

They all kept on and in fact if you look at the world champioships, latvia finished ahead of Ruussia. and the Ukraine and Kazikstan were both also in the top 16. I don't know that the other ex-Soviet republics were as big into hockey or if its just a matter of smaller populations.

The rankings after the 2004 World Championships were as follows


#1
Canada
#2
Sweden
#3
USA
#4
Slovakia
#5
Finland
#6
Czech Republic
#7
Latvia
#8
Switzerland
#9
Austria
#10
Germany
#11
Russia
#12
Denmark
#13
Kazakhstan
#14
Ukraine
#15
Japan
#16
France

[Flubber]

Oh and here are the rankings going into the 2005 world championships in Austria


Canada (1)
Sweden (2)
Slovakia (3)
Czech Republic (4)
Finland (5)
USA (6)
Russia (7)
Germany (8)
Switzerland (9)
Latvia (10)
Austria (11)
Ukraine (12)
Kazakhstan (13)
Denmark (14)
Belarus (Div.I)
Slovenia (Div.I)


NOte that I believe that this top 8 is used at the World Cup AND also is used as the automatically qualified countries to the 2006 Olympics. Other countries (four in all) will have to win their way through a qualification process.

[Pekka]

Well the Czechs pretty much will win Germany, leading 6-1 and 5 minutes to go. Is anyone watching this? I heard commentator saying something in the lines of Elias KOing Sturm, without apparent reason, just hitting him and KOd Sturm clean. He got 2+2.. what the hell is that? What happened, I missed it.