Greatest International streak/dynasty

[razman22]

There's a great thread going about the gretaest international team ever assembled. Since those are limited to teams at one tournament, I thought it would be neat to look at it at a broader sense and rate teams over a number of years based on championships. Here's a few I thought of and feel free to add others worthy of mentioning. These are not in order of who I think are the best.

1963-71 USSR - World Champions. Nine consecutive gold medals. This record will likely never be matched again. The competition was not as close as today but they still won all those games.

1978-83 USSR - World Champions. Another streak likely to never be matched at five. Again the competition wasn't as close as today but it was getting better.

1974-80 USSR - World Junior Champions. Seven straight gold medals. As with the senior teams listed above, the competition wasn't as close as today but once again, they still won.

1984,87,91 Canada - Canada Cup Champions. Three straight championships against the best teams in the world.

1993-97 Canada - World Junior Champions. My pick as the greatest international dynasty. This tournament had become very competitive by then with four to six teams having a shot a gold each year.

1998-2001 Czech Republic National Program. These teams won the 1998 Olympic gold, 2000-01 World Junior Gold and the 1999,2000-01 World Championship gold. To be the reigning champs in all three during an incredibly competitive era is impressive.

Click to read more...

 

[canucksfan]

I would say the World Juniors as well from 93-97. What's amazing is that they only lost one game. That was in 93' where they lost a meaningless game to Finland. Those teams always found a way to win. It felt like they were never going to lose. After that streak Canada had such a tough time finding a way to win.

Nine consecutive Gold medals is impressive but when you don't face the best competition it's hard to call them the greatest dynasty.

 

[Big Phil]

Probably the Canadian WJC from '93-97. There wer years when they werent considered favourites to win. In '93 Sweden was expected to take it. They lost to Canada. In '97 USA had a stellar team tha tyear but got shutout by Canada. The thing that sucked after that run is that we all got jaded by that success and it took us until 2005 to win another one. I can see another dynasty coming with Canada right now. After '05 and '06 its hard to believe with the returning cast and the edition of guys liek Espo that Canada wont win again in January.