Olympics: Wouldn't it be cool to see other countries play in Sochi?

[Habsfunk]

He's definitely not celebrating..

If you watch it in slo-mo, you can see the moment he goes from celebrating to dread at what he's done. Check it out:

 

[Boreal01]

Would love to see South Korea when they host it in 2018. Italy and Germany returning would also be nice.

 

[Kale Makar]

Guys, believe it or not, but Great Britain has won the Gold medal at the Olympics.

 

[Boreal01]

Guys, believe it or not, but Great Britain has won the Gold medal at the Olympics.

Yup, 1936 which left Canada with silver. The British roster had a lot of Canadians or guys with Canadian backgrounds.

 

[Siamese Dream]

Yup, 1936 which left Canada with silver. The British roster had a lot of Canadians or guys with Canadian backgrounds.

Nearly all of them were born in Great Britain, grew up in Canada, and moved back to Great Britain

 

[Boreal01]

Would love to see Belarus back in, think they were gone in 2006 after their big win over Sweden in 2002.

 

[Qward]

Japan kicked Canada's butt in Sledge hockey last Olympics.

 

[Jesus Vitale]

we can only hope South Korea REALLY wants to participate in 2018, so they pump tons of cash into the developmental system and whatnot. Japan gets jealous(I assume they're international rivals) and does the same. i seriously doubt they displace any of the top 10 teams, but hey if they become at least somewhat competitive, that'd be great.

Don't think there's much hope for China. even in comparison to Japan and SK they're hopelessly bad. Their team in the AIHL is god awful.

 

[Hubie]

The UK didn't do so badly in qualification for Sochi. They managed to advance to the final stage where they did lose all their games (Latvia, Kazakhstan, France) but not by ugly scores.

 

[Boreal01]

Hoping to see Germany, South Korea and Italy/France as the three qualification teams in 2018.

 

[CHGoalie27]

I don't think it would be fair to see mens ice hockey as double digit lopsided as women's hockey (US/CAN vs ___)

 

[RandV]

Yeah I love hockey but I'm also kind of envious of the real World Cup, or at the very least old time international best on best. The current day Olympic tournaments are great, but it's basically NHL'er vs NHL'er divided into teams based on country boarders. I can only imagine it would be a much more exciting if it was best on best quality but you've never heard of the guys on the other team and the players have never or at least rarely faced each other.

 

[OttawaRoughRiderFan*]

No, it would not.

 

[4EDM14OIL93]

They had a player that scored own goal and started celebrating it before realising it was own goal.

Yeah he didn't celebrate..

 

[EbencoyE]

South Korea does not need to qualify in 2018, they are hosts.

Unless they choose to qualify based on performance like Canada/Russia. But I kind of doubt that, considering they wouldn't be nearly as likely to qualify.

that said, I think last year's qualification tournament was one of the best I can remember which shows that teams, at least outside of the big 7 (8?) are becoming more competitive with each other. Slovenia, Denmark, and Belarus all had a shot at winning their group. Ukraine wasn't bad though they were definitely the odd team out. Same for Latvia, Kazakhstan, and France, with Great Britain not being that bad either. Germany, Austria, and Italy all could have easily won their group though the Netherlands were definitely out of their league.

The qualification tournament definitely lends credence to the idea of expanding the Olympics to 16 teams.

 

[Erikfromfin]

Yeah he didn't celebrate..

Yea he did. If u only now found about the incident it hit all the news here in continental europe and everyone remembers that goal the japanese guy that scored own goal and celebrated. The video is not HD modern standard but if was u could see from his face etc that yes he did celebrate it for the 0,5 seconds before collpasing in horrible realization what he did. I know you North Americans dont follow Ice hockey world championships but you should.

 

[BigT2002]

Love watching the underdogs play. The games are not nearly as fast paced as the Tier 1 nations, but you never know when one may sneak a win in.

 

[Hubie]

South Korea wouldn't have much of a chance to qualify for 2018 if they didn't get in as hosts. That said they have made great progress in recent years. They are now around 20th-25th in the world whereas they used to be around 30th or even lower.

 

[Pi]

It's not that easy to just pick up a sport and become good at it as a nation.

Cricket is a global sport but only 8 countries are really good at it...rest are just there to make up the numbers in World Cups similar to the FIFA WC.

 

[Eagle Eye Cherry]

Some of the comments about World Cup soccer make me envious of soccer fans where their World Cup gets so many good teams and in fact, lots of good teams don't even qualify for the World Cup itself.

I think soccer is the only sport in the world where their World Cup has so many good teams and always sees a different winner each World Cup. Like every World Cup of soccer, you're always gonna see different teams without fail. Which is something I would like to see in hockey.

 

[Namejs]

What about Estonia? Latvia in south, Finland in north, Russia in east and Sweden in west. Circled by good hockey countries.

They actually have a hockey programme. They were trying to create a team that would play in Mestis (the Finnish 2nd division), but failed to get financial backing from the government/sponsors, as far as I know.

Their best team used to play in the Latvian league a while back.

Relative to their population, they actually have a considerable amount of hockey players in the country.

But unfortunately for the sport, in hockey a lot comes down to money. Building ice rinks, creating decent teams, etc. It all costs a lot of money. And you need to invest millions if there are no major hockey traditions in the country and a widespread interest in hockey.

Also - Estonia is even tinier than Latvia. So their chances of ever becoming a top 16 nation in hockey are quite slim. It takes a lot more than you might imagine to actually be decent at hockey.

Now South Korea is a different story. They're actually taking it seriously. Their national team is improving and they might even settle in Div1A, which is a huge achievement. They're still miles behind Austria or Kazakhstan or even Italy, but they're making huge strides. If they keep investing in hockey after 2018 (which isn't likely at all), they could actually try to qualify for the 2022-2026 Olympics.

 

[Namejs]

Some of the comments about World Cup soccer make me envious of soccer fans where their World Cup gets so many good teams and in fact, lots of good teams don't even qualify for the World Cup itself.

I think soccer is the only sport in the world where their World Cup has so many good teams and always sees a different winner each World Cup. Like every World Cup of soccer, you're always gonna see different teams without fail. Which is something I would like to see in hockey.

That is never going to happen.

Ice Hockey is a regional sport. It is popular only in the Northern Hemisphere and only in places where it gets below freezing every year. There's also another major variable - economic development. Poor countries can't afford playing ice hockey.

So there's definitely potential for the sport to grow, but not globally. East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Northern China), Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Northwestern Europe are the only places where hockey can expand to.

Central Asian economies are booming. They've got huge natural gas/oil reserves over there. So ice hockey is definitely going to grow there. Not only in Kazakhstan, but also in Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. Only time will tell how good they're going to become, but in the long-term - they can become decent hockey countries.

East Asia is pretty wealthy already. They've got people, they've got resources, but it's more of a question of increasing the popularity of the sport there.

As for Europe - football, basketball, handball and other sports have very rich traditions over here. And it's just going to be nearly impossible to compete with all these other sports. It's like someone thinking about increasing the popularity of football/soccer in Canada on a football forum somewhere.

As for Denmark, the Netherlands and other countries in Western Europe (UK, etc.) - they're actually dominated by oceanic climate. There's no consistent snow cover in those countries during winter.

 

[bigtim1988]

Would love to see Belarus back in, think they were gone in 2006 after their big win over Sweden in 2002.

ill never forget that soft game winning goal that tommy salo let in. it was something i saw 1 million times as an islander fan, and i couldnt believe my eyes when it happened. didnt Belarus win bronze that year??

 

[FinRuutu]

Played in Bronze medal game but lost 7-2 to Russia.

 

[Xokkeu]

Some of the comments about World Cup soccer make me envious of soccer fans where their World Cup gets so many good teams and in fact, lots of good teams don't even qualify for the World Cup itself.

I think soccer is the only sport in the world where their World Cup has so many good teams and always sees a different winner each World Cup. Like every World Cup of soccer, you're always gonna see different teams without fail. Which is something I would like to see in hockey.

That's because the rules are simple, it's cheap to play and is not weather dependent.


Oh and Britain was a lot better at spreading imperialism than Canada.