Olympics: Is Russia over rated as a hockey power

[Mr Kanadensisk]

Instead of being "rattled" by home crowds, how about if they just didn't play well, or the other team was just better? Home crowds get home teams jacked up, and of course influence referees, who hate having a crowd riding their back, especially if they are challenging their patriotism. You can keep arguing the point, but I don't think that anyone will buy it

All players get jacked up from the crowds, but the host nations players feel the most pressure. You can keep arguing the point but even a cursory look at the evidence shows that you are wrong.

 

[Canuckistani]

You're just trying to come up with some kind of whacky spin that suggests that it isn't a huge advantage to play at home

There's no need for anyone to "spin" anything on this matter. Home teams have a very poor record in international hockey. That's simply a fact. Sweden's 2013 win was the first home-ice gold at the WHC since 1986!

Common sense might suggest some huge advantage would surely exist but the facts simply don't support it.

Even at the World Cup, the record is mixed to say the least. The best-of-three final in 1996 saw the home team lose every game, before Canada won in Toronto in 2004.

 

[Yakushev72]

There's no need for anyone to "spin" anything on this matter. Home teams have a very poor record in international hockey. That's simply a fact. Sweden's 2013 win was the first home-ice gold at the WHC since 1986!

Common sense might suggest some huge advantage would surely exist but the facts simply don't support it.

Even at the World Cup, the record is mixed to say the least. The best-of-three final in 1996 saw the home team lose every game, before Canada won in Toronto in 2004.

Now its time to show the scope of your brain matter! Go through all the international tournaments, and show me who won and why, if you are judging based on the quality of the teams, that the home team should have won. My prediction is that you will flatten yourself on your face, because your premise is empty and has zero merit! Yes, if Russia is playing Switzerland in Zurich, Russia will probably win, even if the Swiss had home ice advantage! What you and Jack Slater and Kanadipsink are doing is factoring in the WHC, where the host country often has no chance of winning, and then using that to establish an empty premise!

 

[Mr Kanadensisk]

Now its time to show the scope of your brain matter! Go through all the international tournaments, and show me who won and why, if you are judging based on the quality of the teams, that the home team should have won. My prediction is that you will flatten yourself on your face, because your premise is empty and has zero merit! Yes, if Russia is playing Switzerland in Zurich, Russia will probably win, even if the Swiss had home ice advantage! What you and Jack Slater and Kanadipsink are doing is factoring in the WHC, where the host country often has no chance of winning, and then using that to establish an empty premise!

Then why is it that the host nation at the WC on average does better the year before and the year after than they do the year they hosted?

 

[FiLe]

Now its time to show the scope of your brain matter! Go through all the international tournaments, and show me who won and why, if you are judging based on the quality of the teams, that the home team should have won. My prediction is that you will flatten yourself on your face, because your premise is empty and has zero merit! Yes, if Russia is playing Switzerland in Zurich, Russia will probably win, even if the Swiss had home ice advantage! What you and Jack Slater and Kanadipsink are doing is factoring in the WHC, where the host country often has no chance of winning, and then using that to establish an empty premise!

It's of course easy to keep up the "home ice curse" when the host country is of the kind that never had any chance of winning in the first place.

But rather than go through all the tournaments, why don't we just go through the ones where the home team arguably did have a chance of winning and see if they form a group of samples that numbers adequate enough.


So starting from that Soviet Union win from 1986 up to this day...

Note: The mentioned country is the host country, NOT the champion. There is a separate note if the host country also won the tournament.

1986 - Soviet Union (won)
1988OG - Canada
1989 - Sweden
1991 - Finland
1992 - Czechoslovakia
1995 - Sweden
1997 - Finland
2000 - Russia
2002OG - USA
2002 - Sweden
2003 - Finland
2004 - Czech Republic
2007 - Russia
2008 - Canada
2010OG - Canada (won)
2011 - Slovakia
2012 - Finland
2013 - Sweden (won)

That's 18 instances in a country with the host having a good enough team to compete for a title. And we have three home ice winners, which gives us a title capturing percentage of roughly ~16%.


Now, since I had nothing better to do, and like I said earlier, the bigger the sample size, the better - so I decided to go through the WJCs too...

1986 - Canada
1987 - Czechoslovakia
1988 - Soviet Union
1989 - USA
1990 - Finland
1991 - Canada (won)
1993 - Sweden
1994 - Czech Republic
1995 - Canada (won)
1996 - USA
1998 - Finland (won)
1999 - Canada
2000 - Sweden
2001 - Russia
2002 - Czech Republic
2003 - Canada
2004 - Finland
2005 - USA
2006 - Canada (won)
2007 - Sweden
2008 - Czech Republic
2009 - Canada (won)
2010 - Canada
2011 - USA
2012 - Canada
2013 - Russia
2014 - Sweden

That's 27 instances and five home ice champions, making the percentage roughly ~19%. The total percentage counting both sets gives us, is 8/45 = ~18%.


Judging by these statistics, we could say that the home team manages to walk away with the title around every 5th or 6th instance out of times the tournament is held in a viable country. It would appear that winning on home ice indeed is pretty hard.

To be fair though, there are some instances where you could certainly dispute the home team's ability to take it in the first place - most notably 1988 OG with Canada (no NHLers yet), 1991 Finland and perhaps 2011 Slovakia (though they did have a pretty stacked team that year despite already being in a downwards glide in general). More instances could be found in the WJC table due to some fluctuations in various junior mills, but it's a job for someone else than me to go through those rosters.

Now, while I consider the sample size quite adequate even with the "lesser" hosts cleaned away, this does not however disprove the notion that we could have seen more home ice wins if more tournaments were held in viable countries. Interestingly, Canada holds the distinction of organizing every 4th tournament on the list (if we count the WJCs) and they seem to have won roughly every other time out of those. It's a matter of some curiosity, albeit I've no idea whether this is due to the amount of home ice wins rising with the amount of opportunities, or simply because Canada is... well, Canada.



See, kids? Science can be fun.

 

[1Gold Standard]

Now its time to show the scope of your brain matter! Go through all the international tournaments, and show me who won and why, if you are judging based on the quality of the teams, that the home team should have won. My prediction is that you will flatten yourself on your face, because your premise is empty and has zero merit! Yes, if Russia is playing Switzerland in Zurich, Russia will probably win, even if the Swiss had home ice advantage! What you and Jack Slater and Kanadipsink are doing is factoring in the WHC, where the host country often has no chance of winning, and then using that to establish an empty premise!

There you go Yak, definitive proof above for all to see that yours was the empty premise. On the losing side of an argument, again.

 

[stv11]

No need to continue...