IIHF Eligibility Rules Need to Change
- Thread starter Pavel Buchnevich
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WarriorofTime
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- Jul 3, 2010
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what player inspired this? I think they don't want to make it a FIFA situation where like half the players on some teams are like "oh my great-grandmother's grandmother is from there"
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Because then you have lower level countries filling their rosters with Canadians instead of trying to develop local talent. Pass.
All you need now is citizenship and at least some history of playing in the country.
All you need now is citizenship and at least some history of playing in the country.
It would be a very good way to turn the likes of India and Jamaica into mid-tier hockey powers. You know, countries with very little hockey development. Bad idea.
aquaregia
Registered User
Lol what are you on about, it is incredibly easy to naturalise as an overseas-born player for your country of choice under IIHF rules.
Two seasons playing organised hockey in your adopted country* is much more lenient than any of FIFA's national teams, where I think the minimum requirement is three years, and some countries require more or outright refuse to naturalise players at all (England for one example).
*(four if you have played competitively for another country at any level, which you outright cannot do at all in most cases under FIFA)
Two seasons playing organised hockey in your adopted country* is much more lenient than any of FIFA's national teams, where I think the minimum requirement is three years, and some countries require more or outright refuse to naturalise players at all (England for one example).
*(four if you have played competitively for another country at any level, which you outright cannot do at all in most cases under FIFA)
For countries with a good or decent leagues, yes, for others no.
Why shouldnt guys like Paul Di Pietro or Hnat Domenichelli for Switzerland at some point? They moved their center of life to Switzerland, stayed there after they finished their career.
There are other cases of course like the guys playing for KAZ or BLR. But you probably cannot find the perfect rule, every has its pros and cons.
Better way to develop hockey is that IIHF should look that talented players from developing nations (Like Nino Tomov e.g.) have the possibility to represent their country at the WC. And yeah, I probably agree, if you're born with two passports (maybe because your mother and father have different nationalities) you should be able to represent both countries without playing in those leagues.
Why shouldnt guys like Paul Di Pietro or Hnat Domenichelli for Switzerland at some point? They moved their center of life to Switzerland, stayed there after they finished their career.
There are other cases of course like the guys playing for KAZ or BLR. But you probably cannot find the perfect rule, every has its pros and cons.
Better way to develop hockey is that IIHF should look that talented players from developing nations (Like Nino Tomov e.g.) have the possibility to represent their country at the WC. And yeah, I probably agree, if you're born with two passports (maybe because your mother and father have different nationalities) you should be able to represent both countries without playing in those leagues.
The IIHF do give dispensation on a case by case basis if a dual national do not fill eligibility criterias for either country he is citizen of. Cases I can think of are Tim Bozon (FRA/USA) who learned the game in Germany and Switzerland and, I believe, Liam Stewart (GBR/NZL) as he learned it in the US.
JackSlater
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- Apr 27, 2010
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It's pretty much the opposite, the rules should be stricter. The mercenary approach, which is what loosening the rules would encourage, renders the whole thing pointless. It would just create the illusion or parity or development with players playing for countries that didn't develop them and that they didn't come from.
I would like to see the IIHF double the requirement (to basically four years, in cases where the rule is even relevant) of time played in a country in order to represent that country. Having players show up wherever there is an opportunity for them to play (or get paid) because their great grandfather once looked in the direction of some weaker hockey country and imbued them with a deep love, likely never mentioned before of course, for that country is a joke.
I would like to see the IIHF double the requirement (to basically four years, in cases where the rule is even relevant) of time played in a country in order to represent that country. Having players show up wherever there is an opportunity for them to play (or get paid) because their great grandfather once looked in the direction of some weaker hockey country and imbued them with a deep love, likely never mentioned before of course, for that country is a joke.
Caser
@RUSProspects
Speaking of different cases, there is another interesting case in Nikita Alexandrov: despite being born and raised in Germany, he had to refuse receiving the German citizenship in order to be eligible to represent Russia.
I'd like it to be even stricter yet. Six (or even 8 years) played in the country - but years as a junior (U18 or U20, not too picky on this) count double. That way, we don't get garbage like this:
Georgia 2022-2023 - Roster, Stats & more
Georgia - WC D2A - hockey team page with roster, stats, transactions at eliteprospects.com
www.eliteprospects.com
With years as a junior counting double, it still allows people who immigrate as children to represent the country in which they grew up.
Golden_Jet
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Czechboy
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Interesting and fair counter arguments about jamaica becoming a hockey power. That is fair.
However, Czechs and Slovaks do get hit by elibibility and it hurts them a bit. Eg. Lukas Fischer, Musil brothers, Hejduk twins, Ludvig and Arber.
The only way we can get those guys on our NT is if they fail at become NHL players and play in the Extraliga for 2 years. Adam Musil did that. I think the Klima's are now elibible too. But we can't get any guys that are in the NHL. That sucks for us.
Also, no one goes to Slovakia or Czech to improve their draft rankings. They all leave for the CHL and Canada or America end up with our guys. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Totally agree if a player chooses to play for Canada/US that they then shouldn't be allowed to change their mind. However, some of these guys may want to play for us and can't.
However, Czechs and Slovaks do get hit by elibibility and it hurts them a bit. Eg. Lukas Fischer, Musil brothers, Hejduk twins, Ludvig and Arber.
The only way we can get those guys on our NT is if they fail at become NHL players and play in the Extraliga for 2 years. Adam Musil did that. I think the Klima's are now elibible too. But we can't get any guys that are in the NHL. That sucks for us.
Also, no one goes to Slovakia or Czech to improve their draft rankings. They all leave for the CHL and Canada or America end up with our guys. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Totally agree if a player chooses to play for Canada/US that they then shouldn't be allowed to change their mind. However, some of these guys may want to play for us and can't.
Might be nice for the players, but the overall impact would be negative. Now guys like Jan Isaksson, Patrick Forstner, or Kim Aarola can go play for Thailand after they abandon their European career ambitions, but if anyone with a passport could go it would open the door to active pros that would immediately tilt the ice in an unreasonable way in favor of these national teams that had no role in their development.
Pavel Buchnevich
Drury and Laviolette Must Go
Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
A couple of things in reply. I can think of two players off the top of my head Michael Antonio and Wilfred Zaha both of who were in the England squad but now represent other countries despite never having played professional in those other countries. Additionally four or five players from both the Under 17 and Under 20 World Cup winning England teams of 2017 now play for other nations. In contrast Brendan Perlini who was born and learned the game in Britain would have to play four years in Britain to be eligible for team GB as he represented Canada in the under 20s.
Also in the 2022 World Cup there were more French born players playing for nations other than France than there were in the French squad. I believe 32 in total. FIFA make it much easier to represent other nations than the IIHF do. Is this right or wrong? When you want these players to represent your country it is disappointing but maybe the fact that the Football World Cup is more competitive than the Ice Hockey World Championship makes it worthwhile. In 86 IIHF World Championships there have only been 8 different winners. In 22 Football World Cups there have also been 8 different winners.
Also there are many players in Great Britain who have played four or five years in the country but are not eligible to play for Team GB. For example, Shane Owen has played the last five years in the UK and lives in the country but is not eligible for a GB passport and cannot represent GB. At the same way there are about 8 players who played almost their whole career in Great Britain but cannot represent GB as they do not have a British passport. I think the IIHF current rules actually give Britain a disadvantage over other nations who have more lenient rules for foreign born nationals to gain a passport in their adopted country.
With around 30 British born or British passport holders playing in high levels of hockey around the world a change in the IIHF rules would certainly make GB a stronger hockey nation.
That said the fact that the senior hockey league in Britain allows 15 imports to dress in any game day roster and prioritizes winning the next regular season game as much more important than developing the talented young British players we have, will hold the national team back until this short term thinking changes.
aquaregia
Registered User
True, the youth-teams not cap-tying a player is one area where FIFA makes it easier, though playing more than three competitive fixtures for a player 21 or younger or any at all for a player older still permanently cap-ties a player, which is much stricter than the IIHF where you could have say 100 caps for Russia in theory and still switch teams provided you put in the four years.
For teams like the UAE, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan its much easier to import and naturalise players than it would under FIFA's system.
Interesting points made about a theoretical Jamaican heritage-based team but as has been said it's probably best for the health of international hockey that this doesn't happen, at least not without a domestic league to go hand-in-hand with the NT. In FIFA you don't have that concern so much because pretty much every country has organised league soccer at some level, it's not like countries are ever being pushed out that have active local scenes for ones that don't when say French-born players decide to play for the land of their parents/grandparents (Senegal, Cameroon, Mali et al).
Having a well defined ancestry rule would be a benefit though I agree, as opposed to just IIHF deciding ad-hoc whether certain players get exemptions. Even so for a determined player/national program the rules don't exactly make it insurmountable.
For teams like the UAE, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan its much easier to import and naturalise players than it would under FIFA's system.
Interesting points made about a theoretical Jamaican heritage-based team but as has been said it's probably best for the health of international hockey that this doesn't happen, at least not without a domestic league to go hand-in-hand with the NT. In FIFA you don't have that concern so much because pretty much every country has organised league soccer at some level, it's not like countries are ever being pushed out that have active local scenes for ones that don't when say French-born players decide to play for the land of their parents/grandparents (Senegal, Cameroon, Mali et al).
Having a well defined ancestry rule would be a benefit though I agree, as opposed to just IIHF deciding ad-hoc whether certain players get exemptions. Even so for a determined player/national program the rules don't exactly make it insurmountable.
With respect, I think we have a fundamental disagreement here. You refer to players like Musil, Xhekaj, Hejduks, etc. as "our guys". If these players were not at all developed in Czechia, they aren't "your guys". Their parents may have been, but these players are not.
A national team, in my opinion, should be reflective of the state of hockey in that nation. Not the state of hockey in the nations which their parents immigrated to. That opens up problems where we end up with a dozen+ national teams that are made up of Canadians/Americans/Swedes/Swiss. National teams that don't happen to have large emigrant communities suffer. Sorry Australia, you don't get to be competitive in Division IIA anymore; Serbia and Croatia have loaded their rosters with North American professionals and are going to beat you by double digits. Too bad.
Canada "loses" players with famous fathers to the US all the time. Some people complain about it. I never will - if those players are not raised/trained in the Canadian hockey system, they shouldn't be playing for Canada.
Maybe I'm just more of a hardliner on this than most.
A bit besides the point, but Adam Musil is an example of a player that could choose to represent Czechia because he spent enough time there as a young kid playing hockey, despite then going through the serious part of his junior path in Canada and playing for Canada at non-IIHF tournaments. He had a meaningful link and there were no hindrances then.
This guy is probably regretting his choice severely in hindsight, losing the opportunity to play in possibly the next two Olympics and whatever World Cup type event(s) the NHL has plan. Hell he chose a team that barely beat his birthplace team for the gold medal in OT on a tournament where arguably the Russian team wasn't significantly more weakened than the German one by the lack of NHLers given the KHL representation.
I'd much rather get a shot to play on a line with Draisaitl and Stutzle and upset a team or two than almost have no opportunity at all. Granted sometimes it's less about opportunity and how much of a nationality you identify with.
No way, those two would be low Div II at best. Indo-Canadians barely register on the radar anywhere aside from a couple of examples and a handful of players with Jamaican heritage does not a middling power make. Frankly I don't see what's wrong with those two examples specifically, it definitely helps grow the game a little especially in a country with 1.4 billion people if you have an NT that plays regularly in the circuit. You convert 0.00001% of that country into hockey and you've got an additional 14,000 fans worldwide. This isn't counting the 30 million or so diaspora of Indians around the world who might follow if they've got an NT.
I for one really didn't mind what they were pulling with the Chinese NT for the Olympics, shame it's not lasting. It's another thing if it's really upsetting the balance of power and they are beating the likes of Switzerland or Germany, but these are just taking NTs from the absolute fringes of Div III calibre or worse and pushing them up to Div II/Div I circuits.
I believe it to be wrong because it punishes nations that are actually making an effort to develop grassroots hockey systems that don't happen to have a significant diaspora in more traditional hockey countries. You may disagree with that take, but to say that you don't see it at all is crazy to me.
Furthermore, I have yet to see an example of a country with little tradition in a sport suddenly become enamoured by it because they have a bunch of foreigners playing under their flag. Is there any example of this? Maybe there is, but I'm not familiar with it.
In fact, a recent interview with a former Italian national baseball team player suggests that the opposite may be true:
(Google can translate this to English)
Without local representation, players become less interested in taking up the sport seriously as children. This is antithetical to the IIHF's mission.
China was a Division II A team before and with their team of foreign legionnaires got promoted one tier to Division I B, besides finishing last at the Olympics. Had they put all the Kunlun money into establishing a proper domestic league they could have fairly easily achieved similar results with much better future perspectives.
Korea had a similar way of handling the olympics. They started with a better base and it lasted a little bit longer, but with Dalton not playing in the Olympic Qualifier probably the last Korean-Canuck has retired.
The Dutch in the 80-ies and the Italiens in the 90-ies played with a lot of NA-players. But it was a different time back then.
The Dutch in the 80-ies and the Italiens in the 90-ies played with a lot of NA-players. But it was a different time back then.
Obviously to block Swedish supremacy right?
I really don't care about this one way or the other but if it allows players to make more money and some more competition who really cares, as most of this isn't going on at the highest levels anyways and the whole nationalism thing being tempered down isn't a bad thing either.
WarriorofTime
Registered User
- Jul 3, 2010
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You can be a national of one country that played a lot in a different country. It is a mistake to conflate the two. The whole “developed by X” is kinda silly. You’d basically be disqualifying a lot of second division national teams whose players are no doubt of the nationality but have to love over when they are young (David Reinbacher with Austria for example) in order to seriously pursue hockey. Those are different than passport shoppers.
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