General Ice Hockey Thread

[hermanshire]

World Championship in ice hockey. Norway beat Germany 12-4

 

[LittleGuy]

Wow big win usually the Germans are a reliable defensive team but struggle to score goals, hopefull this is a sign of Norway improving.

 

[Canadian_Rugger]

Germany has a problem in that half the teams in the DEL are filled with Canadian boys, I know I am always *****ing about import restrictions in rugby but they really need to do something about it.

 

[SelimNiai]

Germany has a problem in that half the teams in the DEL are filled with Canadian boys, I know I am always *****ing about import restrictions in rugby but they really need to do something about it.

Apart from the established European markets, Sweden, Finland, Czech Rep., Russia etc who have the talented player pool to choose from that's the same everywhere. There's also the question of the sports popularity in the country. Germany, I imagine, rate football, motorsport and putting towels on sunbeds as more popular sports than hockey. Worse in the UK, I could name at least 10 sports more popular than hockey here. With that you have to attract foreigners to play to at least try to develop the game

This argument fits every sport pretty much. The amount of good foreign imports increases popularity and short term talent in detriment to youth development who can't get in the team. You restrict the amount of imports and the leagues suffer in drop of intrest.

In the EIHL here there are typically a lot of Americans and Canadians but most have been here for a while, Brad Voth for example has played for Cardiff Devils for 6 or 7 seasons so is almost a Brit in that respect.

 

[Canadian_Rugger]

Apart from the established European markets, Sweden, Finland, Czech Rep., Russia etc who have the talented player pool to choose from that's the same everywhere. There's also the question of the sports popularity in the country. Germany, I imagine, rate football, motorsport and putting towels on sunbeds as more popular sports than hockey. Worse in the UK, I could name at least 10 sports more popular than hockey here. With that you have to attract foreigners to play to at least try to develop the game

This argument fits every sport pretty much. The amount of good foreign imports increases popularity and short term talent in detriment to youth development who can't get in the team. You restrict the amount of imports and the leagues suffer in drop of intrest.

In the EIHL here there are typically a lot of Americans and Canadians but most have been here for a while, Brad Voth for example has played for Cardiff Devils for 6 or 7 seasons so is almost a Brit in that respect.

Well Ice Hockey is quite popular in Germany; however, its national team is lagging behind some other countries and now it is being surpassed by countries that it used to beat i.e. Norway, Switzerland and Latvia. I mean Germany still produces a fair amount of talent with some good players in the NHL but Switzerland has really caught them in terms of talent over the past few years. Part of this is the DEL would rather fill their teams with imports than take German kids to play. You can't really compare EIHL to the DEL, Eliteserien, SM-Liga, Czech Extraliga or Swiss National League as these leagues pay big money to have players play for their teams. Thats why you see so many North Americans in these leagues because they can still earn 6 figures playing hockey in these leagues. The DEL has an average salary of 150,000 euros while Eliteserien averages over 200,000 euros.

 

[hermanshire]

Finland to play Russia in the Semi. I hope for all the hockey fans that the finns tackle/ cross check that diving pr*ck Yemelin to hell.

 

[Canucks]

*crickets*

So ya the Stanley Cup playoffs really are that boring.

Love how NHL has come full circle to where they were 10 years ago. Everyone enjoys watching Sutter hockey.

 

[LittleGuy]

*crickets*

So ya the Stanley Cup playoffs really are that boring.

Love how NHL has come full circle to where they were 10 years ago. Everyone enjoys watching Sutter hockey.

This a thousand times this.....Unless your into shot blocking, and grinding games than this isn't for you...Unfortunately many Canadians can't be bothered to want anything more than what the NHL offers and tune in or attend the games out of habit. I'd love to see some proper full squads at the World Championships as well but unfortuntely the NHL season never seems to ever end.

 

[Canucks]

This a thousand times this.....Unless your into shot blocking, and grinding games than this isn't for you...Unfortunately many Canadians can't be bothered to want anything more than what the NHL offers and tune in or attend the games out of habit. I'd love to see some proper full squads at the World Championships as well but unfortuntely the NHL season never seems to ever end.

A majority Canadians believe whatever Cherry says and get really hypocritical this time of year.
Case and point Sedins being called divers (which they can be) but Dustin "I'm a flying ballerina" Brown getting a free pass? Or last year Mike Milbury's rant on how Vancouver as a city is full of pompous trash and no one on CBC defending us. Or my ultimate favorite, how classless Vancouver is yet Boston taunts and throw trash at a player who just broke his back and had big enough balls to skate back to the bench. I know the rest of the country has quite literally nothing to cheer about for hockey recently (especially Oilers fans) but it was pathetic how the country kind of abandoned Vancouver in the final.

Love this country sometimes. Meh, with that though comes my favorite canadianism. Any time a discussion about the best cities in the world, Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal will get honourable mentions. However, they are always followed by someone from Edmonton saying Edmonton really isn't that bad.

To be fair not having a full squad at the euro World Championship is essential to everyones development.

Canada gets players introduced to systems and show players what big ice is like. As well, Canada gets to thinker with different team make ups. Plus you can't have all those Oilers prospects golfing every summer until they leave in UFA.

Russia gets to think they are good enough to beat us when it matters (7-3 best on best though.)

And smalled countries like Norway and Denmark get to develop. If anything, this tournament has massively helped Switzerland (Canada killers.) I felt the 2010 olympics was the best hockey tournament ever as all teams were playing a decent standard (except Russia.) If anything you could have tossed a few more teams in and really rounded out the tournament.

God I hate Sutter hockey. What on earth did I do to deserve a LA vs NJ final?