Hockey in Europe and growth

[Namejs]

Only 0.04% of Germans play hockey and we are the wealthiest country in Europe. So money is really not the problem.

Well, it isn't a problem for Germany. But, you see, hockey isn't the most popular sport in Germany. It is the most popular spectator sport in Latvia.

Most people know the score of the latest hockey game. If you'd ask a guy on the street, how did Germany play against Latvia, how many people would know what the hell you're even talking about?

 

[Namejs]

And yes, the assumption on immigrants preferring to play other sports is indeed correct

Source?

 

[Ivan94]

Source?

personal impressions

all my turkish friends only interest in their soccer NT, galatasaray, fenerbahce and their local Süperlig team.
in my circle of acquaintances there is only one Turk who play an other sport. One of my friends play basketball.

in Turkey the soccer overkill is bigger than in other parts of Europe/asia.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Only 0.04% of Germans play hockey and we are the wealthiest country in Europe. So money is really not the problem.

But,its different in Latvia,hockey is our number 1 sport,not like in germany where football is king. So i dont think our countries are comparable.

 

[bobbeaver]

Your numbers are incorrect, half of the countries you mentioned aren't hockey countries and your assumption about immigrants not playing hockey is based only on your imagination.

Once again, almost 10% of the German national team that we played against consisted of Turkish players.

Fact is the white people in Europe are dieing out and rather rapidly.

Have you actually tried to look at the numbers? ok lets see i mentioned Czech republic germany, russia has birthrate of 1.54, ukraine 1.46, Sweden is doing ok with 1.9, Finland 1.84, slovakia 1.45, Switzerland 1.52, slovenia 1.56, and so on. France has good birthrate (as a nation with great program and is in the top tier) because of arabs and black people. In England non white babies out number white babies and that is why England has 1.95. This is all data available by organizations dedicated to researching demography in 2013.

If you look at any of the teams you wount see any blacks arabas or turks in any of those NT's except the 2 in the whole DEL that got into the NT roster. Fact is they dont like to change their habits to much from back home atleast in terms of sports.

 

[Dfire]

No, the numbers are not wrong. And yes, the assumption on immigrants preferring to play other sports is indeed correct, the occasional exception doesn't change anything about that.

Talking about 10% as if it means anything. There happened to be two players out of a roster of 21 who are partially of Turkish origin. Those two players are the only ones with Turkish background in the entire DEL, plus anything connected to that league. Ehliz himself has said that it is very unusual, as pretty much everyone he knows of Turkish origin is playing football and nothing but football. And he's coming from a rather small town that is not known for football but had some success in hockey.

The number of players, and with that the skill and depth of a nation is not connected to the size of the population. What good are 80 million people when large parts of them are too old to play and most of the country is unsuitable to spur interest in hockey?
The same thing is true in France as well. Both nations don't have continental weather-conditions, the weather is driven by the Atlantic. As such, the winters aren't nearly cold enough to maintain long-lasting winter conditions and frozen lakes. What you end up with, is most of the talent coming from the mountainous terrain, where the weather is good enough for lots of kids to spend their free time playing hockey, but which isn't that heavily populated, plus some hot spots spread over the country where a small group of people plays hockey, limited by the fact that it is based on artificial ice and there is hardly any icetime available for hockey. When small children end up having practise at 10-12 pm, you know that things aren't looking good.

hockey is not as unattractive to kids whose parents/grandparents were immigrants as some people may think. Looking at the youth rosters in Germany there are a lot of kids with eastern european/russian/kazakh roots.

I also find your weather theory interesting. Do you mean that winters have gotten milder and therefore we have less pond hockey opportunities for kids nowasays? If that is true, were was all the development when the climate was supposedly different?
I think that point can also be challenged from a meteorologic point of view.

 

[Dfire]

Fact is the white people in Europe are dieing out and rather rapidly.

Have you actually tried to look at the numbers? ok lets see i mentioned Czech republic germany, russia has birthrate of 1.54, ukraine 1.46, Sweden is doing ok with 1.9, Finland 1.84, slovakia 1.45, Switzerland 1.52, slovenia 1.56, and so on. France has good birthrate (as a nation with great program and is in the top tier) because of arabs and black people. In England non white babies out number white babies and that is why England has 1.95. This is all data available by organizations dedicated to researching demography in 2013.

If you look at any of the teams you wount see any blacks arabas or turks in any of those NT's except the 2 in the whole DEL that got into the NT roster. Fact is they dont like to change their habits to much from back home atleast in terms of sports.

If you want to make a prediction of what happens in 100-500 years from now (because that's how long it would take for a large group of people to die out) you have to go back in time about the same amount of years. There is just no data available to support your claim. Birth rates change.

I also would like to point out that the vast majority of the people you and some others refer to as "turks" or "arabs", are germans. Even worse is when someone on here refers to bulgarians and romanians as "gypsies".

 

[Ivan94]

Looking at the youth rosters in Germany there are a lot of kids with eastern european/russian/kazakh roots.

yeah, but immigration flow from east have stopped. most "new" immigrants come from countries with no hockey tradition. and they are more ressistant to integration then other ones.

Birth rates change.

the prediction is in case that it won´t change or even get worse. that mean we/government have to change something.

 

[robwangjing]

I guess I could ask here since people from Europe are posting.

Are there any hockey nation in Europe that could be compared to China, in strength of national team and registered number of players, number of arenas and things like that.

I would like to learn more about those or that country and see if they do anything different from China. And see if they have or will grow more in hockey.

This would interest me a lot so it would be nice to know. Especially if the country is big but doesn't matter too much.

 

[boris4c]

China

Number of male players: 426 (118 senior players and 308 junior players)
Number of rinks: 153 (95 indoor rinks and 58 outdoor rinks)
Men's world ranking: 38

It's not easy to find a European country that has 153 rinks with such a small number of registered players. Most of the countries that have a similar number of players also have a low number of rinks, so you won't be able to make a perfect comparison.

You would be looking at countries like Bulgaria, Serbia and Israel when it comes to similarities in number of players and IIHF ranking, but these countries have considerably less rinks and this poses a great problem for their future development.

 

[robwangjing]

China

Number of male players: 426 (118 senior players and 308 junior players)
Number of rinks: 153 (95 indoor rinks and 58 outdoor rinks)
Men's world ranking: 38

It's not easy to find a European country that has 153 rinks with such a small number of registered players. Most of the countries that have a similar number of players also have a low number of rinks, so you won't be able to make a perfect comparison.

You would be looking at countries like Bulgaria, Serbia and Israel when it comes to similarities in number of players and IIHF ranking, but these countries have considerably less rinks and this poses a great problem for their future development.

Yeah those 426 players are probably all divided on 5-10 indoor rinks, to be honest. I think most of those indoor rinks in China are located in malls and used for fun, like roller-skating halls. And I have never seen any of the outdoor rinks, I wonder where they are located.

I guess those countries could be comparable, seem very small in hockey like we are and Bulgaria is pretty big I think?

 

[boris4c]

Neither of those countries is large in size or in population; we are talking about Europe after all (even though Israel is technically part of Asia).

Bulgaria has 439 players, 8 rinks (3 indoor) and is ranked #37.
Serbia has 641 players, 4 rinks (3 indoor) and is ranked #31.
Israel has 644 players, 2 rinks (2 indoor) and is ranked #39.

So there you go, those are pretty similar stats to China that I wrote above.

Btw I agree with your comment about the rinks. I am not sure only a handful of them are used for hockey in China with the vast majority used for skating for fun or figure and speed skating.

What happened to the China women's national team? They used to be pretty good a few years ago.

 

[Vicente]

Well, it isn't a problem for Germany. But, you see, hockey isn't the most popular sport in Germany. It is the most popular spectator sport in Latvia.

Most people know the score of the latest hockey game. If you'd ask a guy on the street, how did Germany play against Latvia, how many people would know what the hell you're even talking about?

Don't get me wrong, Namejs. Only a very small number of people in Germany have the chances to play hockey and even less on a regular basis or can start as young kids. But that doesn't mean hockey is not popular in Germany as a spectator sport. Actually DEL is the second most popular sports league in the country with more than 2 mio spectators / year in the stadiums.

As all other non-football leagues though in Germany only a certain percentage of the population follows DEL or hockey (actually a big part of hockey fans prefers NHL over DEL). So in regions like Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bavaria, Saxony or Berlin you have good chances that people will know teams, players, results etc, in Hamburg, Saarbrücken or Frankfurt rather not.

PS: A lot depends on coverage in media. The derbies between Cologne, Düsseldorf, Krefeld are covered a lot in big regional newspapers and so it's the case with Eisbären Berlin - who even get a lot of attention by national press. Also newspapers in Bayern have a lot of coverage and local tv stations show highlights of games. Definately not the case in Hamburg...

 

[Namejs]

Don't get me wrong, Namejs. Only a very small number of people in Germany have the chances to play hockey and even less on a regular basis or can start as young kids. But that doesn't mean hockey is not popular in Germany as a spectator sport. Actually DEL is the second most popular sports league in the country with more than 2 mio spectators / year in the stadiums.

Sorry, but what you're saying makes no sense to me. Money is not a problem, but only a small number of people have the chance to play hockey? That sounds like a typical money problem to me.

 

[Sanderson]

Don't get me wrong, Namejs. Only a very small number of people in Germany have the chances to play hockey and even less on a regular basis or can start as young kids. But that doesn't mean hockey is not popular in Germany as a spectator sport. Actually DEL is the second most popular sports league in the country with more than 2 mio spectators / year in the stadiums.

As all other non-football leagues though in Germany only a certain percentage of the population follows DEL or hockey (actually a big part of hockey fans prefers NHL over DEL). So in regions like Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bavaria, Saxony or Berlin you have good chances that people will know teams, players, results etc, in Hamburg, Saarbrücken or Frankfurt rather not.

PS: A lot depends on coverage in media. The derbies between Cologne, Düsseldorf, Krefeld are covered a lot in big regional newspapers and so it's the case with Eisbären Berlin - who even get a lot of attention by national press. Also newspapers in Bayern have a lot of coverage and local tv stations show highlights of games. Definately not the case in Hamburg...

Actually, all the notable newspapers in Hamburg (Bild, Mopo, Abendblatt, Welt) report on a constant basis, and not just with short notes either. You can even get the odd article about the NHL now and then. The local tv-channel also has highlights from the games and occasionally players or staff as guests in their sport-show. Coverage is absolutely no problem at all in Hamburg.

 

[Vicente]

Sorry, but what you're saying makes no sense to me. Money is not a problem, but only a small number of people have the chance to play hockey? That sounds like a typical money problem to me.

The problem is that there are extremly few ice rinks in Germany in relation to the number of inhabitants. So even if you had all your equipment you couldn't start playing the game.

In the Cologne-Bonn area we got 3-4 ice rinks for a population of 2 mio...

 

[Vicente]

Actually, all the notable newspapers in Hamburg (Bild, Mopo, Abendblatt, Welt) report on a constant basis, and not just with short notes either. You can even get the odd article about the NHL now and then. The local tv-channel also has highlights from the games and occasionally players or staff as guests in their sport-show. Coverage is absolutely no problem at all in Hamburg.

Okay, thanks! Well, then this can't be the reason for the lack of popularity hockey enjoys - at least the Freezers have quite small attendance for such a big city.

 

[robwangjing]

Neither of those countries is large in size or in population; we are talking about Europe after all (even though Israel is technically part of Asia).

Bulgaria has 439 players, 8 rinks (3 indoor) and is ranked #37.
Serbia has 641 players, 4 rinks (3 indoor) and is ranked #31.
Israel has 644 players, 2 rinks (2 indoor) and is ranked #39.

So there you go, those are pretty similar stats to China that I wrote above.

Btw I agree with your comment about the rinks. I am not sure only a handful of them are used for hockey in China with the vast majority used for skating for fun or figure and speed skating.

What happened to the China women's national team? They used to be pretty good a few years ago.

Yeah I looked into it and saw Bulgaria only had 7 million population, I thought they had at least 30-40 million. Even less people than Haerbin. And I think maybe the middle-class in Bulgaria is also not very rich like the middle-class in China, but is the middle-class getting richer there also?

About womens hockey I am not very sure what has happened, because I am very new to hockey, only followed it a few years. My interest sort of began with the KHL.

I knew that earlier some clubs offered women players free hockey gear because they want women to play hockey, but maybe it has changed now? It could be a reason. Because as I mentioned about the middle-class, not many people can afford to play ice hockey in many countries. It's so much cheaper to play football or basketball.

A complete football gear would cost less than $50, and basketball even less, so even poor people can afford it. Hockey gear would cost more than $500, perhaps even more than $1000. Big big problem, I think in the whole world.

 

[pakovits]

Don't get me wrong, Namejs. Only a very small number of people in Germany have the chances to play hockey and even less on a regular basis or can start as young kids. But that doesn't mean hockey is not popular in Germany as a spectator sport. Actually DEL is the second most popular sports league in the country with more than 2 mio spectators / year in the stadiums.

As all other non-football leagues though in Germany only a certain percentage of the population follows DEL or hockey (actually a big part of hockey fans prefers NHL over DEL). So in regions like Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bavaria, Saxony or Berlin you have good chances that people will know teams, players, results etc, in Hamburg, Saarbrücken or Frankfurt rather not.

PS: A lot depends on coverage in media. The derbies between Cologne, Düsseldorf, Krefeld are covered a lot in big regional newspapers and so it's the case with Eisbären Berlin - who even get a lot of attention by national press. Also newspapers in Bayern have a lot of coverage and local tv stations show highlights of games. Definately not the case in Hamburg...

it is somewhat deceptive to say that del is the second most popular sports league in germany. the 2. and 3. football bundesliga have higher revenues than del.

3. bundesliga 122 mil
del 91
basketball 86
handball 83

basically, football takes up more than 90% of the german sports market and the rest is split in three pretty much equal pieces betwen hockey, basketball and handball.

 

[Sanderson]

Okay, thanks! Well, then this can't be the reason for the lack of popularity hockey enjoys - at least the Freezers have quite small attendance for such a big city.

No, not really, there's just a whole lot of competition. Who else has two highly successful football teams (when it comes to attendance, not in the actual game) plus one of the best Handball teams (which is the defending Champions League winner), quite a few of the best field-hockey teams and god knows what else beyond that, especially once you leave the area of sports. In addition to that, unlike many other teams, the Freezers have stopped to hand out any sort of free tickets entirely. Hockey is simply a) not successful enough and b) too expensive to get near capacity with that kind of competition.

The attendance is clearly not what it once was, but it's hardly bad, especially when you consider that we didn't really have any sort of winter till this point and the team started the season on a bad stretch. Hockey is popular enough in Hamburg, it just suffered from the Boris Capla era, which did a lot of damage to the Freezers. It takes ages to regain the faith of people.

Who is faring much better anyway?
Only Berlin, Mannheim and Cologne have higher attendance. The latter two built their fanbase over lots of time and with lots of titles, while Berlin has won pretty much everything they could in the last five to six years. Now they have one year where they aren't on top of the league and attendance is down by an average of 2000 already. The Freezers made it out of the quarterfinals exactly once and the attendance was amazing at that time. Success is what gets you attendance, longterm success is what builds you a fanbase that keeps around for some time. No sucess hurts attendance, people who think they are treated badly makes it even worse.

 

[Namejs]

The problem is that there are extremly few ice rinks in Germany in relation to the number of inhabitants. So even if you had all your equipment you couldn't start playing the game.

In the Cologne-Bonn area we got 3-4 ice rinks for a population of 2 mio...

So why can't you build more ice rinks?

You can't leave it all to private initiative if you wan't for the sport to grow substantially. Ice rinks are rarely profitable. You have to have financial support at the municipal/federal level for your hockey programme.

 

[dynastyleaguehockey]

Greece has 713 players and even a small league that just greeks play in. I think there is only one rink though. Obviously hockey is not going to be that popular in Greece but it is slowly getting better. There is a lot of support of the the Greek National Team in the US and in Canada from us Greeks here!

 

[Maverick41]

So why can't you build more ice rinks?

You can't leave it all to private initiative if you wan't for the sport to grow substantially. Ice rinks are rarely profitable. You have to have financial support at the municipal/federal level for your hockey programme.

And that is a huge problem in Germany as the neither the federal government nor the states are willing to put a lot of money into facilities like this.

Many towns and cities are closing down facilities like swimming pools, theatres, arenas and ice rinks, because they cannot make a profit with them.
Administrations everywhere struggle to make ends meet and look for any way to cut costs, so there is no way that we will see new rinks built in Germany on a big scale.

Sports (except football of course) just isn't a priority in this country.