Most Important Wins by Country

Jazz

Registered User
Zubrus never played for Lithuania at the Junior level, in fact, the 2004 World Cup in Russian colours was the first time Zubrus represented any country internationally. He later went on to represent Lithuania at Div. 1 World Championships.
Dainius Zubrus: "Lithuania needs me more than Russia" (after he played in Div I in 2005)
http://live82.ihwc.net/english/article/news/index.ihwc?artId=1913

From the perspective of developing hockey outside the elite-nations, I applaud this. :clap:
 

Scandale du Jour

JordanStaal#1Fan
Mar 11, 2002
62,001
28,718
Asbestos, Qc
www.angelfire.com
Were you trying to be sarcastic earlier when you mentioned the tainted part? Because it sure didn't come across that way. Then again, sarcasm is never really good in a message board, unless you're one of those great posters (ClassicHockey, murray, etc.) who can pull it off.

I don't think there are any knowledgeable hockey fans out there who believe in outright Canadian supremacy. It's one thing to believe that Canada is the best hockey nation in the world, and to predict Canada to win. It's another thing to expect Canada to obliterate the competition in any best-on-best tournament we enter. That's not going to happen. Most Canadians now recognize that it's going to be a battle to win a gold at any of the big four tournaments - Olympics, World Cup, World Championship and World Juniors.

Sheer domination by Canada in a major international tournament has only happened once since I've been watching hockey - the 2004-05 WJC. That was due to three factors: a) the NHL lockout leaving Canada with the ability to ice its best lineup; b) the strength of Canada's 1985-born players (1985 might be the best year for Canadian talent since 1969, which produced Sakic, Turgeon, Shanahan, DesJardins and Blake, among others); and c) the lack of depth in 1985-born talent in the other hockey powers.

In 04-05, Russia had Malkin, Ovechkin and Semin. We had the best World Junior team ever that year, I concur, but the total domination we showed during that final game was priceless. We simply killed Ovechkin and Malkin. And we killed Malkin again in 06. Thoses victories were really sweet to me.
 

Qurpiz

Carry me home!
Nov 5, 2006
4,297
838
For Finland, 1995 WC is easily the biggest win there is. It was significant for the whole nation, as Finland was going through some tough times back then, what with the recession and things like that.

Second in my opinion would be Olympics '88, I know, Finland got silver, but we did beat USSR in the last game, taking the #2 spot in the tournament over Sweden.
 

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->