What if Finland would still be part of Sweden or Russia?

[Hasa92]

Sometimes iv'e thought about the history of my Country and what if things would be different, like if Finland would have never gained independence from Russia or Sweden would have never lost Finland to Russia between their war.

I believe that the way things are now are better for Finland, than it would be if we would be still part of other one of these countries...

Expect for the Sport teams, especially for hockey.

Just think about the teams Sweden-Finland would had for the past 20 years. T. Selänne, P. Forsberg, N. Lidström, J. Lehtinen, S. Kapanen, M. Sundin... The list could go on but the point is that all these players would play for the same team.

What would have been the teams & lines for this team at international tournaments?
Which one of Rinne or Lunqvist would be "our" starter goalie for 2014 Olympics? Would Mikko Koivu even be in the 1st line or the captain?

How good you think this team would have been? Could they have dominated Hockey for the past 20-30 years the way Soviet Union did from 60's to 90's? Or like Canada before Soviet Union? Better yet Would they have been the only Country (expect for Canada) to match or even be better than the Soviet Union?

Sweden won several silver & bronze medals in IIHF world championships & Olympics during the Soviet Dominance and Finland was often 4th. I know for a fact that Finland has upset the Soviet Union at least once in Calgary Olympics 88, and believe that Sweden has too sometimes, not sure thought..

And for Russia, let's leave Soviet Union away from this thread because we all know that team was already dominating the sport. So only Russia-Finland team speculation from time after Soviet Union.

But still imagine players like: Bure, Selänne, Fedorov, Kurri, and many more on the 1998 Nagano olympics, in the same team.

Click to read more...

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Not a terrible thing to do. I have often wonder how good Czechoslovakia would be. You can do this with a lot of countries.

 

[Hasa92]

Not a terrible thing to do. I have often wonder how good Czechoslovakia would be. You can do this with a lot of countries.

Yeah Czechoslovakia would be a beast too, i'd say that we shouldn't narrow down this thread just to Finland but we could use any country and we could talk about other sports too and not just hockey. One thing is for sure, If Czechoslovakia would still exist & Finland would still be part of Sweden and add Soviet Union there too, the margin between the big and middle hockey countries would be even bigger.

 

[Justinov]

What if the Kalmer Union never had been dissolved. Then we would have had Denmark (including Slesvig/Holsten)-Norway-Sweden-Finland playing hockey as one team in Copenhagen!
Try this for size:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar_union

 

[Hasa92]

What if the Kalmer Union never had been dissolved. Then we would have had Denmark (including Slesvig/Holsten)-Norway-Sweden-Finland playing hockey as one team in Copenhagen!
Try this for size:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar_union

So that country would have dominated so many winter sports easily (Norway has already the most Winter Olympic medals, actually they have most of each color, Finland and Sweden are on the Top 10 list too), probably even Hockey today, and it would be one of the best soccer countries too, And Elitserien both Hockey & Soccer would be ****ing awesome, maybe if that country would still exist today there wouldn't be KHL or at least it wouldn't be the 2nd best hockey league in the world but Elitserien of the Kalmar Union.

It would be a darn good at Summer Olympics too.

But Kalmar Union does bring up more questions, what would have happened in WW2? Finland would have never started a war with Soviet Union because there wouldn't have been a reason to get independence, at least not from Soviet Union, Would there still been war with Soviet's or would German's VS Kalmar? I mean that's a pretty ****ing big country out there so none of these wars might have happened OR even Sweden would have had to join the fight.

But enough of WW2 let's concentrate on sports, especially hockey.

 

[Tomas W]

Meh, as far as I am concerned Finland is still east Sweden. I celebrated when the Finns won the worlds.

"Bra gjort lydstat" I thought.

Seriously though, a Sweden-Finland would have been a very strong team. But it's good that we are separate countries, the hockey world is small as it is, the rivalry between our nations is needed. Xenophobia exluded of course.

 

[Thesensation19*]

Yes the combination of the countries would have made an amazing result but as a proud Croatian, understand the value of independence is far greater than what could have been.

 

[Hasa92]

Meh, as far as I am concerned Finland is still east Sweden. I celebrated when the Finns won the worlds.

"Bra gjort lydstat" I thought.

Seriously though, a Sweden-Finland would have been a very strong team. But it's good that we are separate countries, the hockey world is small as it is, the rivalry between our nations is needed. Xenophobia exluded of course.

Yeah i agree with this but i just like to know what it would have been if history would have went otherway around, Finland - Sweden rivarly is for me the best sports rivalry and rivalries between FEL elite teams or even between NHL teams don't match to the international rivalries what we have, thought Finland - Russia rivalry is a close second to me personally.

And even if Finland would be a part of Sweden we still would probally have our own national sport teams apart from Sweden's teams, at least it was like that when we were a part of Russia.

 

[IceHockeyDude]

Great britain would be an awesome hockey country too if USA hadn't got its' independence

 

[torero]

Sometimes i regret Switzerland did not invade Canada !!

 

[Tomas W]

Sometimes i regret Switzerland did not invade Canada !!

With what? Your swiss-army knifes? Fear the foot file canadians! At least you soon you will have decent fighter planes to get your paratroopers into canadian soil!

 

[Tomas W]

Yeah i agree with this but i just like to know what it would have been if history would have went otherway around, Finland - Sweden rivarly is for me the best sports rivalry and rivalries between FEL elite teams or even between NHL teams don't match to the international rivalries what we have, thought Finland - Russia rivalry is a close second to me personally.

And even if Finland would be a part of Sweden we still would probally have our own national sport teams apart from Sweden's teams, at least it was like that when we were a part of Russia.

Yeah, kind of like GB having different teams in soccer. We could have had different teams in sports we're good at, and mixed in sports we're bad at.

 

[premadonna]

Ah, I can already imagine the Finnish-speaking media questioning every single "a Swedish player over a Finnish player" selection and whining about Finnish players not getting enough ice time.

 

[Alpine]

What would Canada be if the War of 1812 wasn't a stalemate?

 

[torero]

With what? Your swiss-army knifes? Fear the foot file canadians! At least you soon you will have decent fighter planes to get your paratroopers into canadian soil!

Beware !! a swiss knife, when closed, can be thrown with precision at ... at least 20 feets!!
And for the Grippen ... it is a financial choice : for 1 rafale or F22, we had 2 Grippen ... their we go ! (we are in crisis ... aren't we ?)

But yes, maybe it is the master plan. Get a decent plane ... takeover Canada ... become WC champion ! (makes sense)

 

[Den]

I don't think Swedlandia would have dominated for 20-30 years, as suggested. Still, would have not enough top players....

 

[Den]

Great britain would be an awesome hockey country too if USA hadn't got its' independence

No, rather the KHL would have had two conferences: Eurasian and Alaskian, with all the teams of the Great Russian America from Fairbanks to Tampa included in the second ...

 

[Den]

for 1 rafale or F22

Well, you can't have an F22: not sold even to the best of friends...

 

[Tomas W]

Beware !! a swiss knife, when closed, can be thrown with precision at ... at least 20 feets!!
And for the Grippen ... it is a financial choice : for 1 rafale or F22, we had 2 Grippen ... their we go ! (we are in crisis ... aren't we ?)

But yes, maybe it is the master plan. Get a decent plane ... takeover Canada ... become WC champion ! (makes sense)

Dont piss on JAS gripen It doesnt crasch...that often! It's easy assembled as well with an IKEA key.

I know this at least, with JAS Gripen your air fleet will be a lot mightier than your naval fleet!

 

[Tomas W]

I don't think Swedlandia would have dominated for 20-30 years, as suggested. Still, would have not enough top players....

We would have KICKED RUSSIAN BUTT! AND YOU KNOW IT TOO!!

 

[Dosing]

Wouldn't change sweden's team that much

 

[IceHockeyDude]

Wouldn't change sweden's team that much

That is actually true, Finland would benefit much more of being one hockey nation.

But that is not the point here, Sweden and Finland are both countries which constantly lose finals against bigger nations (Canada & Russia). Together they would have better chances to win when it is the most important not forgetting that they would not have to face each others. Co-operation in this matter would and would have helped the both.

 

[Justinov]

With a "Kalmer Union hockey league (it would be "Kuhl") the sport might have kicked off in Norway and Denmark decades earlier. It could have developed into a very strong league I'm certain.
And you could still have a four "nation" tournament every year within the union and field a strong unified team for WC and OG!

 

[Dosing]

With a "Kalmer Union hockey league (it would be "Kuhl") the sport might have kicked off in Norway and Denmark decades earlier. It could have developed into a very strong league I'm certain.
And you could still have a four "nation" tournament every year within the union and field a strong unified team for WC and OG!

That would probably cost more than it tastes

 

[FiLe]

These kind of speculations are a bit silly, since they assume that apart from one little nudge in history, everything else would still go the same way. Which is simply not true.

Had history taken a different path 200 years ago (or in 1917), the odds are many current players, if any, wouldn't have been born to begin with - thanks to a lot of people ending up somewhere wildly different over the years than what they did now.

Best note that I have nothing against speculations about how would a possible unified Sweden/Finland or Russia/Finland team look like, but keep any historical reasoning out of it. It's nothing but noise in this case.

The only justified case is the unified Czechoslovakian team, because technically all of the players still playing for either jersey were born before the country was split.


*Leans casually against the wall, waiting to be overwhelmed by all the "stop being such a literal hack" messages.*