WJC: Canada's dominance - Your take!

[Raging Bull]

Don't underestimate having the crowd as their 7th man more often than not in these tournaments.

 

[mobilus]

I'd like to hear some of your reasons behind Canada's dominance in the WJC.

Name a couple of the main reasons, why and how the factor in.

Like a food dish with multiple ingredients, if you remove one ingredient the outcome is not the same. All factors are important to the outcome of Canada's consistent success.

As others have stated, Canada's high participation levels with hockey (as a percentage of population) from a young age is one ingredient. The bigger the player pool, the greater the chances for superior players to emerge. Canada has a good number of arenas per person, and most arenas are municipally owned. The costs for sustaining them are subsidized by the municipalities. As books from the library are free to use, the hourly rate for ice time in Canadian rinks is only 1/3 to 1/4 of their true cost for minor hockey associations. The subsidized ice makes the game more affordable for more players. The acceptance of participation is now such that it's passed from father to son like osmosis.

The day after Marconi invented the radio, someone was trying to figure out how to make money off it. Two days after he invented the radio, they figured out advertising was the path to riches, and decided they just needed content to put on the air around the advertising. Three days after he invented the radio, Foster Hewitt was broadcasting Maple Leaf games from coast to coast in Canada. A bit of an exaggeration, but the start in 1931 of Maple Leaf broadcasts with Hewitt on radio every Saturday night put hockey into the national consciousness. The transition from radio to television in the 1950s coincided with the national transition from outdoor hockey to indoor arenas. A hundred years ago there wasn't much to do in Canada during winters. No TV, no video games, no weekend ski trips. Getting the kids out of the house and out of mom's hair for a few hours meant either a toboggan or a cheap pair of skates for the local river or frozen pond. Foster Hewitt wasn't broadcasting toboggan scores, but he was doing hockey. Kids listening to the radio and hearing the names of players was the beginning of a national emulation. TV broadcasts in the 50s accelerated that. I can't name a single stage actor from the 1930s, but I can name numerous movie stars. Exposure is everything.

The WJC has become exceedingly popular in Canada for reasons beyond just good hockey. As the Soviets were cleaning up in the Olympics and World Championships in the 1950s and 60s, Canada decried that we weren't sending our best players because of professional ineligibility. We finally got our wish with the Summit Series in 1972, but winning in the last 34 seconds of an eight game tournament was hardly sufficient for a battlecry of supremacy. Canada continued to lose in Olympic and WC play through the 70s and 80s. Aside from the sporadic Canada Cup, and '79 Challenge Series, there was nothing on the radar where Canadians could see international hockey played on "equal footing." The WJC itself was also dominated by the Soviets, their winning gold the first seven years of the tournament from 1974-80. Then, another one of those "exposure is everything" moments happened.

The early 1980s saw a change in television within Canada. Cable TV had become available and started to compete with antenna broadcasts, and with cable TV came a vast expansion of programming. With the specialty channels of cable came all-sports stations. Like that early radio of 100 years ago, they needed something to fill the schedule. 24-hour sports channels needed programming, and the WJC fit the bill for inexpensive content. Coinciding with the expanded sports broadcasting, Canada won its first WJC gold medal in 1982. Canada won again in 1985, and lost a great finals game to the Soviets in '86. By this point Canadians realized two things. One, that players they saw one year in the WJC were showing up the next year in the NHL; and two, they were seeing "our best" against "their best" without the Olympic colander of "amateurs only" filtering out our pros. This was hockey on equal footing, the best barometer for Canada to compare its players to those of the godless Russians. (Said with a wink, politics was intertwined with the sport in those days.)

1987 was the Rosetta Stone. The dust up in Piestany, seeing both Canada and the Soviets disqualified put WJC hockey on the front page of Canada's papers for weeks. This, that, we were right to fight, we were a disgrace... and every opinion in between was dissected. This put international hockey into the minds and conversations of almost everyone, a fan of the sport or not. In September that year was the 1987 Canada Cup, about as hypnotizing a tournament as possible. Even with Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Hawerchuk, etc. all in their prime, it still took three games (all 6-5 scores) to decide a winner in the finals between Canada and the Soviets. Any hockey now that involved Canada-Russia was front page sports, pro or junior, without question. Every WJC game was now de rigueur viewing. The intermingling of sports with politics in those days was akin to war propaganda. Winning implied that that country's political system was better/stronger. Canada began to dump more money into hockey than we did our military. The payoff was the '93-97 string of consecutive gold medals. Winning meant bigger TV audiences. Bigger audiences meant more money into hockey. More exposure meant kids dreaming of playing on the WJ team just as they would the NHL. For anything to be realized, it has to be dreamt of first. Expand the pool of dreamers....

Canadian junior players today see the WJC as their Olympics, with the bonus that it comes every year. Hockey Canada treats the WJC as they do the Olympics. The benefit to them is they make a lot of money every year from the tournament. Hockey Canada plows that back into the 12-15 year olds to be sure they have a fresh crop in succeeding years. Media exposure and team success are now the cornerstones to sustaining the system. Canada has had and will have off years where the team doesn't medal. The system has shown itself flexible enough to identify failures and alter the patterns of development to ensure a return to success. The real key however, is that 10-15 year age group of Canadian children who are able to see every game on TV, during a time of year when they're out of school over the Christmas break. Even tournaments held in Europe with non-prime time games are watched in Canada. Those boys dreaming of doing what they see on TV is the Golden Goose. The farmer provides the fence, the feed and the barn, but the Goose is the real wealth. Hockey Canada provides the funding, logistics and exposure, but that next generation of kids with their dreams is what sustains the country's performance.

 

[LoveHateLeafs]

People are right to bring up the size of the talent pool to which Canada has access, but the strength of the CHL as a development tool has to be mentioned (not that I'm implying the CHL is the only way to become a good hockey player). But think about it. People wonder why Jordan Eberle is so great out there, and obviously god-given talent is a big part of it, but the guy has played 236 games over the last three and a half years in the best development league in the world.

Correct me if my numbers below are way off, but if he was a college player, he'd be in his second season of, what? 35-40 games? And the two years before that would have been spent in a less competitive jr A league. If he was European, he might play 35 or so games a year in junior and 55+playoffs in men's league? With hundreds of thousands of registered hockey players plus a grueling junior system that weeds out the unmotivated players and gives the good ones as much experience and ice time as a teenager can handle, world junior domination is the result.

Of course, I don't know that this is a permanent scenario. Recent US teams have given Canada almost as much as it could handle. Hockey has way more room to grow in the US. We're just now starting to see elite prospects coming out of California (Blum, Etem). It may be that as the US player pool grows to equal Canada and their development systems get better, they may become the dominant junior power.

Of course, this probably isn't the best thing for the tournament itself. For all intents and purposes, the WJC list of competitors is Canada + US + whatever European country happens to be at a peak in their development cycle. That makes for a lot of bad hockey. The tournament as a whole would probably be more fun to watch if it was Canada + US + one or two European All-star teams, but I'm sure no one would go for that. As it stands now, I have the utmost respect for the Latvians for skating out on the ice, knowing they would be embarrassed. That took guts, but that still wasn't enough to make me watch the game after the first goal.

 

[Everest]

Like a food dish with multiple ingredients, if you remove one ingredient the outcome is not the same. All factors are important to the outcome of Canada's consistent success.

As others have stated, Canada's high participation levels with hockey (as a percentage of population) from a young age is one ingredient. The bigger the player pool, the greater the chances for superior players to emerge. Canada has a good number of arenas per person, and most arenas are municipally owned. The costs for sustaining them are subsidized by the municipalities. As books from the library are free to use, the hourly rate for ice time in Canadian rinks is only 1/3 to 1/4 of their true cost for minor hockey associations. The subsidized ice makes the game more affordable for more players. The acceptance of participation is now such that it's passed from father to son like osmosis.

The day after Marconi invented the radio, someone was trying to figure out how to make money off it. Two days after he invented the radio, they figured out advertising was the path to riches, and decided they just needed content to put on the air around the advertising. Three days after he invented the radio, Foster Hewitt was broadcasting Maple Leaf games from coast to coast in Canada. A bit of an exaggeration, but the start in 1931 of Maple Leaf broadcasts with Hewitt on radio every Saturday night put hockey into the national consciousness. The transition from radio to television in the 1950s coincided with the national transition from outdoor hockey to indoor arenas. A hundred years ago there wasn't much to do in Canada during winters. No TV, no video games, no weekend ski trips. Getting the kids out of the house and out of mom's hair for a few hours meant either a toboggan or a cheap pair of skates for the local river or frozen pond. Foster Hewitt wasn't broadcasting toboggan scores, but he was doing hockey. Kids listening to the radio and hearing the names of players was the beginning of a national emulation. TV broadcasts in the 50s accelerated that. I can't name a single stage actor from the 1930s, but I can name numerous movie stars. Exposure is everything.

The WJC has become exceedingly popular in Canada for reasons beyond just good hockey. As the Soviets were cleaning up in the Olympics and World Championships in the 1950s and 60s, Canada decried that we weren't sending our best players because of professional ineligibility. We finally got our wish with the Summit Series in 1972, but winning in the last 34 seconds of an eight game tournament was hardly sufficient for a battlecry of supremacy. Canada continued to lose in Olympic and WC play through the 70s and 80s. Aside from the sporadic Canada Cup, and '79 Challenge Series, there was nothing on the radar where Canadians could see international hockey played on "equal footing." The WJC itself was also dominated by the Soviets, their winning gold the first seven years of the tournament from 1974-80. Then, another one of those "exposure is everything" moments happened.

The early 1980s saw a change in television within Canada. Cable TV had become available and started to compete with antenna broadcasts, and with cable TV came a vast expansion of programming. With the specialty channels of cable came all-sports stations. Like that early radio of 100 years ago, they needed something to fill the schedule. 24-hour sports channels needed programming, and the WJC fit the bill for inexpensive content. Coinciding with the expanded sports broadcasting, Canada won its first WJC gold medal in 1982. Canada won again in 1985, and lost a great finals game to the Soviets in '86. By this point Canadians realized two things. One, that players they saw one year in the WJC were showing up the next year in the NHL; and two, they were seeing "our best" against "their best" without the Olympic colander of "amateurs only" filtering out our pros. This was hockey on equal footing, the best barometer for Canada to compare its players to those of the godless Russians. (Said with a wink, politics was intertwined with the sport in those days.)

1987 was the Rosetta Stone. The dust up in Piestany, seeing both Canada and the Soviets disqualified put WJC hockey on the front page of Canada's papers for weeks. This, that, we were right to fight, we were a disgrace... and every opinion in between was dissected. This put international hockey into the minds and conversations of almost everyone, a fan of the sport or not. In September that year was the 1987 Canada Cup, about as hypnotizing a tournament as possible. Even with Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Hawerchuk, etc. all in their prime, it still took three games (all 6-5 scores) to decide a winner in the finals between Canada and the Soviets. Any hockey now that involved Canada-Russia was front page sports, pro or junior, without question. Every WJC game was now de rigueur viewing. The intermingling of sports with politics in those days was akin to war propaganda. Winning implied that that country's political system was better/stronger. Canada began to dump more money into hockey than we did our military. The payoff was the '93-97 string of consecutive gold medals. Winning meant bigger TV audiences. Bigger audiences meant more money into hockey. More exposure meant kids dreaming of playing on the WJ team just as they would the NHL. For anything to be realized, it has to be dreamt of first. Expand the pool of dreamers....

Canadian junior players today see the WJC as their Olympics, with the bonus that it comes every year. Hockey Canada treats the WJC as they do the Olympics. The benefit to them is they make a lot of money every year from the tournament. Hockey Canada plows that back into the 12-15 year olds to be sure they have a fresh crop in succeeding years. Media exposure and team success are now the cornerstones to sustaining the system. Canada has had and will have off years where the team doesn't medal. The system has shown itself flexible enough to identify failures and alter the patterns of development to ensure a return to success. The real key however, is that 10-15 year age group of Canadian children who are able to see every game on TV, during a time of year when they're out of school over the Christmas break. Even tournaments held in Europe with non-prime time games are watched in Canada. Those boys dreaming of doing what they see on TV is the Golden Goose. The farmer provides the fence, the feed and the barn, but the Goose is the real wealth. Hockey Canada provides the funding, logistics and exposure, but that next generation of kids with their dreams is what sustains the country's performance.

Nice.

 

[Riddarn]

Apart from the obvious Canadian number superiority and the much improved overall fundementals and conditioning of junior players these days, I think big rinks are a thing that hold europe back. Players who grow up on them don't drive to the net (not instinctively anyway), there is almost no physical play and it's more effective to be passive than to forcheck. This of course makes it hard to play against teams that drive to the net, are good at forchecking and playing physical.

 

[Section337]

Another thing is that a greater percentage of the Canadian players (US likely close) are the stars on their club team. The guys that are expected to make things happen when things are going against you, when you need to change the momentum. More momentum changers gives you a better chance to get those bounces Canada has often shown they need.

 

[shveik]

My thinking is that the domination comes from the focus of Canadian development system on winning games from the very young age, as soon as the players hit CHL (16-17 yo). I think most of the other countries still focus on developing the players skills, and much less on the "little things". So you literally end up with Canada being men amongst boys when looking at the young players. The other countries do catch up as the players get older, so while Canada is extremely strong, it's nowhere near as dominant at the senior level.

 

[LoveHateLeafs]

Canada has a good number of arenas per person

An excellent overall post, and a particularly good point. As it turns out, Canada is actually the best in this regard. Here are the numbers for the seven main hockey playing countries, using IIHF data from 2006:

Country | Registered Hockey Players per Indoor Rink
Canada | 184
Sweden | 213
Slovakia | 230
US | 239
Finland | 276
Russia | 544
Czech Republic | 573

The acceptance of participation is now such that it's passed from father to son like osmosis.

I'd say it’s more than just parent to child. Although I'm sure that most NHL prospects had fathers who played hockey, I think the effect is more culture to child/parent. Let's face it, when it comes to whether a kid plays hockey, the parent is arguably the more important part of the equation. To use an example from my years as the worst hockey player on my house league team (or on a good year, the second worst)

Neither of my parents had any interest in hockey until I came along. My mother grew up in Canada, but wasn't part of a hockey family, while my father grew up in Ireland and immigrated as an adult. So what did they do when I told them I really really wanted to play hockey? Knowing full well that I would never in a million years develop into a Gilmour or a Fedorov (my favourite players at the time), my Dad sat for twelve hours in line at the local arena and managed to secure the last available spot for the local house league.

Having paid the expensive registration fees, my parents then took me to the local hockey store, and spent even more money on equipment that even though it was used, we probably couldn't really afford. As far as parental supports goes, that should be all that was required. Instead, they spent the next few years carting me off to the arena after long work days, spending hours in cold rinks watching me in games where I barely touched the puck, and getting up on Sunday mornings for practices that frequently started at 6:00 am. All this for a kid who absolutely, positively sucked at the game.

I’m eternally grateful for that, but the fact is, my parents were hardly alone in what they did. My point is, the Canadian obsession with hockey causes parents, even ones who have absolutely no personal connection with the game other than the joy it gives their kids, to take actions that would otherwise be considered bizarre in almost every other country, and more importantly, it causes these bizarre actions to become normal. In part, my parents did these things because they knew that the frozen, coffee-guzzling people they sat next to in the bleachers weren’t freaks of nature. They worked and lived next to people who did the exact same thing. So yeah, Canadian culture can cause normally sane people who are completely unversed in hockey to spend inordinate amounts of time and money so that their kid can play the most expensive and dangerous organized sport there is.

 

[EhOCanadaGo*]

Not an unpopular opinion, just a stupid one. Any player that is at that level is pretty close to being an NHL player. They do not get to that level with out passion for the game.

If you actually disagree, then you're the one with the "stupid opinion"... As always said, Canadians call hockey our sport for a reason. By the age of 5 you have a favorite hockey team, and by the age of 10 you know all the teams and all the players on your own team. Hockey is our life here. It's a culture that Americans will never have simply because it's not imbedded in your society as it is here.

Canadians want to play hockey... They want the stanley cup... They dream it every day of their lives... Yes, some Americans are the same, but again, it's not on the same level until they hit a certain age.

It's hard to explain it, but unless you were born in Canada, and know how it is here, you would never understand. When your mom watches hockey, knows alot of the players, and has a favorite team, you know you're Canadian.

There's alot of amazing American talent, but the culture isn't the same. That's why I think Canada dominates year after year. Some years, yes, we lose. But the majority is, the guys playing are actually playing for the pride of it. Americans play it so they can get noticed and get into the NHL one day.

 

[Big Phil]

Not an unpopular opinion, just a stupid one. Any player that is at that level is pretty close to being an NHL player. They do not get to that level with out passion for the game.

I'd hardly say he had a stupid opinion. Canada has long been a country that didn't quit until the whistle blew even though it looked like curtains for them. Paul Henderson, Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, John Tonelli, Steve Larmer, John Slaney, Boyd Devereaux, Vincent Lecavalier, Jordan Eberle, Carey Price, Jonathan Toews are perfect examples of that. Yes all players have to have passion to an extent but like any other part of the game there are players that thrive in certain areas better than others. Canadians do grow up with hockey even more than other hockey-loving nations. It's bred in the Canadian attitude a little bit more.

Another word for passion is heart. An example? Jordan Eberle is rapidly becoming a player that steps it up when his team needs him the most

 

[Big Phil]

Now to be fair, while I stated my reasons above, I think the last three years we haven't dominated. If every year is like the 2005 and 206 WJC then yes we certainly thrash the opposition. But when push comes to shove the last three years we have had three straight close calls in either the semis or the finals where we needed overtime or a shootout. Individually the last three years there hasn't been domination. This year? Who knows, we'll see. The American game was a close call - not dominance. But if we thrash the opposition in the semis and the finals then you can probably start using the word "dominance" again. I wouldn't count on a "thrashing" though

 

[Zam Boni]

Ok, thanks everyone, a lot of good answers/views!


Picking out single games - the semi-final last year, USA the other nigth - one can always question wheter Canada are dominating or not.
But given Canada has won WJC five years in a row, I believe it is fairly accurate.

 

[Blue Liner]

Americans play it so they can get noticed and get into the NHL one day.

I agreed with your entire post save for this. I think it's a blanket statement and a false one. There are no doubt individuals who fall under this category but I'd say they're in the extreme minority. American kids want to play to win for their country and compete and ascert USA Hockey's place in the world stage. They don't want to play just for the sake of their own personal future professional careers.

 

[Eichel 9]

If you actually disagree, then you're the one with the "stupid opinion"... As always said, Canadians call hockey our sport for a reason. By the age of 5 you have a favorite hockey team, and by the age of 10 you know all the teams and all the players on your own team. Hockey is our life here. It's a culture that Americans will never have simply because it's not imbedded in your society as it is here.

Canadians want to play hockey... They want the stanley cup... They dream it every day of their lives... Yes, some Americans are the same, but again, it's not on the same level until they hit a certain age.

It's hard to explain it, but unless you were born in Canada, and know how it is here, you would never understand. When your mom watches hockey, knows alot of the players, and has a favorite team, you know you're Canadian.

There's alot of amazing American talent, but the culture isn't the same. That's why I think Canada dominates year after year. Some years, yes, we lose. But the majority is, the guys playing are actually playing for the pride of it. Americans play it so they can get noticed and get into the NHL one day.

What a load of bull..

It's pretty simple why they are the best, they just have the best program and it's the most popular sport in Canada while it's like the 5th in the US

The Canadian team isn't better because of "pride", they just have more skilled players.

 

[ezhik drochit]

Hayley Wickenheiser said it best when asked
"What's the most important muscle in hockey?"

she replied:

"Your heart. Of course. Your heart in every way. You see a lot of less-talented players have success for that reason. It's a game, right? Sometimes we get so focused on training and X's and O's that we forget to just play. That's where playing with your heart comes in."

the Canadian kids know how to play with heart.

 

[Bank Shot]

My thinking is that the domination comes from the focus of Canadian development system on winning games from the very young age, as soon as the players hit CHL (16-17 yo). I think most of the other countries still focus on developing the players skills, and much less on the "little things". So you literally end up with Canada being men amongst boys when looking at the young players. The other countries do catch up as the players get older, so while Canada is extremely strong, it's nowhere near as dominant at the senior level.

Well the depth is certainly still there for Canada at the senior level. The biggest reason that Canada isn't as dominant is probably because of the wide age range of the players involved in senior tournaments.

Canada might have 50 world class players, but a team only needs 20 and all of the top hockey nations can fill the key roles on those teams with top level talent. Then in short international tournaments it is just a matter of who gets hot/lucky at the right time.

 

[robdicks]

If you actually disagree, then you're the one with the "stupid opinion"... As always said, Canadians call hockey our sport for a reason. By the age of 5 you have a favorite hockey team, and by the age of 10 you know all the teams and all the players on your own team. Hockey is our life here. It's a culture that Americans will never have simply because it's not imbedded in your society as it is here.

Canadians want to play hockey... They want the stanley cup... They dream it every day of their lives... Yes, some Americans are the same, but again, it's not on the same level until they hit a certain age.

It's hard to explain it, but unless you were born in Canada, and know how it is here, you would never understand. When your mom watches hockey, knows alot of the players, and has a favorite team, you know you're Canadian.

There's alot of amazing American talent, but the culture isn't the same. That's why I think Canada dominates year after year. Some years, yes, we lose. But the majority is, the guys playing are actually playing for the pride of it. Americans play it so they can get noticed and get into the NHL one day.

well although the majority of americans will dream of baseball and football... and the majority of europeans will dream of soccer...

the european hockey players dream of winning gold, the american hockey players dream of winning the cup... every one at those levels are competitive and don't like to lose... the simple fact is Canada is more talented than those countries. Plain and simple. Its not that we "want it more" or that we have some inner canadian gene that makes us care more... we just are better.. and thats it...

alot of canadians like to paint that never give up never surrender "war" type picture, because it is feel good and a good story overall. But even in the USA game where the Canadians played like crap, they were still RIGHT THERE... bottom line is the only way another country beats our juniors is if we play terrible and they play perfect... and that doesn't happen very often

 

[Celtic Note]

Far more youth grow up playing the sport in Canada over any other country. In the US, most kids are exposed to and play three or more sports, but overall, hockey would probably be in fourth to fifth place or less amongst U.S. youth behind baseball, basketball, football, and soccer (give or take). If hockey were bigger in the U.S., given the substantial population difference between the two, it would be a different story; but in Canada, hockey is the number one sport far above all others. More people playing means a greater chance of acquiring more top end talent.

This about says it..

 

[Nordic*]

Don't underestimate having the refs as their 7th man more often than not in these tournaments.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I'd like to hear some of your reasons behind Canada's dominance in the WJC.

Name a couple of the main reasons, why and how the factor in.
And please, do expand. Stating "Cuz they are teh best" doesnt give much insight.

Talent, home ice, small rink and it means something to the Canadian psyche. If you notice the big deal they made romping over canon fodder like Latvia and how quiet things got when they actually played an equally matched team. The giddy banter from the booth stopped dead in its track and they were left wondering what had happened. Nothing happened. They just met a talented team that gave them a game. Give credit where it's due. Their competitive and nationalistic pride went into high gear and they pulled out a compelling victory.

At the end of the day Ice Hockey is their game, just like baseball was America's game. The world will and has caught up.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

well although the majority of americans will dream of baseball and football... and the majority of europeans will dream of soccer...

the european hockey players dream of winning gold, the american hockey players dream of winning the cup... every one at those levels are competitive and don't like to lose... the simple fact is Canada is more talented than those countries. Plain and simple. Its not that we "want it more" or that we have some inner canadian gene that makes us care more... we just are better.. and thats it...

alot of canadians like to paint that never give up never surrender "war" type picture, because it is feel good and a good story overall. But even in the USA game where the Canadians played like crap, they were still RIGHT THERE... bottom line is the only way another country beats our juniors is if we play terrible and they play perfect... and that doesn't happen very often

Wrong! You are not the more talented hockey nation. Just look at the individual trophy winners in the NHL. The fact is the when the competition on the ice is relatively equal Canadians will not have issues with going over the line of good sportsmanship to win and save face. Look at the 72 summit, does he name Bobby Clark ring a bell? That was like a splash of cold water in the face of all Canadians that while a super power on the ice the competition is just as good. That's said I love Canada for the gift of Hockey.

Team USA was the better team. They did not play perfect. They just wanted it more and they had home ice. Props to them. You are guilty of what you are accusing other "War" mentality fans of doing. You remind me of the kid whistling through the grave yard at night. Me? I'm not afraid...

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I'd say it’s more than just parent to child. Although I'm sure that most NHL prospects had fathers who played hockey, I think the effect is more culture to child/parent. Let's face it, when it comes to whether a kid plays hockey, the parent is arguably the more important part of the equation. To use an example from my years as the worst hockey player on my house league team (or on a good year, the second worst)

Neither of my parents had any interest in hockey until I came along. My mother grew up in Canada, but wasn't part of a hockey family, while my father grew up in Ireland and immigrated as an adult. So what did they do when I told them I really really wanted to play hockey? Knowing full well that I would never in a million years develop into a Gilmour or a Fedorov (my favourite players at the time), my Dad sat for twelve hours in line at the local arena and managed to secure the last available spot for the local house league.

Having paid the expensive registration fees, my parents then took me to the local hockey store, and spent even more money on equipment that even though it was used, we probably couldn't really afford. As far as parental supports goes, that should be all that was required. Instead, they spent the next few years carting me off to the arena after long work days, spending hours in cold rinks watching me in games where I barely touched the puck, and getting up on Sunday mornings for practices that frequently started at 6:00 am. All this for a kid who absolutely, positively sucked at the game.

I’m eternally grateful for that, but the fact is, my parents were hardly alone in what they did. My point is, the Canadian obsession with hockey causes parents, even ones who have absolutely no personal connection with the game other than the joy it gives their kids, to take actions that would otherwise be considered bizarre in almost every other country, and more importantly, it causes these bizarre actions to become normal. In part, my parents did these things because they knew that the frozen, coffee-guzzling people they sat next to in the bleachers weren’t freaks of nature. They worked and lived next to people who did the exact same thing. So yeah, Canadian culture can cause normally sane people who are completely unversed in hockey to spend inordinate amounts of time and money so that their kid can play the most expensive and dangerous organized sport there is.

Nice story. Thanks for sharing. You're really grounded.

 

[Slimmy]

Sweden just recently started putting money and effort into this tournament and we've been in the finals the last two tourneys and probably this year aswell.
I think Canadas dominance is due too the interest over there which generates money and good coaches etc.
That they have many youngsters playing hockey helps aswell but fielding one team for this tournament and winning against Canada is far from impossible for eather USA, Russia or Sweden which have been very close.

 

[Talus]

Luck has had something to do with it. There have been games we should have lost. Gotta' admit.

Luck has nothing to do with it.

 

[LoveHateLeafs]

Nice story. Thanks for sharing. You're really grounded.

Tell that to my psychiatrist!

Anyhow, Puck Daddy's World Junior writer made a post today that specifically addresses the topic of this thread. It uses more recent data to give numbers for the average number of registered hockey players per indoor rink than I did. It also has some really interesting stuff on the age distribution of registered hockey players in each country. I would have assumed it would be about the same for each country, but I was totally wrong. The Czechs are in real trouble. An excellent read:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/pu...-s-hockey-dominance-will-conti?urn=nhl,211448