Is this a boost for European Hockey?

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HackandLube

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Dec 7, 2005
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For those European Countries where hockey is a big thing - Sweden, Russia, Finland, etc. this is obviously a good outcome that the North American teams are out.

But for other European countries, where hockey may not be as popular, is the advancement of other European teams a good thing for the sport overall and increasing it's popularity across Europe?
 

Jazz

Registered User
I don't buy this "We are from North America so we should cheer for North American teams!" or "We are from Europe, so we should cheer for European teams" crap.

Pick your teams based on the players on the teams.

Anyways, with respect to the question of it in anyway promoting the game in non-Elite European countries - I have no idea. Perhaps some members from these countries can answer...but again, like I said in the above paragraph, I should not make any difference...

I do hope more countries pick up the game and advance it (ie funding) so more countries could get better and we can one day talk about 12+ elite nations heading into a tournament!
 

Gozer

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Sep 22, 2005
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Jazz said:
I don't buy this "We are from North America so we should cheer for North American teams!" or "We are from Europe, so we should cheer for European teams" crap.

Pick your teams based on the players on the teams.

Anyways, with respect to the question of it in anyway promoting the game in non-Elite European countries - I have no idea. Perhaps some members from these countries can answer...but again, like I said in the above paragraph, I should not make any difference...

I do hope more countries pick up the game and advance it (ie funding) so more countries could get better and we can one day talk about 12+ elite nations heading into a tournament!

Even though I live in Sweden, I have a very hard time seeing how this would boost hockey in countrys that don't play that much. I can see how the intrest grows in Switzerland, and perhaps their neighbour Germany, as they see they can compete with the big ones. But that doesn't really have to do with the all european semis.
 

jekoh

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Jun 8, 2004
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gozar said:
Even though I live in Sweden, I have a very hard time seeing how this would boost hockey in countrys that don't play that much. I can see how the intrest grows in Switzerland, and perhaps their neighbour Germany, as they see they can compete with the big ones. But that doesn't really have to do with the all european semis.
In some western european countries hockey is still seen as an american sport, so maybe it can help if they realize europeans can actually be better than north americans.

But European success is really nothing new so any boost would be marginal especially since most people in those countries don't follow the games anyway.
 

Chimpradamus

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Feb 16, 2006
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Juni said:
There are far more deep rooted problems in most European hockey that is far more than just a national team success will solve. Most of it surrounds money.
Yeah, and NHL farming European leagues of its players for coffee money. I've already mentioned this in another thread though.
Winner = NHL
Winner = The players (although they have much less freedom and willpower in a European club than in a NHL club, they receive lots of $$$, some of it should have gone to the club they bought them from though)
Loser = European Hockey and European clubs
 

ugrakarma

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Jan 28, 2006
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Hockey will still remain a fringe sport in most of the countries. Some frenchie could clear things up how bad things were before (figure skating coupled in the same union?).
 

Corto

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Sep 28, 2005
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Jazz said:
Anyways, with respect to the question of it in anyway promoting the game in non-Elite European countries - I have no idea. Perhaps some members from these countries can answer...but again, like I said in the above paragraph, I should not make any difference...

In a word, no... The results don't effect the increase or the decrease of the popularity of the sport in non-hockey countries.

The Olmypics themselves though, do raise the interest in hockey, at least slightly.
 

ts11

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Apr 29, 2005
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gozar said:
Even though I live in Sweden, I have a very hard time seeing how this would boost hockey in countrys that don't play that much. I can see how the intrest grows in Switzerland, and perhaps their neighbour Germany, as they see they can compete with the big ones. But that doesn't really have to do with the all european semis.

I don't think it will grow in these countries. In Switzerland it is already a big sport behind soccer, I don't think there's much space to grow.
For the Germans these Olympics weren't so good compared with Salt Lake City and even after that there wasn't really a boost for the sport. And there are other problems for hockey in Germany, as the sport is nearly invisible here outside the big events. You can only watch the DEL on pay-tv (which isn't very common in Germany) and even the world championships I watched mostly on Austrian or Swiss tv 'cause you barley see the tournement on the German free tv. I think it'll get even worse with the relegation to the B-world championships.
Kudos to the DEL as you can watch soccer, handball and basketball on free tv but you have to pay for hockey :shakehead . Sounds like a major sport here, doesn't it? :sarcasm:
 

Riddarn

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Aug 2, 2003
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ts said:
Kudos to the DEL as you can watch soccer, handball and basketball on free tv but you have to pay for hockey :shakehead . Sounds like a major sport here, doesn't it? :sarcasm:

It's the same in sweden and I think it's a very stupid, extremely short sighted strategy by the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation if they want to remain the #2 sport in sweden.
 

Chimpradamus

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Riddarn said:
It's the same in sweden and I think it's a very stupid, extremely short sighted strategy by the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation if they want to remain the #2 sport in sweden.
Actually, hockey in Sweden is only #8 if considering how many who perform.
1. Football, about 650,000 licensed
2. Golf, about 275,000
3. Athletics, about 265,000
4. Floorball, about 250,000
5. Shooting, about 225,000
6. Handball, about 215,000
7. Gymnastics, about 210,000
8. Ice Hockey, about 190,000

Source: Swedish Sports Association, 2004, Licensed performers ages 7-70. As another thing, about 2,4 million of Swedens 9 million inhabitants are active in some form of sport. Among kids 7-14 years old, 72% boys and 67% girls are active in sports. Same numbers for 15-19 is 54% and 36%.

However, Ice Hockey is the second biggest TV sport after football, if that is what you meant.
 

Chimpradamus

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The biggest sports in other European countries in 2004:

Finland:
1. Football
2. Athletics
3. Skiing

Norway:
1. Football
2. Skiing
3. Gymnastics

Denmark:
1. Football
2. Handball
3. Badminton

France:
1. Football
2. Tennis
3. Skiing

Germany:
1. Football
2. Gymnastics
3. Tennis

Austria:
1. Skiing
2. Football
3. Gymnastics
 

ts11

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Chimp said:
The biggest sports in other European countries in 2004:

Finland:
1. Football
2. Athletics
3. Skiing

Norway:
1. Football
2. Skiing
3. Gymnastics

Denmark:
1. Football
2. Handball
3. Badminton

France:
1. Football
2. Tennis
3. Skiing

Germany:
1. Football
2. Gymnastics
3. Tennis

Austria:
1. Skiing
2. Football
3. Gymnastics

I don't think hockey, handball... compete with athletics and gymnastics as these are basic sports without a big tv coverage outside the big events (olymics, Golden Series,...) or totaly different sports (tennis, skiing).
IMO the bigger competition is (in Germany) with the the other big team sports handball, basketball (falling behind them) and soccer (out of reach).
 

Chimpradamus

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I just listed the biggest sports based on number of performers in each country, not what sports that are covered most in TV are have the most audience.
 

Raimo Sillanpää

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Mar 11, 2003
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Chimp said:
The biggest sports in other European countries in 2004:

Finland:
1. Football
2. Athletics
3. Skiing

You mean registered members of x club right?
Because there's like 50 professional soccer players in Finland, the rest are semi-professional and hold regurlar jobs.
Back in 99 when HJK were in the Champions League, every player on their team had a "profession".
There's probably like 2,000 professional Finnish ice hockey players.

And no way is there anyhting remotely close in any other sports code. Lumping them up like this is also strange. Athletics will have thousands of registered guys who only run a marathon, or training this year to run that marathon before they have a midlife crisis or whatever.. men and women.
 

dio_rocks

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Oct 11, 2005
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Chimp said:
The biggest sports in other European countries in 2004:

Finland:
1. Football
2. Athletics
3. Skiing

Finland is the only european country where Football is not number one. More like:

1 hockey
2 athletics
3 skiing
 

ugrakarma

>/dev/null
Jan 28, 2006
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It's quite obvious that hockey will never become a major sport in most countries since it requires equipment and ice when in comparison soccer only needs a ball and a pitch. Putting a junior through hockey costs a lot since the equipment becomes small every few years. Not to mention the amount of beers involved after carrying that gargantuan equipment sack. Soccer moms have a lot less to do and they probably don't have to worry about their son/daughter being totally leveled. But if the infrastructure is there I don't see why hockey couldn't become more popular. "If you build it they will come"
 

Force

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Jan 26, 2006
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Erm the Sports people do play and the sports people do watch is two different horses; For example Table Tnnis is agreat sport with lots of players of all ages, but it's non-existant on the TV-Stations map.

Btw Basketball is a better sport to watch on TV. Hockey is best when you watch it live.
 

Egil

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Mar 6, 2002
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Even Canada has more registered football (soccer) players than hockey players. Doesn't mean that soccer is the #1 sport here though.
 

shakes

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This is probably the worst thing that could have happened for the NHL, but yeh, I'm sure European Hockey is happy.
 

SChan*

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shakes said:
This is probably the worst thing that could have happened for the NHL, but yeh, I'm sure European Hockey is happy.

since many euros are dominating the NHL, how is it bad?
 

bandolero

Registered User
Feb 16, 2006
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dio_rocks said:
Finland is the only european country where Football is not number one. More like:

1 hockey
2 athletics
3 skiing

Actually also in Finland football/soccer has more players than hockey. Football has twice as much players than hockey. Also floorball is nowdays more popular than hockey. Floorball may even be the sport which will have more players than football in near future, it's popularity has grown and will grow rapidly.
 

shakes

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SectionX said:
since many euros are dominating the NHL, how is it bad?

North America was eliminated from Olympic hockey. The NHL is trying to get people to watch hockey and people in non-hockey markets in the US would probably watch the olympics which would generate more exposure for the game. With the US and Canada out, interest will decline significantly, if not altogether, in non traditional markets.
 
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