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WC: 2015 — Divisions I-II-III

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Don't have one. But Korea already leading 2-0. Netherlands are having a bad time at home..
 
Falling Snow said:
5-0 now for korea
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Up until the late 2nd period against Estonia it seemed like Korea might have a hard time moving back up to IA, but they've been outscoring their opponents 11-2 since then. :laugh:

I also expected more of the Cronadian team. It seemed like I was watching a team from the Latvian domestic league in their games vs. Lithuania or GB (that's not a compliment, by the way).

Same goes for GB. Nothing spectacular at all. Don't see any major obstacles for Kornada on their way to the 2nd tier.
 
I'm here in Eindhoven taking some pictures and finding good stories to write about. So far I think it's Korea who will get promoted. Croatia has strength and skill but somehow it just doesn't click with those guys. Maybe too many Cronucks is too much for the team spirit.

Estonia has been quite good and in the meantime The Netherlands has been very weak. Their black forward, almost Wayne Simmonds of the Netherlands but not quite, Julian van Lijden, is 194 cm tall, he looks strong but is the worst skater I've seen at this level. His balance is incredibly bad and he plays maybe 15 s shifts and gets called off before he makes any (more) mistakes.

I've taken a bunch of photos to my website, I hope you enjoy them. There are few quite nice shots http://gamewornjerseys.weebly.com/greatbritain-croatia.html
http://gamewornjerseys.weebly.com/estonia-korea.html
http://gamewornjerseys.weebly.com/netherlands-lithuania.html
http://gamewornjerseys.weebly.com/estonia-great-britain.html
http://gamewornjerseys.weebly.com/croatia-lithuania.html

My favourites are so far this magnificient glove save by Estonian net minder. :amazed::amazed:

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cave troll said:
In your opinion, can Estonia surprise Netherlands and avoid relegation?
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The way they are playing - absolutely. I'd even go as far as saying Estonia are slight favorites in my eyes at this point, Netherlands look awful meanwhile Estonians are really solid and they have Makrov + Rooba on the top line which kinda automatically gives you 2-3 goals against opponents like the Netherlands.
 
On this level Rooba really looks like Malkin, especially when you see how dominantly he gains the zone against multiple opponents.
 
You should have seen him play in D2A last year.. Or maybe you did. But that's kind of the point, this Estonian team is clearly better than D2A. I think it would be a healthy change of scenery for Dutch "pros" to spend a year there, Estonians deserve a break.

It's just unfortunate that it would happen on the Dutch home ice.

Dustin Peener said:
What do fans of other countries think of Ben Bowns so far? Could he play at a higher level?
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He has been really good but I'd say no. Don't think he could play in the Allsvenskan which seems like a natural progression from the EIHL.
 
Apart from the Rooba line, the Estonian team looked like they would belong in a tier below DivIB. Now, of course, Division II is even worse than the Estonian team, so they would get promoted right back again next year if that happened.

They're sort of in-between Korea/Poland/GB/Croatia and teams like Iceland/Serbia. Not good enough for DivIA, but not bad enough for DivII.
 
Namejs said:
They're sort of in-between Korea/Poland/GB/Croatia and teams like Iceland/Serbia. Not good enough for DivIA, but not bad enough for DivII.
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Romania, Estonia and the Netherlands seem to be a trio of those at this point.

Disagree about the point about the Rooba line though. Whole bunch of Estonian forwards look like superstars at D2 as do Ossipov and obviously Lahesalu. I'd say Estonians would win that division with relative ease even without Rooba and Makrov.
 
SoundAndFury said:
Romania, Estonia and the Netherlands seem to be a trio of those at this point.

Disagree about the point about the Rooba line though. Whole bunch of Estonian forwards look like superstars at D2 as do Ossipov and obviously Lahesalu. I'd say Estonians would win that division with relative ease even without Rooba and Makrov.
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I'm definitely no Division II expert, so I'll have to trust you on this one.

Quite frankly, anything below Romania sounds exotic to my ears. I mean, I can't really take them seriously, considering that probably a relatively good amateur team could beat a team like Australia.

HK Riga (a Latvian junior team playing in MHL) beat the Spanish national team 9-1 a few years ago. Most of those Latvian kids won't even turn into pro players. Rooting for teams at that level is like rooting for Vanuatu (or Latvia :laugh:) in football - they're amateurs.
 
Namejs said:
I'm definitely no Division II expert, so I'll have to trust you on this one.

Quite frankly, anything below Romania sounds exotic to my ears. I mean, I can't really take them seriously, considering that probably a relatively good amateur team could beat a team like Australia.

HK Riga (a Latvian junior team playing in MHL) beat the Spanish national team 9-1 a few years ago. Most of those Latvian kids won't even turn into pro players. Rooting for teams at that level is like rooting for Vanuatu (or Latvia :laugh:) in football - they're amateurs.
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yes. Romania has two teams in a semipro league(Hungarian MOL-Liga).

all teams below Romania are pure amateurs.
 
Urbanskog said:
Not true, at least the Australian Ice Hockey League is semi-professional. Then there's obviously the China Dragon as well, a professional club in the ALH.
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Well, I saw some players from II-divisioona leading AIHL in scoring @ eliteprospects. http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=35419

It looks like it's a little worse than your 4th division.

A Latvian goalie played in AIHL for a while, he played in the German 4th division earlier in his career, so semi-pro might be a stretch. Even if they do get some money, the point is that they probably wouldn't cut it at the semi-pro level in traditional hockey countries.
 
Thus far, Estonians look just sad. Not the same team we saw playing against GB. Hopefully they will pick it up in the 2nd period but 2-0 is a big hole to climb out of.
 
SoundAndFury said:
Thus far, Estonians look just sad. Not the same team we saw playing against GB. Hopefully they will pick it up in the 2nd period but 2-0 is a big hole to climb out of.
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Don't hold your breath, Estonia one line aside is a very limited team.
 
Will be really interesting to see how Dutch will fare against Croatia. I may need to rethink that whole thing about Estonians being worth staying up.
 
So 2-2 after two periods between Korea and GB. Refs have been very kind to GB in this game, so I would expect Korea to get a couple of powerplay chances in this one.

Bowns looks very shaky in the GB net though, so we'll see.
 
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