Hockey in Europe and growth

[bobbeaver]

finland was not as good as today how ever since 1976 in the olympics they were worse than 4th place 3 times, US has in the olympics 2 gold 8 silver and 1 bronze, with worst results coming from 84-02. Those are the countries that lagged way behind? Germany has been consistent with their results, although with "hickups" since 1991. I can give you the sources.

Swiss, you got me there although you forget they were a force to be reckoned with till late 50's winning quie a bit of bronze medals, so am i wrong in saying they are a traditional hockey country? They had the strong foundation and the love of the game.

About France and Italy you are right i switched them around. I do know Italians tried to recruit italian decent NA players for Turin to do better. But there might be hope with Milano wanting to get into KHL, and as i hear into EBEL first.

Your comment about Hungary. I said the NAMED states which were top tier teams n i mentioned the rapid growth of Denmark. SO where was i wrong there? Did i say they are getting better? yes. Is it as fast as Denmark or i dn France (no counting the Quebecker players but French born)? No. And you are wrong they are not steady behind the nations you mentioned. They are still bouncing between division 1a and 1b and position. only in last 3 years are they steady in 1A. i mean they had better placement results in the 70's.

Ur right i meant Puerto Rico lol. They beat US NBA dream team in the 2004 Olympics. Sure France beating Russia, those are upsets in an outclassed fight, but still in bball lately has had more interesting results. To compare it in hockey it would be like Hungary got into the elite tier and got through into the quarter finals, that is what Finland did in last Euro champ. Same thing with Belgium, or Latvia beating Lithuania (it would be like in hockey the France Russia game). This happened all on this same Euro championships. My point was Bball has developed to a competitive level in many more non traditional countries than hockey through investment. Show me proof it aint so. This point you evaded completely in your rebuttal. And this was my original point aswell as the IIHF ineptitude.

In concern to Asian hockey. Well if that is how IIHF helps its pathetic. Japanese league folded. the Asian league is all over the place with the format and its just weird. During its time one of the top, if not the best Japanese team folded, second Chinese team folded and the one it has is full of foreign players. Japanese hockey attendance has dramatically fallen. and as you said Japanese were way above the rest. Only progress is Korean when they made the army team so players dont quite hockey while in the army. But every home country of the Olympics invests into the "jewel" sports, as hockey is, will it last? i sure hope so. But Asian league is still a mess, and this should be IIHF territory. And giving free birth to the main championships is pointless if you dont help with the ground work first. How does it help if they are just brutally out classed, how exactly does that help to create better players or help em learn something exactly?

Gee thanks but seams you were wrong about alot of things your self there buddy so i gave you a couple of partial points too But you still didnt actually answer or rebuff any of my points just nitpicked about details.

 

[Hasa92]

And as already mentioned, one qualification for Euro/World Cup in football for us and nobody cares about hockey anymore.

This year Finish clubs were beaten by teams from Poland, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Faroe Islands in the very first round of European qualification they played in. How should popularity of football grow in Finland when in fact they are probably the worst of all football nations in Europe?!

And on top of that one qualification wouldn't be nearly enough, seriously we would need to win at least 1 or 2 WORLD CUPS in order for soccer to take Hockey's place as a long-term number 1 sport in Finland.

One qualification might just make our "Huuhkajat" (Nick name for our national soccer team) more popular than "Leijonat" for one summer at most.

Top 10 reasons why soccer won't become more popular than hockey in Finland in my life-time:

1. A lot of people (especially youngsters and young adults) simply find soccer boring to watch, fun to play but boring to watch.

2. Like it or not, there is a lot of racist's in Finland, especially your typical middle-aged working class hockey fan. Last time iv'e checked our Soccer team contains many immigrants, just two decent blonde strikers (Pukki & Pohjanpalo) ain't gonna cut it for ´em, most of the starting squad needs to be of Finnish heritage in their minds.

3. We suck at it.

4. Even Mestis is more popular than Valio-liiga, (National team just might challenge hockey but clubs? Never).

5. And nobody cares about Mestis.

6. And as i said before, we need to win like 2 back to back World Cups. (And that ain't gonna happen in our lifetime).

7. When was the last time ANY team won 2 back to back World Cups?

8. If anything is going to take hockey's place as number 1 "sport" in Finland, it's video-games, and when that happens nobody cares about either of Soccer or Hockey around here anymore. That's also one way for soccer to actually become more popular than hockey but both are a long way for becoming nr. 1 by then.

9. We still suck at it.

And finally: 10. Video-games will take over in about 20 years or so, watch out for MLG.

 

[Namejs]

Sure France beating Russia, those are upsets in an outclassed fight, but still in bball lately has had more interesting results. To compare it in hockey it would be like Hungary got into the elite tier and got through into the quarter finals, that is what Finland did in last Euro champ. Same thing with Belgium, or Latvia beating Lithuania (it would be like in hockey the France Russia game). This happened all on this same Euro championships. My point was Bball has developed to a competitive level in many more non traditional countries than hockey through investment. Show me proof it aint so. This point you evaded completely in your rebuttal. And this was my original point aswell as the IIHF ineptitude.

There is no difference between hockey and basketball. USA in basketball is like a North American regional team in hockey. The dominance is ridiculous. They've won in 14 out of the last 17 Olympic Games.

The European Championship is a second tier regional tournament, which isn't the equivalent of WCH or OG in hockey. And even there only 6 or 7 different countries have won the gold in the past 60 years.

ALSO, hockey in Latvia is only highly popular as a *spectator* sport.

The actual number of hockey players is at least a couple of times smaller than the number of basketball (historically considered the national sport) or football players (highly popular among the ethnic Russian minority). Floorball and handball also both have more players. Handball is more of a marginal sport with it being highly popular only in specific parts of the country, but floorball is becoming more and more popular, with it having more spectators than the Latvian Virsliiga (the highest division of our football league).

Floorball is developing rapidly, handball is growing, football is regressing, basketball is stagnating, hockey is slowly growing.

So in terms of registered players:
1A Football
1B Basketball
2A Hockey
2B Floorball (in the process of becoming a highly popular sport country-wide)
3A Handball (regional/marginal)
3B Volleyball (mainly popular among girls)

The infrastructure of hockey has improved a lot during the last 20 years. The exposure of hockey has reached pretty much its maximum potential since we joined the KHL. Hockey dominates the sports news, most people are watching hockey (national team + KHL)

With more ice rinks, maximum exposure to the sport and an increasing quality of life (especially when compared to early to late 1990s), we should be seeing some progress in terms of the number of talents produced and the quality of our national team in the medium term.

Hockey in Latvia really started booming again only in late 1990s, so those first kids are only starting to enter professional hockey right now.

But we don't even have a fully professional hockey league. I guess amateur leagues are growing, but there is no culture of actually attending live sports events just to support your local club, etc. So the average attendance is ridiculous, which means you don't have enough resources to maintain enough professional clubs to form a semi-decent league. And that's a fundamental piece of puzzle that's missing, when compared to Switzerland, Germany or even Denmark/Norway.

Our population is declining and hockey has to fight for the limited number of people available with other sports. So even though hockey has become more available to people (both because of improved infrastructure & a network of ice rinks and more people being able to actually afford sending their kids to hockey practices), we won't ever see Latvia catching up with Switzerland or anyone else in the big 6/7/8. We might see some progress down the way, but in the long run we'll more or less maintain our current world ranking, as other countries are growing as well.

We just don't have enough manpower.

 

[ceciltaylor]

2. Like it or not, there is a lot of racist's in Finland, especially your typical middle-aged working class hockey fan. Last time iv'e checked our Soccer team contains many immigrants, just two decent blonde strikers (Pukki & Pohjanpalo) ain't gonna cut it for ´em, most of the starting squad needs to be of Finnish heritage in their minds.

Could you please elaborate this or redirect me to some links to read more about this? Are the Finnish particularly "more" racist than the Swedes for example? I don't get it.

 

[Hasa92]

Could you please elaborate this or redirect me to some links to read more about this? Are the Finnish particularly "more" racist than the Swedes for example? I don't get it.

I really don't know that much what Swedes think about immigrants in general expect someone like Zlatan would never be as popular in Finland as he is in Sweden even if he would speak perfect Finnish and been raised by Finnish parents.

Other than that i stand by my words that especially older Finns are often very rasict, most of them wont show it infront of the immigrants but speak ill behind their backs... At least in where i'm from.

 

[Jaan]

Other than that i stand by my words that especially older Finns are often very rasict, most of them wont show it infront of the immigrants but speak ill behind their backs... At least in where i'm from.

True, but how is this different from almost any other country in the world? In this nationalism-stricken world there always has the to be the 'other' to have animosity towards. Ehtnic unrest is very minimal and quite invisible in Finland, though there aren't that many immigrants to spark unrest in the country.

I would argue that the situation is quite the opposite of what you claim. Finnish people/media absolutely LOVE to glorifie any successful athlete that has some kind of connection to Finland even if they weren't etnically (100%) finnish: see, Aleksander Barkov, Nico Rosberg, Nooralotta Neziri, Wilson Kirwa, etc.

 

[bobbeaver]

I truly hope that will change Namejs. You think Latvian population wount grow? i mean latvian people come back home? But atleast you have more resaurces to create better from what u have. i mean difference will be seen in about 5 years i am guessing. same is for us in Croatia. lack of ice is a huge hindrance, but since 4 yers ago there has been an avelanche of kids going into hockey, but the effects of that wount be seen for next 10 years still. And there is still the question of our bad coaching staffs... Hope that will change along with the ice problems.

 

[Namejs]

I truly hope that will change Namejs. You think Latvian population wount grow? i mean latvian people come back home? But atleast you have more resaurces to create better from what u have. i mean difference will be seen in about 5 years i am guessing. same is for us in Croatia. lack of ice is a huge hindrance, but since 4 yers ago there has been an avelanche of kids going into hockey, but the effects of that wount be seen for next 10 years still. And there is still the question of our bad coaching staffs... Hope that will change along with the ice problems.

What do you mean - come back home? I'm talking about the fertility rate, it's been historically low for the last 2 decades. We have a population of 2 million, but because of the demographic structure, the number of boys (which is the only important statistic here) is more corresponding to a population of about 1-1.2mln people.

Divide that by 4 or 5 (because, as I already mentioned, hockey isn't dominating at all in terms of the number of players) and as hockey-crazed as you are, there's a ceiling for development with these kind of resources. And we aren't exactly light years away from reaching that ceiling.

Nothing really can *fundamentally* change here. And it's really not about a lack of ice rinks or a lack of funding in the Latvian case.

 

[bobbeaver]

Sorry i thought you ment the emigration into UK germany and so on. Yeah well same thing is happening in every country in europe except France Ireland and Britain. somewhere more, somewhere less. Yeh you cant do much about that thats for sure.

 

[Namejs]

Yeah well same thing is happening in every country in europe except France Ireland and Britain. somewhere more, somewhere less.

Nope, the population of Europe is increasing. That applies to almost all hockey countries - USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Russia, etc.

 

[Ivan94]

Nope, the population of Europe is increasing. That applies to almost all hockey countries - USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Russia, etc.

not in germany. from last census population decreased from 82M to 80,5M. even immigration didn´t stop it. at the moment 15M(19% of population) have not german ancestors. germans are dying out.

 

[Namejs]

not in germany. from last census population decreased from 82M to 80,5M. even immigration didn´t stop it. at the moment 15M(19% of population) have not german ancestors. germans are dying out.

That's not true, their population has been growing constantly. It's just that all this time it was based on an estimate, which was corrected after the first census in 20+ years.

Not sure what do you mean by 'germans are dying out'.

We played a German B team a couple of days ago: it had 2 ethnic Turks, a Canadian and another guy with a Czech last name on their roster. So what you're saying is completely irrelevant. Not only because what you're saying is wrong, but also because comparing Latvia to Germany doesn't make any sense. Even if their population would be decreasing by a little, the pool of available kids would still be enormous. The growth of hockey in Germany currently isn't in any way limited by the size of their population.

 

[S E P H]

If anything Brazil was better 15 years ago. Australia as well. And 30 years ago Czechoslovakia was a perennial contender at the Eurobasket. All 3 are most certainly tradional basketball nations.

Yup, basketball is definitely growing in certain countries no doubt like China, Lithuania, Poland, and perhaps some other parts of the world. BUT the amount parity between USA and the rest of the world is not even close compared to hockey.

It's hilarious that basketball is even an Olympic sport because anything less than a gold medal for America is a complete and utter failure. Compare that to hockey, I cheer for the United States and I can tell you that even though media are saying we will medal in Sochi, I know for a fact that there is a great chance we will not as well. Each Olympics and World Championship (even the WJC to a degree) is getting competitive each and every year. I don't think you can say the same thing for basketball.

There is no difference between hockey and basketball. USA in basketball is like a North American regional team in hockey. The dominance is ridiculous. They've won in 14 out of the last 17 Olympic Games.

The European Championship is a second tier regional tournament, which isn't the equivalent of WCH or OG in hockey. And even there only 6 or 7 different countries have won the gold in the past 60 years.

ALSO, hockey in Latvia is only highly popular as a *spectator* sport.

The actual number of hockey players is at least a couple of times smaller than the number of basketball (historically considered the national sport) or football players (highly popular among the ethnic Russian minority). Floorball and handball also both have more players. Handball is more of a marginal sport with it being highly popular only in specific parts of the country, but floorball is becoming more and more popular, with it having more spectators than the Latvian Virsliiga (the highest division of our football league).

Floorball is developing rapidly, handball is growing, football is regressing, basketball is stagnating, hockey is slowly growing.

So in terms of registered players:
1A Football
1B Basketball
2A Hockey
2B Floorball (in the process of becoming a highly popular sport country-wide)
3A Handball (regional/marginal)
3B Volleyball (mainly popular among girls)

The infrastructure of hockey has improved a lot during the last 20 years. The exposure of hockey has reached pretty much its maximum potential since we joined the KHL. Hockey dominates the sports news, most people are watching hockey (national team + KHL)

With more ice rinks, maximum exposure to the sport and an increasing quality of life (especially when compared to early to late 1990s), we should be seeing some progress in terms of the number of talents produced and the quality of our national team in the medium term.

Hockey in Latvia really started booming again only in late 1990s, so those first kids are only starting to enter professional hockey right now.

But we don't even have a fully professional hockey league. I guess amateur leagues are growing, but there is no culture of actually attending live sports events just to support your local club, etc. So the average attendance is ridiculous, which means you don't have enough resources to maintain enough professional clubs to form a semi-decent league. And that's a fundamental piece of puzzle that's missing, when compared to Switzerland, Germany or even Denmark/Norway.

Our population is declining and hockey has to fight for the limited number of people available with other sports. So even though hockey has become more available to people (both because of improved infrastructure & a network of ice rinks and more people being able to actually afford sending their kids to hockey practices), we won't ever see Latvia catching up with Switzerland or anyone else in the big 6/7/8. We might see some progress down the way, but in the long run we'll more or less maintain our current world ranking, as other countries are growing as well.

We just don't have enough manpower.

The point of hockey isn't to beat football (because it never will except in very few countries like Finland), hockey should grow as an alternative to football and start stealing players from the likes of basketball and handball.

Also I think you're being too pessimistic about Latvia, look at what the country of Latvia has done the last ten years or so. You're seeing more players getting drafted in the NHL, getting drafted in the CHL's import draft, more players making Finland and Swedish leagues (both in pro and U20/18s), competitive KHL team, competitive MHL, and lastly a team can compete with the likes of Russia in the World championships. The progress Latvia has done has been amazing to the point that they could be the around Germany's and Suisse's talent. It is true that there is a chance they will never be part of the big boys (due to population), but there is a great chance they will always be a very competitive nation along the lines of Slovakia.

 

[Vicente]

That's not true, their population has been growing constantly. It's just that all this time it was based on an estimate, which was corrected after the first census in 20+ years.

Not sure what do you mean by 'germans are dying out'.

We played a German B team a couple of days ago: it had 2 ethnic Turks, a Canadian and another guy with a Czech last name on their roster. So what you're saying is completely irrelevant. Not only because what you're saying is wrong, but also because comparing Latvia to Germany doesn't make any sense. Even if their population would be decreasing by a little, the pool of available kids would still be enormous. The growth of hockey in Germany currently isn't in any way limited by the size of their population.

Most youth hockey club teams in Germany are made of maybe 90%+ ethnic Germans. The immigrants kids all play football or basketball.

It is true that we have more and more immigrants and "ethnic Germans" are reduced by millions in the past decade. But the 80.5 mio is also an old number again. It is estimated that Germany will have ca. 86 mio inhbitants by 2016 if all the gypsies come here from Romania and Bulgaria etc once they have free right of moving and working in Europe.

 

[Ivan94]

Most youth hockey club teams in Germany are made of maybe 90%+ ethnic Germans. The immigrants kids all play football or basketball.

It is true that we have more and more immigrants and "ethnic Germans" are reduced by millions in the past decade. But the 80.5 mio is also an old number again. It is estimated that Germany will have ca. 86 mio inhbitants by 2016 if all the gypsies come here from Romania and Bulgaria etc once they have free right of moving and working in Europe.

the same thing was estimated for 2011 when the 10 EU2004-expansion nations(Poland, czech republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuana, Hungary, Estonia, Malta, Cyprus) will get this right.
a big immigrant-storm was expacted and welcome to fill the thousend´s of open jobs in healthcare. and getting well educated ingeneurs was a goal. but immigrant flows has been below expectations.

 

[Vicente]

the same thing was estimated for 2011 when the 10 EU2004-expansion nations(Poland, czech republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuana, Hungary, Estonia, Malta, Cyprus) will get this right.
a big immigrant-storm was expacted and welcome to fill the thousend´s of open jobs in healthcare. and getting well educated ingeneurs was a goal. but immigrant flows has been below expectations.

Yeah, for the very simple reason that Poles were clever enough to go to the UK, France etc who welcomed them more and who gave them well-paid jobs, not work on the fields for slave like wages.

The reason why they estimate such high numbers this time is not the wages we pay but the social care for unemployed people which new laws even give people who come new into this country on a legal way...

 

[bobbeaver]

Nope, the population of Europe is increasing. That applies to almost all hockey countries - USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Russia, etc.

You shoud check out birth rate by country. 2 is replenishing its populace. Czech reublic is 1.45, croatia 1.5, germany is like 1.2 and Italy is also very low, especially the north. France has 1.9-1.8, UK similar to that and Ireland has 1.95.
This does not include emigrants who fill up the loss of population who mostly dont have a clue what hockey is. they are into bball football handball even. winter sports are not their thing (mostly).

 

[Vicente]

You shoud check out birth rate by country. 2 is replenishing its populace. Czech reublic is 1.45, croatia 1.5, germany is like 1.2 and Italy is also very low, especially the north. France has 1.9-1.8, UK similar to that and Ireland has 1.95.
This does not include emigrants who fill up the loss of population who mostly dont have a clue what hockey is. they are into bball football handball even. winter sports are not their thing (mostly).

Yep. Even immigration and higher birth rates of immigrants can't stop the decrease in population in Europa. Acc to experts Europe will have 720 mio people in 2050 (20 mio less than now) while the rest of the world gets more people (Africa will double to more than 2 bio ppl).

Unfortunately especially the hockey countries are going to lose ppl (Russia most of all European countries).

 

[Namejs]

The point of hockey isn't to beat football (because it never will except in very few countries like Finland), hockey should grow as an alternative to football and start stealing players from the likes of basketball and handball.

Also I think you're being too pessimistic about Latvia, look at what the country of Latvia has done the last ten years or so. You're seeing more players getting drafted in the NHL, getting drafted in the CHL's import draft, more players making Finland and Swedish leagues (both in pro and U20/18s), competitive KHL team, competitive MHL, and lastly a team can compete with the likes of Russia in the World championships. The progress Latvia has done has been amazing to the point that they could be the around Germany's and Suisse's talent. It is true that there is a chance they will never be part of the big boys (due to population), but there is a great chance they will always be a very competitive nation along the lines of Slovakia.

The point of hockey isn't to beat football (because it never will except in very few countries like Finland), hockey should grow as an alternative to football and start stealing players from the likes of basketball and handball.

Also I think you're being too pessimistic about Latvia, look at what the country of Latvia has done the last ten years or so. You're seeing more players getting drafted in the NHL, getting drafted in the CHL's import draft, more players making Finland and Swedish leagues (both in pro and U20/18s), competitive KHL team, competitive MHL, and lastly a team can compete with the likes of Russia in the World championships. The progress Latvia has done has been amazing to the point that they could be the around Germany's and Suisse's talent. It is true that there is a chance they will never be part of the big boys (due to population), but there is a great chance they will always be a very competitive nation along the lines of Slovakia.

We aren't really seeing more players being drafted in the NHL. The rate of about 1 player per year has been more or less unchanged for the past 20 years. It might increase to 1.5 players per year during this decade, but that's not exactly a huge achievement.

As for the number of players in major junior leagues in North America or Sweden, I think it comes at a cost. The local junior teams/leagues are weaker as an effect.

The Latvian national team hasn't progressed in any way. We were promoted to the Elite division in 1996. That's almost 20 years right there. We defeated Slovakia, drew Canada and Sweden in our first year among the big boys and barely got beat by the US - 5:4. We haven't climbed the world rankings since then. Germany, Switzerland are a step above us already. In the 90s we beat Germany with scorelines like 8:0 and 5:0.

Sure some other teams have regressed - Ukraine has disappeared completely from the top tier, Italy has regressed. But Norway and Denmark have caught up, while these were 3rd tier teams in the 90s.

The only way we can improve substantially is by increasing the number/proportion of kids playing hockey.

Latvia is among the 3 countries (along with Canada and Finland) on this planet where hockey is clearly the most popular spectator sport. So far it hasn't translated into us having a lot of people involved in actually playing the sport. We either change that variable or we stop improving.

 

[Namejs]

You shoud check out birth rate by country. 2 is replenishing its populace. Czech reublic is 1.45, croatia 1.5, germany is like 1.2 and Italy is also very low, especially the north. France has 1.9-1.8, UK similar to that and Ireland has 1.95.
This does not include emigrants who fill up the loss of population who mostly dont have a clue what hockey is. they are into bball football handball even. winter sports are not their thing (mostly).

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.

 

[wings5]

Yup, basketball is definitely growing in certain countries no doubt like China, Lithuania, Poland, and perhaps some other parts of the world. BUT the amount parity between USA and the rest of the world is not even close compared to hockey.

It's hilarious that basketball is even an Olympic sport because anything less than a gold medal for America is a complete and utter failure. Compare that to hockey, I cheer for the United States and I can tell you that even though media are saying we will medal in Sochi, I know for a fact that there is a great chance we will not as well. Each Olympics and World Championship (even the WJC to a degree) is getting competitive each and every year. I don't think you can say the same for basketball.

I think in maybe 10-15 years Canada has the potential to compete with USA in basketball more and more elite players are being produced and scouted for higher levels like NCAA and NBA and this is mostly only from Greater Toronto region. If more players are produced from other regions and provinces it will only help. I feel if country's like Serbia and Croatia were like 2x larger they'd be beating the US. They are already at the top of the sport and many other sports despite populations of just over 7 million and 4 million respectively.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Well namejs if we are beeing brutally honest it comes down to living standarts in Latvia,when we will have the avarage salary of a Finn or a Canadian,then more people will start bringing kids to hockey.
We need money,the interest is there,we can blame LHF all we want,but without money they cant do jack****.

 

[Namejs]

Well namejs if we are beeing brutally honest it comes down to living standarts in Latvia,when we will have the avarage salary of a Finn or a Canadian,then more people will start bringing kids to hockey.
We need money,the interest is there,we can blame LHF all we want,but without money they cant do jack****.

I already mentioned the fact that increasing average income will lead to more hockey players.

But you might be exaggerating the importance of that. I know a lot of people like to think we're as wealthy as the people of Sub-Saharan Africa, but that is not exactly true.

The Riga region, in which about a half of the country resides, in terms of GDP per capita is as developed as Italy or New Zealand. We're not quite as rich as the Scandinavians or Canadians, but we're not all that poor. It is a factor, but not a deciding one.

0.8% of the population of Czech Republic are hockey players. The number is 4 times lower in Latvia. It's not all about wealth.

Bringing more ice rinks to some regions in the interior of the country and increasing living standards in some rural regions might be helpful, of course, but it's not going to increase the number of hockey players by 400%.

 

[Vicente]

0.8% of the population of Czech Republic are hockey players. The number is 4 times lower in Latvia. It's not all about wealth.
.

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

 

[Sanderson]

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.

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.