Are the World Juniors highlighting the growing weakness in International hockey?

[glovesave_35]

If Russia is even on par with the USA, then they overachieve, seeing has they don't have nearly as many players to chose from.

As for the notion that Russia does not buy into the "team concept", it's utter cräp. They had a great team effort in 08 coming from behind to beat Canada, but i guess you didn't watch then. You in NA are always going to say that anyway. Any Russian defeat somehow "proves" all your prejudice while their wins are down to "pure individual skillzz/talent!!11!". *

That's the kind of BS you expect in NA media. Teams are always going to be second guessed, especially when they fail, but if you're able to leave your anti-russian bias behind you will realise that they did in fact ice the best possible team.

Not big on civil, reasoned debate are you? I have a lot of respect for Russia and have no zealous anti-Russian bias, hockey or otherwise, I assure you. However, that doesn't preclude me from making observations.

Re: Team Concept, perhaps I worded that part poorly. Try to stay with me here as this issue, like most in life, is not dualistic but dynamic. My impression of Team USA's performance at the 2010 Olympics is that they "over-achieved" and they did so due less to pure skill than to playing as a cohesive group. In this respect, USA and Finland have many similarities; everybody seems to "buy in". This also happens with teams like Switzerland and Germany when they're at their best.

In no uncertain terms, what follows is my opinion and I make no proclamation that it is the truth, only the truth as I see it. Russia failed in Vancouver. The roster they took had some question marks, yes. But even so they should have fared better than they did. The Russians themselves would be the first to say that they should have performed better. They were ridiculed at home after their (objectively and from their POV) failure. So, was it not enough talent? Again, there were some question marks about their roster, especially since the ice surface was NHL size, yet to say they didn't have enough talent to at least medal is ridiculous. The question then becomes one of having or not having the "right mix" of players, perhaps at the expense of leaving a talented player or two off the squad in favor of a player who fits a less glamorous role. Whether it was the roster itself, coaching, or all-world players not performing up to a standard which they set for themselve, it all comes back to team. I'm not saying the players didn't care. I'm not saying they didn't buy into the concept of playing for each other. What I'm saying is that to me, they seemed to be constructed of ill-fitting parts. Read into that what you will.

The North American media doesn't have much to do with what I was talking about. What I was referring to were translated Russian media as well as statements made by Sergei Zubov about how they approached him about "maybe" playing for the team or being a substitute.

I find your position a strange one to be honest. If you're here to refute the notion that Russia failed in their pursuits in Vancouver then I think that would put you in the minority. You clearly have plenty of respect for Russian hockey, yet you claim they should only expect to be marginally better than the USA or Czech Republic. This stance is incongruous at best.

* If you're referring to the World Championships I will reiterate my earlier statement; I'm not too concerned with what happens in a lesser tournament when most of the best players in the world are playing for their club teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

 

[jekoh]

Re: Team Concept, perhaps I worded that part poorly. Try to stay with me here as this issue, like most in life, is not dualistic but dynamic. My impression of Team USA's performance at the 2010 Olympics is that they "over-achieved" and they did so due less to pure skill than to playing as a cohesive group. In this respect, USA and Finland have many similarities; everybody seems to "buy in". This also happens with teams like Switzerland and Germany when they're at their best.

Funny you don't mention Slovakia. They certainly overachieved a lot more than the 4 countries you mention. In fact outside the USA none of the other three really overachieved at all in Vancouver. Remember how many people were questioning whether there was a big-7 anymore, whether Slovakia was any better than SWI or GER?

You also don't mention Belarus, I would argue when they're at their best they overachieve more than Germany or Switzerland. You wouldn't happen to have something against Eastern European teams, would you?

In no uncertain terms, what follows is my opinion and I make no proclamation that it is the truth, only the truth as I see it. Russia failed in Vancouver.

Your original post referred to Russia as "perennial underachievers", you now narrow it to "Vancouver underachievers", which I certainly agreed with in my previous post.

What I don't agree with is the notion that Russians did not "buy into" the team concept. Just because they collectively failed does not mean they did not "buy in". Similarily if a team fails a generating enough offense, that does not mean they don't "buy into" offense. How easy would life be if you just had to "buy into" something to make it happen?

I also don't recall anyone saying Canada or the USA did not buy into the team concept in Turin, yet their collective failure was even more spectacular than Russia's in Vancouver. And Turin wasn't a one-off either as NA also failed in Nagano. That's the prejudice I'm talking about: NA teams seem to always have the benefit of the doubt while Russia's one defeat is regarded as proof of something intrinsecally wrong on their part (something they are accused of anyway).

I'm not saying they didn't buy into the concept of playing for each other.

Pardon me if I don't see the difference between that and "not buying into the team concept".

What I'm saying is that to me, they seemed to be constructed of ill-fitting parts. Read into that what you will.

The roster was build very similar to the previous two world championships, a roster that certainly did work as a team. The coached might have overrated that roster and the competition at the world championships as a whole, but the idea of it being made of "ill fitting parts" is ridiculous. This is the kind of things you might have noticed if you followed the world championships.

The North American media doesn't have much to do with what I was talking about. What I was referring to were translated Russian media as well as statements made by Sergei Zubov about how they approached him about "maybe" playing for the team or being a substitute.

And what's wrong with that? If he does not like the idea of "maybe playing" then you don't want him in the team. Especially when he has Zubov's terrible track record with the national team.

I find your position a strange one to be honest. If you're here to refute the notion that Russia failed in their pursuits in Vancouver

You obviously can't read as I specifically said in my previous post that they did fail.

You clearly have plenty of respect for Russian hockey, yet you claim they should only expect to be marginally better than the USA or Czech Republic. This stance is incongruous at best.

On the long run, which was the context before you narrowed it to 2010 specifically, there's little reason for Russia to expect be better than the USA as they don't have nearly as many players to choose from. They have more of less the same number of players to choose from as the Czechs do, so again, little reason to expect to do a lot better. I'm not sure what's incongruous about expecting a country with a bigger hockey population to be about almost as good as a country with fewer players. Unless of course the smaller country is vastly superior at developing players, but reading the thread it does not sound like Russia or Czechia are getting a lot of credit for that either, rather to the contrary.

* If you're referring to the World Championships I will reiterate my earlier statement; I'm not too concerned with what happens in a lesser tournament when most of the best players in the world are playing for their club teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Most of the best players were certainly not playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs at that point. Both Russia and Team Canada were vastly superior to the Stanley cup finalists.

 

[joe89]

Junior hockey is nothing like Men's hockey. Canada, USA and to a smaller extent(right now) Sweden have a big talent pool to choose from. The more well-developed players you have to choose from the better the team you will have. Talent pools often go in cycles, at least for the European countries because of less players in total, which affects the Countries in this particular tournament a whole lot more. Also, it's not like the other teams are chanceless by any stretch of imagination, even if the big rising stars are not there at the moment.

The distinct difference here is that Men's hockey has no age frame or limits, and roughly over a 20 year period of players which you have to choose from for your National team, which evens things out. The Olympics were far from lopsided, Slovakia beat Sweden and got the best out of Canada and Finland. Switzerland took Canada to a shootout. In the Men's World Champs, Denmark beat Slovakia, Germany won against USA(NHL player team), USA even played the relegation round, etc.

Not to mention the ice rink size that needs to be taken into account. We have had four pro(NHL players) Olympic tournaments in hockey now, guess what? Two finals on big ice have been all-Euro, and the two on small ice have been all-NA. You can't dismiss that the WJC is being played on small ice more often than not, and it should because of popularity, favours Canada and USA. In the World Champs that is often played on big ice and all teams are weakened about as much as the other, Countries seem to take turns in winning.

Hockey does not have growing weaknesses, it's getting better and more even by the day, World juniors is indicative on how many stars you are producing year in and year out but in the big picture those difference fade away since hockey is played 5on5 and not 50Kon50K.

 

[SerbianHabs]

That's the kind of BS you expect in NA media. Teams are always going to be second guessed, especially when they fail, but if you're able to leave your anti-russian bias behind you will realise that they did in fact ice the best possible team.

Agreed. Also if i recall correctly Russia had 8 players from the Russian Super League at the 2006 Olympics. Beating Gold Medal winners Sweden 5-0, USA and shutting out Canada in the Quarter Finals. I enjoyed that team on the big ice..

The 2010 Vancouver team had 9 players from the KHL(?) so really you can not put blame on Russia selecting KHL players. Zubov can go get ****ed he always brought trouble to the national team. The only disappointment was Frolov not in the team. I think the Russian team would have done a lot better if it was on international ice which is where i felt Russia has played its best Olympic hockey(98 & 06, although they did better in 02 than 06). We will see what happens in Sochi. I'm not to worried

In terms of future of Russian hockey everything is on the up with the rapid improvement of living standards in the 00's. Just give it some time, the current crop of juniors are not our finest but they were brought up in a horrible period in Russian history. I think a few people are jumping quickly claiming Russian hockey is on the down fall. In terms of number of Juniors playing hockey people need to remember Russia overall is strong in a vast range of Sports specifically Olympic which possibly causes a % of kids not playing hockey. Russia will still produce quality players usually forwards. The old Soviet System was based off Quality over Quantity.

 

[Nordic*]

You could argue that the number of juniors not allowed to play in the JWC due to being in the NHL, is a better indicator regarding who has the best juniors, than winning the JWC.

Canada has like seven guys in the NHL. They're fine.

 

[cheerupmurray]

I think Finland is starting to get on the right track again after a long stretch of not developing talents that make any real impact in NHL (besides from the goalies ofc). I firmly believe that this new generation with Granlund, Pulkkinen, Vatanen, Armia, etc is going to be great NHL-players. Finland still lacks a bit in depth but things defenitely looks much brighter nowadays.

 

[Nordic*]

I think Finland is starting to get on the right track again after a long stretch of not developing talents that didn´t make any real impact in NHL (besides from the goalies ofc). I firmly believe that this new generation with Granlund, Pulkkinen, Vatanen, Armia, etc is going to be great NHL-players. Finland still lacks a bit in depth but things defenitely looks much brighter nowadays.

That's bad news...

 

[Mike2000z28]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IIHF_World_Ranking

Looking at that, the USA is ranked 6th in the world. So they always will be the underdogs. For me the rankings are garbage, but whatever.

 

[patnyrnyg]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IIHF_World_Ranking

Looking at that, the USA is ranked 6th in the world. So they always will be the underdogs. For me the rankings are garbage, but whatever.

Those are garbage. Way too much emphasis on the World Championships which are taken very seriously by Canada and the US.

 

[roto]

It is said to see but i definitely think international hockey is actually getting weaker rather than stronger.

WJC tournament highlights nothing but the fact that there are only few countries which can seriously compete with each other in ice hockey.

There are 6-7 teams which can compete approximately at same level if there are no age restrictions, but this kind of tournament is almost as pointless as women's WC/olympic tournament. As a Finn it's nice to see young players playing, but I don't care about the outcome of the tournament. They are only kids playing in a tournament of a marginal sport.

I think Finland is 2nd most hockey crazy country in a world, but only hard core ice hockey fans care about the WJC tournament and even fewer about its outcome. Most Finns hardly know that a tournament like that is ongoing. I was just watching sport news from one major TV channel (which also shows WJC matches in pay-TV): ~12 mins of ski jumping and alpine skiing, 2 mins premier league soccer, 20 secs NHL winter classic and 20 secs of coming WJC FIN-RUS game.

WJC really does get hardly any news coverage in Finland even before the first playoff game. I understand why Canadians care about WJC. It's because they're 100% passionate about ice hockey and live of it. Finland may be number two ice hockey country (if popularity is measured), but it's passionate about ice hockey only when WC or olympic tournament is ongoing. During other times ice hockey is just one sport among others. WC tournament of some kids isn't enough to raise eyebrows other than hc fans.

 

[glovesave_35]

I also don't recall anyone saying Canada or the USA did not buy into the team concept in Turin, yet their collective failure was even more spectacular than Russia's in Vancouver. And Turin wasn't a one-off either as NA also failed in Nagano. That's the prejudice I'm talking about: NA teams seem to always have the benefit of the doubt while Russia's one defeat is regarded as proof of something intrinsecally wrong on their part (something they are accused of anyway).

It all comes down to expectations. Canada's failure in 2006 was more spectacular than Russia's this go around, but given USA's expectations going into Turin we'll just have to disagree on their level of failure. They absolutely failed, but they weren't considered a favorite to medal or potentially win gold as Russia was in Vancouver.

Re: Canada team concept. Because of Canada's embarrassment of riches in terms of quality players the North American, and specifically Canadian media, will always point to a wrong combination of players rather than some admittedly subjective idea of buying into the team concept.

Re: USA team concept. The United States wasn't favored to win a medal in Turin, although they were seen as contenders to do so. I do recall there being a fair amount of derision in the North American media regarding team unity and overall team play. Veterans were grumbling; with his public questioning of coaching decisions Modano had people questioning his patriotism and leadership. As an American who paid attention to media coverage of America's failure at that tournament I can assure you it wasn't the picture you painted.

I'm not sure what's incongruous about expecting a country with a bigger hockey population to be about almost as good as a country with fewer players. Unless of course the smaller country is vastly superior at developing players, but reading the thread it does not sound like Russia or Czechia are getting a lot of credit for that either, rather to the contrary.

Please do not project toward me a perceived collective feeling you gleaned from the thread on the whole.

You keep bringing up this "bigger hockey population" argument. To me it's disingenuous. Anybody with a semi-objective viewpoint can look at the world's best players and see that Russia produces a disproportionate number of elite players when compared to the United States.


In the interest of full disclosure are you Russian? You keep implying an Eastern European bias or prejudice on my part which I don't really agree with. If I exhibit one in your opinion I suppose it is of the subconscious variety and a result of my prejudiced North American media.

 

[Slay]

Canada population:
34 million

% Canadian NHL players: ~50%

European Hockey Country (Russia, Sweden, Czech, Slovakia, Finland):
170 million

% Euro NHL Players: 25%

Throw out the larger talent pool argument.

It is not about population it is about involvement of population into sport. If there is lack of sport facilities no amount of population will matter. Canada has over 3000 indoor rinks, Russia - over 300. That amount of rinks in Canada covers bigger territory and attracts bigger amount of talent. And it is not coincidence that on average Canadian players are taller and bigger, it's simply because they have better athletes to choose from.

For me the biggest weakness in International hockey is that MEN World Championship where USA and Canada come to with their D-roster and while Europeans have pretty much their A-lineup (minus nhl, injured, tired). I dont know but it take's the respect away when 2 leading hockey countries wont play one of the main international tournaments every year with good lineup.

Actually Canada usually comes up with pretty good rosters on paper. Always one of the deepest teams in the tournament if not the deepest.

 

[jekoh]

In the interest of full disclosure are you Russian?

I'm not.

You keep implying an Eastern European bias or prejudice on my part which I don't really agree with. If I exhibit one in your opinion I suppose it is of the subconscious variety and a result of my prejudiced North American media.

Yes, probably.

 

[glovesave_35]

....

 

[Blane Youngblood]

I hope your kidding with the drugs comment.

Actually to be honest, the drugs are in the food we eat in North America every day. A lot of the food (i.e. most meats and vegetables) have drugs in them to help them grow faster...this ends up in our bodies.

I am of Asian descent and my relatives born in Asia can't grow sideburns (I know, this is a revelation) but all of my cousins born in North America can.

 

[J17 Vs Proclamation]

WJC tournament highlights nothing but the fact that there are only few countries which can seriously compete with each other in ice hockey.

There are 6-7 teams which can compete approximately at same level if there are no age restrictions, but this kind of tournament is almost as pointless as women's WC/olympic tournament. As a Finn it's nice to see young players playing, but I don't care about the outcome of the tournament. They are only kids playing in a tournament of a marginal sport.

I think Finland is 2nd most hockey crazy country in a world, but only hard core ice hockey fans care about the WJC tournament and even fewer about its outcome. Most Finns hardly know that a tournament like that is ongoing. I was just watching sport news from one major TV channel (which also shows WJC matches in pay-TV): ~12 mins of ski jumping and alpine skiing, 2 mins premier league soccer, 20 secs NHL winter classic and 20 secs of coming WJC FIN-RUS game.

WJC really does get hardly any news coverage in Finland even before the first playoff game. I understand why Canadians care about WJC. It's because they're 100% passionate about ice hockey and live of it. Finland may be number two ice hockey country (if popularity is measured), but it's passionate about ice hockey only when WC or olympic tournament is ongoing. During other times ice hockey is just one sport among others. WC tournament of some kids isn't enough to raise eyebrows other than hc fans.

This tournament absolutely has a point. It is an excellent indication of where Junior programs stand in relation to each other, and which can therefore be projected to an extent to future senior success.

You do realise whether the World Juniors is a popular event means absolutely nothing. It isn't a popular event in Europe to watch or be made news of in the media ; but guess what, that isn't the point of the tournament.

So people who are saying that because the World Juniors aren't popular fan wise therefore it has no meaning are idiots. This tournament matters to the various federations because the quality of the players participating can have a great impact on the quality of the Senior team down the road. The World Juniors are a culmination of the efforts by all involved in the individual federations in developing youth talent. One event is useless in gauging the health of youth hockey in a particular nation because it's sample size is poor and a team can underperform or have excuses. But over 4-5 years it clearly shows the health of youth hockey in each nations.

So saying "they are only kids" ; well these are the kids who are supposedly going to be the eventual men playing for the nations senior teams, playing in the NHL or top European leagues.

Anyway i think what this event has clearly established is that the Czechs and Slovaks are in SERIOUS troubles. They were the least impressive against Norway and both had one goal games against Germany. Slovakia lost to the Swiss and i'd venture to say the Swiss would beat the Czechs a good amount of the time. It's now reached the point where i'd be suprised if either nation didn't enter the relegation round.

I'd be interested to see an analytical study undertaken on how German hockey is progressing i.e number of rinks, registered youth players etc. They are the biggest potential market we have outside of the Elite and because of sheer population/economics have the most pure potential to be an elite nation capable of competing on the Junior level ; but of course this potential is very very far from realized.

 

[jekoh]

this year it seems particular apparent that only two teams can IMO legitimately win ; Canada and the US.

At this current U-20 event, it is clear no Euro team is really capable of winning this event (Outside of maybe Sweden).

Obviously.