Norway Hockey

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Olaf Fub

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Aug 23, 2005
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Does anyone who posts here live in Norway? This is a stupid question but why isn't Norway better at hockey? You guys are a power in a lot of the other winter sports. The rest of Scandinavia is good at hockey.

I'm not trying to put Norway down. In fact, Congrats on a great winter games. I'm just curious.
 

edmontonoilers89

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I've wondered about that myself a few times. No idea why Sweden and Finland are perennial hockey powerhouses but Norway doesn't even have a decent team as far as I'm aware of. If I'm wrong sorry for my lack of ignorance or laziness to actually search for an answer.
 

CPFC

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Sep 12, 2004
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Norway is a soccer country. Soccer get's most of the funding there and with the current development of Norwegian soccer, I don't think it's about to change. Don't why hockey never caught the wind there, though.
 

The Imp

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Jul 8, 2003
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Norway's a fixture in the B tier in the World's. There are a few elevator teams out there, but Norway isn't really one of them.

As a more direct reply to your question, there was a pre-Olympic qualification tournament, where I think Kazhakstan and Latvia got their tix for this tourney. Teams like Norway and Denmark didn't :cry:.
 

Wisent

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I have lived in Norway for a year. They have a professional league and they have rinks (at least in Bergen where I have lived). I can`t really say if they have a lot of hockey programms for children, but I guess not since noone there talked about hockey. Even the people I lived with who were Norwegian didn`t know that there was a team in Bergen (not all of them). TV coverage of hockey is basically non-existant.
 
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I'm hoping the Norway, Swiss, and German programs really starting pumping up the hockey programs at the most bottom level and gradually build up. It'll do the world of hockey a ton of good when a bunch of different countries are regularly competing for international titles and what not.
 

Jazz

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petelars said:
Norway's a fixture in the B tier in the World's. There are a few elevator teams out there, but Norway isn't really one of them.

As a more direct reply to your question, there was a pre-Olympic qualification tournament, where I think Kazhakstan and Latvia got their tix for this tourney. Teams like Norway and Denmark didn't :cry:.
Norway was in a group with Switzerland and Denmark for the 2nd Qualifying round tournament. Obviously Switzerland won. Norway did win the 1st Qualifying round, but only by goal differential over Hungary, and that after scoring in the final minute of their last game to force the goal-diff tie breaker.

As for Norway's hockey - there simply were not enough rinks in the country for many years.

I have read (but I don't know if it is true) that back in the 1960s, Norway and Finland were at about the same level. However, Finland went on an ice-rink building-spree (to encourage kids to play, and once they grew up, it became a part of the sports culture in Finland). Apparently there was this Norwegian offical, who wanted to make a bunch of rinks in Norway at about the same time, but he lost some power stuggle, and Norway has (up until the '90s) stagnated ever since...

Things are improving slowly now, but I have no idea to what extent.
 

Norseman

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May 28, 2002
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First, Finland is not a part of Scandinavia and Norway is at the same level as Denmark. So its not entirely true that the rest of Scandinavia is good at hockey. But Sweden rocks our pants in hockey though.

As for the reason why Norway doesn't produce hockey talent, it is probably because they got very few icerinks. Sweden got over 300 icerinks, Norway got 30. It was built a new icerink this year and that was the first built since the olympics in Lillehammer in 1994!

During the 1960's the president wanted a strong priority on building new indoor icerinks. The rest of the activities should be runned on a minimum cost to achieve as many new indoor icerinks as possible. Unfortunately he lost this struggle and the money was spent on other priorites.

The same situation arised in Finland were they decided to build as many indoor icerinks at whatever cost it would take. Up until that point Norway and Finland had an equal amount of rinks and players. As it is now, one of the countries is amongst the hockey Top 6 and the other just qualified for the upper WC this year and will face USA, Canada and Denmark in Riga this spring. We were lucky we got Denmark in our group though as we probably will beat them and keep our spot.

The trouble for Norway now is that alot of places don't have an indoor icerinks were new players can be recruited. Both the southern part and the northern part of Norway is without any icerinks at all. Thus hockey get neglected in media and most of the athletictalents goes to soccer or skiing.

:cry:
 

Chimpradamus

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Feb 16, 2006
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GCZ said:
Norway is a soccer country. Soccer get's most of the funding there and with the current development of Norwegian soccer, I don't think it's about to change. Don't why hockey never caught the wind there, though.
They're not even that. :sarcasm:

I guess it's about tradition. Norway has never been good at hockey, so they have never had something driving them to create a hockey culture.

edit: Thanks for the historical lecture Norseman.
 

Snap Wilson

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Smaller population, smaller hockey interest, smaller people. The further West you go in Europe, the fewer Slavic genes there are. Norwegians, generally, are smaller and slighter than their Scandinavian brethren.
 

CPFC

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moneyp said:
Smaller population, smaller hockey interest, smaller people. The further West you go in Europe, the fewer Slavic genes there are. Norwegians, generally, are smaller and slighter than their Scandinavian brethren.

Now this is balderdash. There isn't significant genetic differences between Scandinavian people.
 

ShaneDoan

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May 5, 2005
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I think Norway hockey is almost joke...only player that had some potential was Espen Knutsen.
 

Sonic Death Monkey

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Ole-Kristian Tollefsen is a part of the Blue Jackets organisation, other than that, Mats and Marius Trygg are Norweigians I think?
 

Wisent

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moneyp said:
Smaller population, smaller hockey interest, smaller people. The further West you go in Europe, the fewer Slavic genes there are. Norwegians, generally, are smaller and slighter than their Scandinavian brethren.
I don`t think that Norwegians are smaller than the other Scandinavians. As well as I don`t think that slavic people are larger than them.
 

Raimo Sillanpää

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Mar 11, 2003
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Olaf Fub said:
Does anyone who posts here live in Norway? This is a stupid question but why isn't Norway better at hockey? You guys are a power in a lot of the other winter sports. The rest of Scandinavia is good at hockey.

I'm not trying to put Norway down. In fact, Congrats on a great winter games. I'm just curious.

That's just how the chips fell down.
Norway, Sweden, Denmark are all good at soccer, been at the world Championships and the European Championships.
Finland has yet to play in either competition.
 

jekoh

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Jun 8, 2004
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moneyp said:
Smaller population, smaller hockey interest, smaller people. The further West you go in Europe, the fewer Slavic genes there are. Norwegians, generally, are smaller and slighter than their Scandinavian brethren.
If anything, having fewer "Slavic genes" would make them taller.
 

GuloGulo

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Wisent said:
I don`t think that Norwegians are smaller than the other Scandinavians. As well as I don`t think that slavic people are larger than them.

The tallest people in Europe are the Dutch and the former Yugoslavians. No correlation there between. The average height of many peoples around the world is increasing thanks to improved health care and diet (ok, not always improved but indeed *more* of it)... Japanese, Koreans etc.

Are there a thing such as a Slavic people? Czechs and Russians have stuff in common besides language roots? Are Liths and Latvians and Estonians significantly different in genetics to Belorussians and people in NW Russia? I don't think so. Genetics doesn't necessarily comply with the language/culture borders.
Other examples: British isles, Belgium.

There are so many grey zones: Karelians were both fennic and slavic depending on what aspects you look at.
 

Wisent

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GuloGulo said:
The tallest people in Europe are the Dutch and the former Yugoslavians. No correlation there between. The average height of many peoples around the world is increasing thanks to improved health care and diet (ok, not always improved but indeed *more* of it)... Japanese, Koreans etc.

Are there a thing such as a Slavic people? Czechs and Russians have stuff in common besides language roots? Are Liths and Latvians and Estonians significantly different in genetics to Belorussians and people in NW Russia? I don't think so. Genetics doesn't necessarily comply with the language/culture borders.
Other examples: British isles, Belgium.

There are so many grey zones: Karelians were both fennic and slavic depending on what aspects you look at.
Agreed.
 

cbj21

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Oct 2, 2005
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Patric thoresen plays for djurgarden in sweden and has been called the best prospect to ever come from Norway. He doesnt have the hands like Knutsen but his overall game is better, well thats what they say. hes gritty, tough and can score. But now hes like 22 years old?

Btw this is the worst olympic ever for norway. Lots of medals but only 2 gold so far. Its not what we are used to get :cry:

And about genetic: According to the Nazi propaganda from WW2 Norwegians are the most arisk(sp?)= white race of all :dunno:
 

Wisent

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cbj21 said:
Patric thoresen plays for djurgarden in sweden and has been called the best prospect to ever come from Norway. He doesnt have the hands like Knutsen but his overall game is better, well thats what they say. hes gritty, tough and can score. But now hes like 22 years old?

Btw this is the worst olympic ever for norway. Lots of medals but only 2 gold so far. Its not what we are used to get :cry:

And about genetic: According to the Nazi propaganda from WW2 Norwegians are the most arisk(sp?)= white race of all :dunno:
Well, you had bad luck running into the hot Smigun and Veerpalu. And Björndalen already is a legend despite not winning gold this time. Today you have good chances in the team skijump.
 

Game_Misconduct

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Oct 13, 2004
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I believe the last time Norway sent a hockey team to the Winter Olympics was 1980. They were one of Team USA's pool play victims.
 

GuloGulo

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Game_Misconduct said:
I believe the last time Norway sent a hockey team to the Winter Olympics was 1980. They were one of Team USA's pool play victims.

They should've been in the '94 Olympics as well, seeing as they hosted the games that time... :sarcasm:
 
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