Switzerland is a peculiar case. Swiss hockey wasn't a true full pro sport until the 90s. As I already mentioned in another post, Swiss players were semi pros until then. It is probably something hard to believe for people outside Switzerland or the younger Swiss fans, but top hockey players had part time jobs. In the 80s, the company I was working for, a large banking institution, employed for example Roberto Triulzi (6 times Swiss champion, 109 games with the national team) in the IT department. One day in the intrabank magazine that was published every few months, they did a piece on the elite athletes working for the bank and believe it or not, there were maybe around 10 or so folks (Triulzi was the only hockey guy. And if I may say, I too was one of them 10).
So, it's not a coincidence that Switzerland goes REALLY full pro and starts putting a lot of effort into the youth system and 25 years later they have a sizeable "colony" in the NHL and have two medals in the past 6 editions of the worlds. It was hard work and it paid off. I too think that the Swiss presence in the NHL is on a uptrend.
Switzerland was among the worst places to be as a sportsman.
I would have been professional in K1, but 30 yrs ago (i am 50), i was cheating unemployment to go to some poor tournaments to be a front-runner in K1 that nobody was recognizing.
We, the Swiss team, were ridicule compared to other teams with the means we had and they had.
Today is another world.
Professional in sport is doable. If you are good in something, you have the possibility to train seriously and continue your school as a safety net.
The situation is not as ideal as Canada and hockey with the WHL program, but we are not bad at all and the organization is very good.
(not for nothing that we started having a very decent socker team with like 40 players abroad and still a very average championship )
We Swiss are also smaller than the Scandinavians ... (actually young generations are tall ... so it may not hold that much) ... and the game is becoming faster , the big bodies enforcers are disappearing and small guys are more and more present. That favors our constitution. 6 or 5.11 ft tall guys are ok now a days.
Also NHL teams are opening to the world more and more. Hiring foreigners. Taking their position as best league in the world seriously.
So in some years ... i'd say in 2020 ... we'll have like 20/25 players. Convinced.
+ AHL ...