Level of players in these Olympics

[ThaiTanicDK]

I'm sure a world-wide hockey league will happen one day, with an American and a European (Eurasian?!) conference. It might take a few decades, but we'll get there.

Hockey is too much of a niche sport for that to ever happen.

The sport as a whole (IIHF) and the north american hockey scene cant even agree on when to let players play for their national team.. Something that just happens in every other sport on the planet.

 

[stampedingviking]

European ice has a worse trap game when one of the teams wants to play a prevent defense. Canada's games in the Sochi 2014 tournament were a prime example of that. When the teams wanted to play hockey the games were entertaining (e.g., USA-Russia, Finland-Russia). Overall, Vancouver 2010 had the best quality games with elite skill and NA ice together.

That's down to the mentality of the coach. No surprise that it was the Canadians, though, that's their game to a T.

 

[Eisen]

The "trap" may be easier to beat in European ice, and yet collapsing five men in the box is much more effective. Too much space outside the dots where there exists minimal threat to score while the defenders are content to hold the middle and block shots.

If they concede the sides to you, move in the slot. The puck is still inside the zone. You need to cycle more and quicker.

 

[stampedingviking]

Level is very very poor, so crappy tournament. Who ever wins the gold, I don't value it at all.

Yet the hockey is more entertaining to watch without all the dump and chase, board battle, change then rinse and repeat.

If Canada/USA were going to win gold, would it be devalued then? Or is it because without the NHL Canada/USA are nothing?

 

[Frank the Tank]

If they concede the sides to you, move in the slot. The puck is still inside the zone. You need to cycle more and quicker.

That's what Canada did and why they won the tournament undefeated without ever trailing. It still was relatively boring to watch every opponent attempt to play prevent defense for 60 minutes.

 

[chauron]

The best available are there

 

[Eisen]

That's what Canada did and why they won the tournament undefeated without ever trailing. It still was relatively boring to watch every opponent attempt to play prevent defense for 60 minutes.

That's the result of the system, though, not the ice. You could play offensive hockey on big ice.

 

[Frank the Tank]

That's the result of the system, though, not the ice. You could play offensive hockey on big ice.

Canada did play offensive hockey to win. Their opponents chose to play the defensive shell and played not to lose.

 

[Pouchkine]

What? Everyone more or less plays the trap nowadays.

 

[Fantomas]

Huge, humangous beeg level.

 

[rj]

The quality of the WOMEN are the best of the best in the sport right now...

Women's hockey has a lot of problems then because based on this Olympic tournament and other recent Olympic tournaments there's only 2 sides worth a damn. The team that took 3rd was comprehensively beaten by the first 2 and required their goalie to stand on her hand to keep the game somewhat close. I put an asterisk by the women's hockey because it's like watching the World Lacrosse Championship or the International Federation of American Football World Junior Cup - the final is always going to be the U.S. vs. Canada because the sport just isn't done at a high enough level outside of North America, and until Quebec secedes from Canada or the U.S. breaks apart into a bunch of countries, the sport will consist of only 2 teams when discussing winners.

, the same can't be said on the men's side they're like C level instead of A or even B. Would they get crushed by every men's team out there? Yeah but they're not men..if people can't understand that then idk what to say. Whichever country wins the gold in men's hockey is automatically getting an asterisk from just about everyone who watches the sport, kind of takes most of the fun out of it.

Think what has happened to global sport is the fans are all a bunch of elitist snobs.

 

[shtorm2005]

Seen alot of talk about the level of play and players in the Olympics and I can understand the dissappointment for the NHL's decision of not letting the NHL players go, however people who can't enjoy this tournament are NHL fans not hockey fans. It is always funny to see how (mostly NA fans) belittle the leagues and guys playing in Europe or even AHL, you guys realize that it's not like the talent level just suddenly drops drastically after those what, 700-800 guys that play in the NHL? Infact the top players in Europe are way more skilled and classically speaking better in hockey than most of the third or fourth liners in the NHL. I'm ofcourse most familiar with the finnish players and I can quite easily make the claim that a team full of NHL grinders the level of, say, Miikka Salomäki, Markus Hännikäinen or Iiro Pakarinen would get completely butchered by good teams in European leagues, let alone Olympic teams. This is something alot of you guys fail to grasp on. These guys in Europe play professionally, train professionally and earn good money doing so. Some act like the European leagues are the level of NA beer leagues, while the truth is 99% of even the guys that have played minor junior hockey would've never had a chance to play professionally in the European top leagues, no matter how hard they tried. These guys are really good and talented. Some of you guys could use the IIHF World Championships as an eye opener. These guys playing in the European pro leagues compete neck to neck with NHL guys year after year and while you can disrespect the players and their will to win every game by saying that the players from Canada and USA don't care for the WHC, I can assure you the European players do care, yet the KHL, SHL, finnish league players etc. compete just as hard and play just as well and sometimes even better than their NHL counterparts.

And just to clarify, the NHL is obviously the best league in the world (as they have most money to spend) but the European guys and NA players playing in the Olympics are pro players and by calling them scrubs or beer leaguers is insulting and ignorant and only goes to show that you know very little of the game outside the NHL.

I agree. Many European players could play in NHL, its just between 2 similar talent players NHL team will prefer to draft local guy instead for obvious reasons.

 

[Faterson]

Hockey is too much of a niche sport for that to ever happen.

Many things that were supposed never to happen eventually happened. Like the collapse of the Communist regime, or my local hockey team playing in the world's second-best hockey league.

I don't see why a world-wide hockey league with an American and a European/Eurasian conference couldn't become reality one day, decades from now. Teams go on road trips as it is, and the distance covered by, for example, my KHL team (western-most in the KHL) when traveling to play games in China or Vladivostok is much longer than if my team went on a road trip to the American East Coast (probably also longer than American West Coast).

Logistically, there are no objections. Business-wise, there may be – for now. That's why I said it's likely to take decades to create a world-wide hockey league. You can't possibly pretend to know, today, what the world will be like in 30 or 40 years from now, right? Will the US still be the world's no. 1 financial super-power, or will that perhaps be China by then?

I mean, no one would have guessed, in 1988, only 30 years ago, the reality of the world we're living in today. So, assessing the feasibility of a world-wide hockey league from today's standpoint is no more than guesswork. It's OK to be pessimistic in that regard, but I prefer to be optimistic.

By the way, hockey being a "niche sport" (a debatable assertion) would, to me, speak in favor of creating one strong world-wide hockey league rather than several weaker ones dispersed around the globe. In unity is power, as they say – and a global hockey league might help make hockey more popular around the world.

 

[CH]

I would argue that although many of these Olympians could play a minor role on an NHL club in place of some other roughly equivalent role player, there are only three players who based on their play in the Olympics could make a significant NHL impact right now. They are Ilya Kovalchuk, Vasily Koshechkin and Eeli Tolvanen. We will likely see Tolvanen this season. Good chance we see Kovalchuk next season. Koshechkin we may never see in the NHL.