The team is mostly in the 16 -17 year age range and winning builds culture
Should be even better with a step up in competition
If you don’t see that your on Hopium as you called it
My hopium is the fact that we have played 3 games against Croatia at the U20 level and the aggregate score of those is 22-3 in our favor. And we aren't even the best team in the competition. Somehow despite following hockey for years you don't seem to understand how little winning the lower level division means when it comes to the step up. The gaps between countries are huge, relegation back to where you came from being far and away the most common outcome (which to be fair I'm sure you do know). You can speak about trivial intangibles like "winning culture" giving an edge when it comes to roughly equal peers, not when your team is completely outclassed 2 steps below the required level to win the competition.
The current political situation makes the whole thing slightly different, surely Croatia should feel fairly safe about avoiding relegation. 4th place would be tough but possible. 3rd place would be a dream. 2nd place a miracle. Talking about winning - just silly.
With all due respect, you guys didn't even exactly dominate the D2B. Having a very talented 16 yo kid is not going to be very impressive facing a roster full of EIHL regulars.
Joke aside, Iceland left very good impression on me, yes they were last, but they beat Serbia, they led 3:1 against Netherlands, and held 3:3 against us with 10 minutes before the end. With few lucky bounces going their way they could have easily sneak into 2nd place.
Judging from the number of U20s representing their men's NT currently, this was one of their best generations ever as well. Kari Arnarsson, for example, is one of the best players of their local league already scoring over 2 PPG there. Having said that, him scoring 0 points in this competition shows just exactly how little it means.
Viggo Hlynsson who just turned 18 and was their leading scorer has a reasonable chance to become a professional someday, like at the HockeyEttan level. Or at least be a god of an Icelandic league.