International Friendlies?
- Thread starter usahockey22flyers
- Start date
European leagues take International breaks for EIHC, EHT and friendlies and I havent heard GMs happy about having to give out their players. As well, unless you are the host country, majority of the countries dont even use their best players, they use younger players to give them a taste of the national level, fringe players who hope for a roster spot at World Championships or players with simply zero chance.
I highly doubt European countries would call on North American based players to play in a 3 day tournament and unless the NHL wants to take up a European like schedule, they will never take part in the International breaks.
Always wondered why Mexico never comes over though, I know the tournaments are Euro Ice Hockey Challenge but surely Mexico could find 3-4 opponents willing to set up a 5-nations tournament.
I highly doubt European countries would call on North American based players to play in a 3 day tournament and unless the NHL wants to take up a European like schedule, they will never take part in the International breaks.
Always wondered why Mexico never comes over though, I know the tournaments are Euro Ice Hockey Challenge but surely Mexico could find 3-4 opponents willing to set up a 5-nations tournament.
Uncle Rotter
Registered User
mattihp
Registered User
Usually before the world championships every year there's a bunch of friendlies. Often without many NHL players, but still...
You know that video clip that's shown every other week with the female singer forgetting the words to the American anthem and then falling on her butt? That was when Canada played the USA in Quebec in 2005 (I think) before the worlds.
You know that video clip that's shown every other week with the female singer forgetting the words to the American anthem and then falling on her butt? That was when Canada played the USA in Quebec in 2005 (I think) before the worlds.
There are a lot of friendlies played now during the preparations for the World Championships. Not many for USA and Canada (a few though). The European teams play more. Around 5-10 games. But of course many players are missing because the national playoffs are also played at this time in most of the countries.
Results and game stats at eurohockey.com
Results and game stats at eurohockey.com
joe89
#5
- Apr 30, 2009
- 20,316
- 179
Yup, at this time of the year Sweden's playing against nations outside of the big4 in Europe, some of the games at places that normally don't see quality hockey too often. We just played Latvia twice and have played one out of two games against Germany. Next week we'll play Slovakia twice before we play the Euro Hockey Tour tournament against Czech, Finland and Russia a week before the World Champs.
slovakiasnextone
Registered User
Actually this year asides from the usual pre-WHC exhibition games there´s a new thing before the shedule- the Euro Hockey Challenge (10 countries play it), which involves the EHT team, the mid-tier teams and the bottom teams (during the season usually these three groups have seperate tourney between themselves). The agreement for the EHC was signed for two years.
There are 12 teams in the Euro Hockey Challange.
Sweden
Finland
Russia
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Switzerland
Germany
Norway
Latvia
Belarus
Denmark
Austria
I find the modality of this "tournament" very confusing, but espacially for teams like Germany it is quite interesting.
Non North american soccer as a rule is a 12 month season the winer is league play then the summer is when you see a fair amount of friendlies and tournemants.Even if the nhl did do this you would need more then 4 days try more around 14 days and maybe the league and the iihf should look at it and even look at doing it every couple years and do away with the world championship.
