That's fine, and they're not just kids, there's people up up to 21 years of age in the OHL, many bigger, faster, stronger and more skilled than that 87 Canada Cup team. Do I need to post clips? I don't think I will just for the sake of your argument being a feasible one, because if I post them everyone will know the truth, if they don't already. Quit giving yourself a headache.
Please post them. Preferably of the OHL team beating them for that matter. Since it's so obvious. Also, the 21 year olds in the Major Junior leagues are typically the
poor players that aren't good enough to advance beyond that stage. Outliers aside, they're the ones not good enough to make the NHL or even AHL.
Seriously, stating you
won't post them to prevent everyone else from seeing the truth only undermines your position. You know you have no leg to stand on. You certainly aren't willing to put in the leg work to substantiate your absurd claims.
So you don't believe in evolution? That's alright, not everyone does.
If you're talking about biological evolution, then you may believe in it but you certainly don't understand it. Biological evolution has exceptionally little to do with the improved physical capabilities of athletes today. It's
way, way, way too short term of a scale. Where improvements have been made are training (marginal), and nutrition (significant). But this gap does very little for top players. What it does is improve the lower tier players. The top players are still the top players. More on this at the end of this post.
Athletes have not improved in recent years because of evolution. This is a fact (hey this is fun).
The evolution argument is a red herring, and intellectually dishonest.
If Craig MacTavish was diving on the ice blocking shots in 1996 with no helmet, then how the hell would these players have any problem with it? Answer - They wouldn't, infact shot blocking is one of the things that has improved a lot, and the overall shots they would be facing would be on average not as hard... so yeah your opinion makes no sense to me.
Current day OHLers do not shoot the puck as hard as 1987 Hall of Famers. Some might. The ones with a chance at actually playing in the big leagues. Most will play out the rest of their careers and then get real jobs afterwards because they just flat out do not have the skill. They would certainly get rag dolled playing against the Soviet team.
Craig MacTavish was blocking shots like a maniac because he had the mental fortitude to do so. This is still the primary requirement for making this defensive play. Mentality and desire to win has not increased through evolutionary means in the past couple of decades.
Obvious denial is obvious.
No, just a scientist that actually has respect for the scientific method. Your post, is frankly, stupid. The OHL team will have no where near the physicality to match a team of adult veterans that have been playing for years. It's why my old, fat, washed out teachers could still beat us in basketball even though we could run laps around them. Our bodies weren't as physically mature yet as 16 year olds. There is still
so much to learn and it's why, throughout history, very few teenagers crack NHL rosters and achieve early success.
I think I can. Choose to believe what you wish, I could careless.
If you think you can, then you're thinking wrong. No self-respecting intellect would ever claim that an unfalsifiable opinion is a fact. What you've demonstrated is that you're incapable of actually differentiating between fact and opinion. And that, sir, is a fact. I'll be nice though, and give you the option of either admitting you have no self-respect, or are not an intellectual person. What I find particularly ironic is that someone with the name Infinite Vision has demonstrated how myopic their perspective actually is. If you're curious why people are being crass, it's because you keep regurgitating your opinion on something that cannot possibly be proven and unabashedly stating that it's a fact.
A reminder that this forum is not the place for "Evolution of Hockey" threads, where people who have experienced the "blinding flash of the obvious" come to the conclusion that all players today are better than any players in history, and make implications that Guy Lafleur wouldn't be able to crack an NHL roster today.
In this forum, the history of the sport is to be respected.
Why do you think that's in the stickied thread? Because it's obvious that hockey gets better, not just the game but individual players, but it's disrespectful to state so... the reason I do is because people are seriously arguing that it hasn't changed, infact hockey of all sports has improved the most of all sports in the past 20 years, I'm 100% sure of that. You can say it's due to training, equipment, or whatever else, but why or how it's changed dooesn't matter, the fact is it has!
Emphasis mine: I'll just point out that not only were many of the members of the 1987 Canadian Men's Hockey team still active NHL players 20 years ago... they were still good ones. For several years in many cases.
An old battered, oft-injured, and recently out of retirement Mario Lemieux came into the league and was immediately the league leader in goals per game, assists per game, and points per game. As a 37 year old he was still top 10 in points (2nd in points per game). This is the same guy that had such serious issues with his health that he couldn't even tie is skates at earlier points in his career.
Going back just a few years (1997) he was still crunching the opposition. In 1998 a 37 year old Wayne Gretzky still led the league in assists and was 3rd in the the league in points. This is also a Gretzky that had had his back ravaged by Gary Suter almost a decade earlier, but was still able to compete at an elite level.
Dave Andreychuk (not even an elite player from the 80s or 90s) was still able to be a solid player into the twilight of his career, leading his team to a Stanley Cup as a 40 year old captain.
Mark Messier was still putting up 60 point seasons as a 40 year old less than a decade from now.
Finally, that is stickied because any person making the absurd claim that Guy Lafleur wouldn't be able to crack an NHL roster today is stupid and myopic.
I'll finish this up by stating that I full on believe that pretty much any NHL team today would likely be competitive to older teams. In large part due to the improvements for depth players. People like Crosby, Datsyuk, and so forth are not better than the top players of yesteryear. The third and fourth line, as well as goalies, have made significant improvements. The best team from today probably beats a 1950s team, but I think you criminally understate just how effing good the Canadian and Soviet teams were in 1987.
Bobby Orr is still gonna whoop ass in today's hockey because he wasn't someone that was held back physically, and has an
exceptional mind for the game. Gretzky
was held back physically and still
absolutely ragdolled the rest of the league because he thought the game like no one else. That said, he still possessed fantastic skills (which is very different than pure physical attributes like speed and strength).
I'm a strong believer in the rule of 10000 hours, and Gretzky lapped that several times, and I firmly believe that if he were an 18 year old today, he'd still be a fantastic player. Possibly even better all around because it'd probably be a physically better player too. But even with his physical limitations, it doesn't matter when he can read and react to the play in ways that even many of today's top players never could.
The league
is stronger in my opinion. But I do not make the mistake of equating the improvement among 3rd and 4th liners linearly to the top players in the league. It's a fallacy to do so.
And the 1987 Canada Cup team is a team stacked with talent, and physical forces. It's completely wrong, and just flat out arrogantly disrespectful to the Soviet Team too for that matter, to state that a team of kids, most of whom never get a lick at professional hockey, let alone the NHL. Especially when just taking a quick look at the 1987 roster, I can name off 16 players from that team that would be NHLers today.
Hawerchuk
Messier*
Gartner
Anderson
Goulet
Sutter
Tocchet
C. Lemieux
M. Lemieux*
Gretzky*
Bourque*
Murphy
Coffey
Hextall*
Fuhr
Hrudey
No OHL team has 16 NHL quality players on it. Players with asterisks are probably players that are still exceptional and among the top players in the game today too. I'll be nice and even give you Fuhr and Hrudey... and cut it down to 14 players.