WJC: 2016 WJC Division I Group A (Dec. 13-19)

[Namejs]

The Norway game I thought was disappointing for Latvia. Norway has a few exports but mostly just locals from a not very productive system. They're a 1-3 team that might go 1-4. They came in and took Latvia to a shootout. It's not quite a red flag but it is a game that I think if you're Latvia you can't really like. I think Latvia has always had great coaches though and you've disagreed with me on this before but compared to what a lot of smaller hockey programs have, Latvia has always had decent coaches who could organize a power play, decent strategies, etc.

The Norwegian league is a decent hockey league. They are playing against good hockey players with SHL, AHL, Allsvenskan, ECHL experience on a daily basis. One of our leading forwards and one of our Ds play there as well.

Norway is very close to Latvia in terms of how good their hockey programme is. Their current crop of players is maybe not as talented, but that is influenced by pure chance as well. In 3 years they might be the favorites in a game against us.

Overall Norway is a lot more protectionist, they have a much better domestic league than Latvia has, but their players are not as eager to move abroad to craft their skills in the best junior leagues.

 

[Namejs]

Hope Italy fights on Saturday for the remaining in the group... Latvia has now two days to celebrate

If they play like they did yesterday, I would expect a double digit win for us. I'd say our U-18 team could beat them.

 

[kaiser matias]

The Norwegian league is a decent hockey league. They are playing against good hockey players with SHL, AHL, Allsvenskan, ECHL experience on a daily basis. One of our leading forwards and one of our Ds play there as well.

Norway is very close to Latvia in terms of how good their hockey programme is. Their current crop of players is maybe not as talented, but that is influenced by pure chance as well. In 3 years they might be the favorites in a game against us.

Overall Norway is a lot more protectionist, they have a much better domestic league than Latvia has, but their players are not as eager to move abroad to craft their skills in the best junior leagues.

I don't know if that's totally accurate, as it seems a lot of Norwegians do go to Sweden, and a few to Denmark as well. Though they aren't coming to North America, and considering how close those three countries are its not exactly moving abroad either.

 

[Namejs]

I don't know if that's totally accurate, as it seems a lot of Norwegians do go to Sweden, and a few to Denmark as well. Though they aren't coming to North America, and considering how close those three countries are its not exactly moving abroad either.

Well, I did a bit of research.

As for Norway: there's about 35 Norwegian junior players based in North America.

Then there's about 30 Norwegian junior players playing abroad (28 in Sweden and 2 goalies in Finland) in Europe. Also, there were about 4-5 additional kids with dual citizenship, who simply reside in an another country, so obviously that's where they're playing hockey. I don't think that should count.

Out of those 30, a bunch of them are playing hockey close to where they were born. If you were born somewhere around Narvik, it makes sense for you to play in Kiruna (Sweden) which is just a 2-hour drive away. So, yeah, that's not exactly moving abroad.

To summarize, that's only about 65 Norwegian junior-level players homing their skills abroad, including those who've barely moved across the border. There are 4,179 U-20 level players in Norway. A lot of those 4k+ players are younger than 15 or 16, which is when you start moving abroad as a junior player, so that's not entirely accurate, but just as an estimate and purely for comparison, about 1.5% of Norwegian junior players are playing abroad.

As for Latvia: there's about 70 Latvian junior-level players based in North America and about 110-120 (Russia: 60-70, Sweden: 16, Germany: 9, Switzerland: 9, Denmark: 8, Finland: 3, Norway: 3, UK: 3) in Europe and Russia. So about 180-190 total. According to the IIHF player survey, there's only 1,722 U-20 players in Latvia, which means that as a very rough estimate, about 10.7% of Latvian junior level players are playing abroad, or 7.1 times as many when compared to Norway.

I think my original point stands.

 

[kaiser matias]

Well, I did a bit of research.

As for Norway: there's about 35 Norwegian junior players based in North America.

Then there's about 30 Norwegian junior players playing abroad (28 in Sweden and 2 goalies in Finland) in Europe. Also, there were about 4-5 additional kids with dual citizenship, who simply reside in an another country, so obviously that's where they're playing hockey. I don't think that should count.

Out of those 30, a bunch of them are playing hockey close to where they were born. If you were born somewhere around Narvik, it makes sense for you to play in Kiruna (Sweden) which is just a 2-hour drive away. So, yeah, that's not exactly moving abroad.

To summarize, that's only about 65 Norwegian junior-level players homing their skills abroad, including those who've barely moved across the border. There are 4,179 U-20 level players in Norway. A lot of those 4k+ players are younger than 15 or 16, which is when you start moving abroad as a junior player, so that's not entirely accurate, but just as an estimate and purely for comparison, about 1.5% of Norwegian junior players are playing abroad.

As for Latvia: there's about 70 Latvian junior-level players based in North America and about 110-120 (Russia: 60-70, Sweden: 16, Germany: 9, Switzerland: 9, Denmark: 8, Finland: 3, Norway: 3, UK: 3) in Europe and Russia. So about 180-190 total. According to the IIHF player survey, there's only 1,722 U-20 players in Latvia, which means that as a very rough estimate, about 10.7% of Latvian junior level players are playing abroad, or 7.1 times as many when compared to Norway.

I think my original point stands.

Indeed it does, and it shows I did not do the research, though I thought of doing it. Good to see the numbers though, puts it into perspective. And really shows Norway has a decent domestic system if they do ths good while mostly keeping their players at home.

 

[Namejs]

Indeed it does, and it shows I did not do the research, though I thought of doing it. Good to see the numbers though, puts it into perspective. And really shows Norway has a decent domestic system if they do ths good while mostly keeping their players at home.

Yup, but there's a very counter-intuitive phenomena there, you could call it the uncanny valley of hockey. When your domestic league is pretty decent, you have a network of fully professional minor pro teams and semi-pro teams across the country, most of your kids are going to stay at home. But that doesn't mean that it's the perfect recipe for youth hockey development. In fact, your hockey programme is actually going to be significantly less efficient at producing talent until you progress to a level beyond 'decent'.

There are countries like Poland or the UK where they actually have pro/semi-pro domestic leagues as well. But they're not producing a lot of top-end talent at all. The same applies to Norway, Kazakhstan, Italy, Austria and even Germany to a certain extent.

And that's the peculiar thing about producing talent. Countries such as Latvia or, say, Slovenia don't really have that many hockey players, but they're simply a lot more efficient on the account that they do not have a mediocre pro domestic league, so the players are forced to move elsewhere simply because the top of their national hockey pyramid is non-existent.

 

[kabidjan18]

Yes you're right about the hockey system I didn't have the numbers on that but I've felt it for some time. However, this team still isn't a team Latvia should be having trouble with. Norway's domestic program has some merit but they don't have many exports like Latvia or Austria and their Superelit exports didn't show up this year I think. Latvia was complacent and Norway was angry after the Austria game so the outcome was somewhat expectable, but if they had won that game in regulation, Latvia would have already secured a promotion, so I do think coach Beresnevs and the players would want that game back just a little, though Italy should be no challenge.

Plus there was some Latvian 18 year old kid who dominated in the Norwegian senior league, it's a good pipeline but the quality of the league isn't amazing in itself.

 

[Phame]

Gz Latvia

Austria can also be happy, because our goal was not to be relegated to the B group..

 

[BalticWarrior]

We are clearly dominating but all we have out of it is just 1 goal...thays not good. We should stop toying with Italians and get some shots on net,this is why i cant stand Beresņevs style of game,its so ineffective.

 

[Namejs]

Congratulations to Italy for making their first shot on goal halfway through the game. I was starting to wonder whether a goalie would qualify to record a SO if the opposing team hadn't managed to make a single shot on goal during the entire game.

 

[Namejs]

Seriously though, I must agree with BW here. They are passing around the perimeter and not generating nowhere near enough shots. There's no drive to the net whatsoever. It's like they think that they've already won the game.

They're going to pass themselves to an unlucky goal and it's going to be a tied game with minutes left to play. And then anything can happen.

The way we've played so far is irresponsible and unprofessional.

 

[BalticWarrior]

Seriously though, I must agree with BW here. They are passing around the perimeter and not generating nowhere near enough shots. There's no drive to the net whatsoever. It's like they think that they've already won the game.

They're going to pass themselves to an unlucky goal and it's going to be a tied game with minutes left to play. And then anything can happen.

The way we've played so far is irresponsible and unprofessional.

Exactly ,our guys should learn some humility because in the Elite division we are the italians of the group that all the big boys get to use as a punching bag

 

[BalticWarrior]

But really, we need a new coach,this is not tolerable....

 

[BalticWarrior]

Did they just seriously call us team Russia? Are you ****ing kidding me?

 

[BalticWarrior]

Finally,that took long enough..

 

[Namejs]

Exactly ,our guys should learn some humility because in the Elite division we are the italians of the group that all the big boys get to use as a punching bag

I have no idea what this means. And I'm not sure if you've actually seen any Latvian WJC games if you can say something like that.

 

[BalticWarrior]

I have no idea what this means. And I'm not sure if you've actually seen any Latvian WJC games if you can say something like that.

I was exaggerating ,obviously we can compete with teams like Denmark,Germany etc but when it comes to say Canada were screwed..

 

[BalticWarrior]

Aand thats the end of that.. this was a textbook game of team that doesnt want to play meeting a team that just cant play,well the important thing is that we are in the Elite now.

 

[Namejs]

Well obviously we can compete with teams like Denmark,Germany etc but when it comes to say Canada were screwed..

There maybe has been a single game in the history of our U20 team in the WJC that was as lopsided as this. There have been a bunch of really bad blowout losses, but even when we lost to Russia by 14 goals or the US by 10 goals, etc., we made ~30 shots on goal, generated offense and scoring chances and actually played hockey.

The Italians were absolutely helpless and impotent troughout the tournament and the comparison with Latvia is invalid.

 

[BalticWarrior]

There maybe has been a single game in the history of our U20 team in the WJC that was as lopsided as this. There have been a bunch of really bad blowout losses, but even when we lost to Russia by 14 goals or the US by 10 goals, etc., we made ~30 shots on goal, generated offense and scoring chances and actually played hockey.

The Italians were absolutely helpless and impotent throughout the tournament and the comparison with Latvia is invalid.

Look, you are completely missing the point, what im saying is - next year we will be among the underdogs like every time we play in the Elite,so we should respect any opponent even if they are clearly not on our level. Is it possible we make the quarters? Sure it is. Is it likely? Probably not.

 

[Canada4Gold]

Congrats to Latvia. Excited to see a team come up with lots of players who are still eligible to play next year

 

[BalticWarrior]

Congrats to Latvia. Excited to see a team come up with lots of players who are still eligible to play next year

And lucky for you Leafs fans,Dzierkals will also be playing.

 

[Namejs]

In any case, congrats to our team.

A well deserved 1st place after a couple of years with disappointing finishes, and I can't wait for the 2017 WJC. Might even considering going myself. Should be a good one.

 

[Canada4Gold]

And lucky for you Leafs fans,Dzierkals will also be playing.

that's an added benefit

 

[Namejs]

Look, you are completely missing the point, what im saying is - next year we will be among the underdogs like every time we play in the Elite,so we should respect any opponent even if they are clearly not on our level. Is it possible we make the quarters? Sure it is. Is it likely? Probably not.

So we should respect our opponents and not score more than 1 goal on them? I still have no idea what you're talking about.

And, no, we're not going to be Italian-level underdogs in the WJC and we're not going to lose by 10 goals to a team that finishes second to last in the tournament.