This is very much true.
I'd rather see other problems handled, such as replacing various NT tournaments with ICEHL 4th liners with youth camps (since they are apparently so expensive) and so on, finally having less spots for foreign players in ICEHL so that not only top talents and (sometimes not) talented 4th line grinders reach Pro.
This appearance is very disappointing nonetheless and should result in some changes.
Yeah, I mean some of it is up to the players. Like I've come to accept the fact that some guys would rather play 4th line in Salzburg or KAC than go to clubs where they can actually get enough playing time to develop. It's personal choice, I wish the best for them. But I'm honestly encouraged because players are starting to move to smaller clubs on their own where they will get playing time. I've become less empathetic over time I suppose because we say "too many legios" but then for those who would go to Dornbirn, Graz, Innsbruck, Villach and Linz, a top 6 position is guaranteed.
It's interesting to see, for the first time that I can remember, I'm seeing some people online who are upset about the U18 result and calling out the federation to change things. I can't remember such passion before, but I'm supportive of it. I think Roger Ohman...he picked players that he knew, and he only knew players from one region apparently. The play was hilariously undisciplined. Austrians pride themselves in the fact that our prospects bloom late. We perform better at U18 than at U16, better at U20 than U18, and...well sometimes better at the senior level than the junior level, sometimes not. But at some point this kind of result has to be unacceptable.
On the whole though, I'm much more optimistic for Austrian hockey than I've been before because we've never lacked forwards, and I still don't believe forwards are the problem, the problem we've always had is that our defensemen are terrible. In my opinion, defensemen are more important than forwards. Vanek and Grabner, guys like Thomas Raffl and Thomas Koch retire, guys like Marco Rossi, Marco Kasper, Dominic Zwerger, Benny Baumgartner rise up. The quality of the forwards hasn't really changed. But defensively it's so encouraging to see David Maier's career finally take off, and Julian Payr return to play from debilitating injury, Thimo Nickl, Tobias Sablattnig's unexpected rise, Kilian Zundel to the NL, Lukas Horl getting a shot in Salzburg, David Reinbacher, Thomas Klassek, etc. For years our defensemen were like...Dominique Heinrich, Alexander Pallestrang, Martin Schumnig, maybe Stefan Ulmer when he was healthy. Any expectations that we would keep the puck out of the net were entirely unrealistic. So things are moving in the right direction.
