Why?
I have to spell it out for you? Yeah Russia deserves all the credit in the world for that win, but to be "very happy" they won at the expense of your own country? Ok then.
I have to spell it out for you? Yeah Russia deserves all the credit in the world for that win, but to be "very happy" they won at the expense of your own country? Ok then.
Nobody questions the heart of Russians when they represent Russia, but representing their NHL clubs, now, that is a different story(at least for a vast amount of them).
That isn't true. There was good reason to question the heart of the last few Russian teams at both the WJC and Olympic level (which is all NAs care about). They were skilled teams that performed far worse then they probably should have. But this team was different. After every one of their last 3 games they were about as jubilant as any team that I have seen. They fought back each time with hard work and a ton of character, especially from their top players.
Lets face it, heart doesn't belong to one nation or another, but some teams have it and some don't. This Russian team did and frankly, as a hockey fan, its nice to see a Russian team playing like that at the WJC, because its been a few years since they really brought like they can. Hopefully, it will continue, because it makes the tournament all the more competitive.
All the talk about canadians heart automatically being bigger then any other nationalities wen't out of the window after this one.
i hope that this generation of russian players prove to be bigger winners then the ones we are currently watching in the NHL.
I can't name one nhl russian who doesn't play hard, even the maligned semin does whether people who don't bother watching games admit it or not. exception is kovalchuk at times. Only seems that way because he wants to score so badly, and breakaways are pretty decent scoring chances.
but I naively though that "heart" was a racial trait inherent to all canadians and exclusive to euros, especially the dirty ruskies!
Canada can keep it's "style" of gooning it up. I appreciate players like hall and skinner, why the hell didn't they take those two at least? How do you win if you don't score?
The only russians in the NHL with a SC-ring is Datsyuk and Kovalev(who hasn't proven anything since the mid 90s)
Well, they may play hard, but they haven't proved to be winners. The only russians in the NHL with a SC-ring is Datsyuk and Kovalev(who hasn't proven anything since the mid 90s), and they really belong to the earlier generation with Fedorov, Zubov, Mogilny, etc. I guess Ovechkin will prove me wrong(i am a huge fan of him by the way) but he will need to lead his team to a SC to do so.
And another thing. Credit must be given to Canada for their passion about this tournament. Without this passion, it wouldn't be as interesting, even though it sometimes leads to the extreme(i.e canadian medias effort to turn swedish coaches comments to trash talk). I hope they continue to hold the tournament in Canada/US since it always draws big crowds. Maybe once in a while we can have it in Europe, but until we get people to watch the games live, i hope Canada/US continue to host it.
but I naively though that "heart" was a racial trait inherent to all canadians and exclusive to euros, especially the dirty ruskies!
Canada can keep it's "style" of gooning it up. I appreciate players like hall and skinner, why the hell didn't they take those two at least? How do you win if you don't score?