WC: 2022 Women's World Championships

[HubFlyer]

Delete

 

[ORRFForever]

Finland’s 1C Susanna Tapani was absent against USA due to personal reasons. Turned out those personal reasons were her friend’s wedding. Hard to take women’s hockey seriously when they themselves care so little.

I'm always looking for excuses to get out of going to weddings - I'd rather have a root canal. Having to play at the World Hockey Championship seems like the perfect "out".

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

Yawn. Wake me up for the inevitable CAN-USA gold medal clash.

It's a shame other hockey nations haven't caught up to the 2 juggernauts, but in the meantime theirs is one of the fiercest below-the-radar rivalries in sport.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

Still confused about these divisions.

"A" consists of the 4 strongest teams (2 if we're being honest), plus the sacrificial lamb Japan. The rationale is that Canada/USA play at least 1 game that is truly competitive, i.e. against each other, and the other "A" division games, apart from the poor Nippon team, are only convincing victories, instead of savage beatdowns for the 2 heavyweights.

Then the quarterfinals have Canada/USA thoroughly destroying the unfortunate 3rd/4th place finishers from "B", the semis have them beating the "A" teams they already vanquished, and we finally move on to the inevitable showdown between them for gold.

Assuming I have the format, and the puzzling, at least to me, logic behind it, correct, I don't see how this benefits women's hockey. What am I missing?

 

[Gigantor The Goalie]

Still confused about these divisions.

"A" consists of the 4 strongest teams (2 if we're being honest), plus the sacrificial lamb Japan. The rationale is that Canada/USA play at least 1 game that is truly competitive, i.e. against each other, and the other "A" division games, apart from the poor Nippon team, are only convincing victories, instead of savage beatdowns for the 2 heavyweights.

Then the quarterfinals have Canada/USA thoroughly destroying the unfortunate 3rd/4th place finishers from "B", the semis have them beating the "A" teams they already vanquished, and we finally move on to the inevitable showdown between them for gold.

Assuming I have the format, and the puzzling, at least to me, logic behind it, correct, I don't see how this benefits women's hockey. What am I missing?

It gives Pool B teams a chance to play competitive games because even those Pool B teams going up against a team like Finland (sans the Czechs) is still likely a win for the Pool A team. Just look at what happened to Germany in 2018 when they made the Bronze medal game. It allows the Pool B teams to not be Latvia'd or Slovakia'd or whoever is the recently promoted team in the WJC's where they just get crushed for every game except for maybe once. Goal is to allow those teams to play mostly competitive games to let them develop more. Keeps the blowouts down in Pool A as well. Finland usually plays close games with the US/Canada. Sometimes there's a blowout but that happens in the men's game too. It also helps to sharpen the best 4/5 teams in the game as they're always playing the best teams until the QF's.

Yawn. Wake me up for the inevitable CAN-USA gold medal clash.

It's a shame other hockey nations haven't caught up to the 2 juggernauts, but in the meantime theirs is one of the fiercest below-the-radar rivalries in sport.

It's a shame how we have to hear this same tired narrative year after year. This is the 21st women's worlds. Canada has won 11 Gold, the USA 9. At this point in time in the men's worlds Canada had won 15 Gold but wait there's more. They didn't participate in two tournaments (47/53), in '36 Great Britain won but that team was just another Canadian team. The only time Canada lost at the men's worlds (to a team that wasn't just another Canadian team) was in '33 to the USA & '49 to the Czech's. We're benefitting from over a hundred years of progress in the men's game, the women's game has had 30 years. We might have had a strong top 4 in the women's worlds but Sweden's federation tanked the program harder than Arizona or Buffalo tanks. Now though we have the Czech's on the rise with a young team and a solid youth program behind them, Finland is just continually improving, & if the Swiss can surround Mueller with any talent it'll be interesting.

There's lot of great narratives around the tournament but everyone is just so focused on Canada/USA they decide to shun everyone else. And where's the calls for parity in the men's game? Canada has won 3/5 Gold's when the best men's players are at the Olympics (5/7 if we count the two most recent World Cups). WJC Gold in the past 10 years has only been won by three teams. The men's game really isn't that much further ahead and they've had a +70 year head start plus all the funding/opportunities that women have little to no chance of seeing.

 

[Czechboy]

Still confused about these divisions.

"A" consists of the 4 strongest teams (2 if we're being honest), plus the sacrificial lamb Japan. The rationale is that Canada/USA play at least 1 game that is truly competitive, i.e. against each other, and the other "A" division games, apart from the poor Nippon team, are only convincing victories, instead of savage beatdowns for the 2 heavyweights.

Then the quarterfinals have Canada/USA thoroughly destroying the unfortunate 3rd/4th place finishers from "B", the semis have them beating the "A" teams they already vanquished, and we finally move on to the inevitable showdown between them for gold.

Assuming I have the format, and the puzzling, at least to me, logic behind it, correct, I don't see how this benefits women's hockey. What am I missing?

I think Japan earned that spot in Pool A.

Other than that, agree with all of it.

The point was to eliminate blowouts but they didn't do that. I think the one extra US/Canada game is a draw and they want that.

Even more maddening is trying to get out of Pool A and into Pool B! You hope to finish Pool B first to avoid Canada/US and hope you can beat Finland/Switzerland... if you lose, back to Pool B.lol

 

[Czechboy]

It gives Pool B teams a chance to play competitive games because even those Pool B teams going up against a team like Finland (sans the Czechs) is still likely a win for the Pool A team. Just look at what happened to Germany in 2018 when they made the Bronze medal game. It allows the Pool B teams to not be Latvia'd or Slovakia'd or whoever is the recently promoted team in the WJC's where they just get crushed for every game except for maybe once. Goal is to allow those teams to play mostly competitive games to let them develop more. Keeps the blowouts down in Pool A as well. Finland usually plays close games with the US/Canada. Sometimes there's a blowout but that happens in the men's game too. It also helps to sharpen the best 4/5 teams in the game as they're always playing the best teams until the QF's.



It's a shame how we have to hear this same tired narrative year after year. This is the 21st women's worlds. Canada has won 11 Gold, the USA 9. At this point in time in the men's worlds Canada had won 15 Gold but wait there's more. They didn't participate in two tournaments (47/53), in '36 Great Britain won but that team was just another Canadian team. The only time Canada lost at the men's worlds (to a team that wasn't just another Canadian team) was in '33 to the USA & '49 to the Czech's. We're benefitting from over a hundred years of progress in the men's game, the women's game has had 30 years. We might have had a strong top 4 in the women's worlds but Sweden's federation tanked the program harder than Arizona or Buffalo tanks. Now though we have the Czech's on the rise with a young team and a solid youth program behind them, Finland is just continually improving, & if the Swiss can surround Mueller with any talent it'll be interesting.

There's lot of great narratives around the tournament but everyone is just so focused on Canada/USA they decide to shun everyone else. And where's the calls for parity in the men's game? Canada has won 3/5 Gold's when the best men's players are at the Olympics (5/7 if we count the two most recent World Cups). WJC Gold in the past 10 years has only been won by three teams. The men's game really isn't that much further ahead and they've had a +70 year head start plus all the funding/opportunities that women have little to no chance of seeing.

That was a great post. That's all.

 

[JackSlater]

It gives Pool B teams a chance to play competitive games because even those Pool B teams going up against a team like Finland (sans the Czechs) is still likely a win for the Pool A team. Just look at what happened to Germany in 2018 when they made the Bronze medal game. It allows the Pool B teams to not be Latvia'd or Slovakia'd or whoever is the recently promoted team in the WJC's where they just get crushed for every game except for maybe once. Goal is to allow those teams to play mostly competitive games to let them develop more. Keeps the blowouts down in Pool A as well. Finland usually plays close games with the US/Canada. Sometimes there's a blowout but that happens in the men's game too. It also helps to sharpen the best 4/5 teams in the game as they're always playing the best teams until the QF's.



It's a shame how we have to hear this same tired narrative year after year. This is the 21st women's worlds. Canada has won 11 Gold, the USA 9. At this point in time in the men's worlds Canada had won 15 Gold but wait there's more. They didn't participate in two tournaments (47/53), in '36 Great Britain won but that team was just another Canadian team. The only time Canada lost at the men's worlds (to a team that wasn't just another Canadian team) was in '33 to the USA & '49 to the Czech's. We're benefitting from over a hundred years of progress in the men's game, the women's game has had 30 years. We might have had a strong top 4 in the women's worlds but Sweden's federation tanked the program harder than Arizona or Buffalo tanks. Now though we have the Czech's on the rise with a young team and a solid youth program behind them, Finland is just continually improving, & if the Swiss can surround Mueller with any talent it'll be interesting.

There's lot of great narratives around the tournament but everyone is just so focused on Canada/USA they decide to shun everyone else. And where's the calls for parity in the men's game? Canada has won 3/5 Gold's when the best men's players are at the Olympics (5/7 if we count the two most recent World Cups). WJC Gold in the past 10 years has only been won by three teams. The men's game really isn't that much further ahead and they've had a +70 year head start plus all the funding/opportunities that women have little to no chance of seeing.

Yeah, men's hockey was probably between 85-95 years old before any team had a chance of not being blown out by the best of just one country. Women's hockey has two fairly evenly matched teams and at least one team that can face them and not expect to be blown out. It would be better if the hockey were more competitive but it's something that will inevitably take time.

I can understand not being interested in it but this is also a reasonable growth timeline for a sport played at a high level by few countries and that requires a lot of infrastructure to succeed in.

 

[Gigantor The Goalie]

Yeah, men's hockey was probably between 85-95 years old before any team had a chance of not being blown out by the best of just one country. Women's hockey has two fairly evenly matched teams and at least one team that can face them and not expect to be blown out. It would be better if the hockey were more competitive but it's something that will inevitably take time.

I can understand not being interested in it but this is also a reasonable growth timeline for a sport played at a high level by few countries and that requires a lot of infrastructure to succeed in.

Yeah I'm fine with people not wanting to watch. I don't watch f1 or soccer but I'm also not going to go out of my way to disparage either sport. It's easy for fans of the men's game to sit back now & enjoy the labour of ~100 years that came before this. Expecting the women's game to catch up in less than half that time is ridiculous. It's hard to compete with the best hockey nations on either side. It feels like any "Canada v USA is the only worthwhile hockey" take is just missing the forest for the trees. A whole lot of missing context and understanding of timeframes.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

Yeah I'm fine with people not wanting to watch. I don't watch f1 or soccer but I'm also not going to go out of my way to disparage either sport. It's easy for fans of the men's game to sit back now & enjoy the labour of ~100 years that came before this. Expecting the women's game to catch up in less than half that time is ridiculous. It's hard to compete with the best hockey nations on either side. It feels like any "Canada v USA is the only worthwhile hockey" take is just missing the forest for the trees. A whole lot of missing context and understanding of timeframes.

I'm a fan. I always watch the Canada-USA women's gold medal game, because it's *compelling hockey*.

Expecting hockey fans to take interest in the games of lesser teams because they haven't had sufficient time to develop and they might be competitive with Canada and the USA in a number of years or decades is hopelessly unrealistic.

I wish it was otherwise. I wish we had a much wider range of truly competitive men's and WJC teams too.

On the women's side, however, the gap between the duopoly and the field is enormous. A 3rd nation winning Olympic or world gold would be a Miracle on Ice level achievement (yes, Finland narrowly missed in 2019). That's not disparagement. It's a sad fact.

 

[Gigantor The Goalie]

I'm a fan. I always watch the Canada-USA women's gold medal game, because it's *compelling hockey*.

Expecting hockey fans to take interest in the games of lesser teams because they haven't had sufficient time to develop and they might be competitive with Canada and the USA in a number of years or decades is hopelessly unrealistic.

I wish it was otherwise. I wish we had a much wider range of truly competitive men's and WJC teams too.

On the women's side, however, the gap between the duopoly and the field is enormous. A 3rd nation winning Olympic or world gold would be a Miracle on Ice level achievement (yes, Finland narrowly missed in 2019). That's not disparagement. It's a sad fact.

It's somewhat amusing listening to someone say the "lesser hockey" on the women's side isn't compelling or noteworthy yet watches/follows the Sabres on a regular basis. Surely you see the point here. No one is forcing you to watch anything, watch what you want to watch but don't go around accusing other teams of being pointless to watch. Maybe it is for you but who cares. What's important is the bigger picture just like it is for the Sabres. The bigger picture is in the women's game it's getting noticeably better after multiple federations (Sweden/China specifically) tried to tank their women's program. If that's not for you fine, just don't comment on something you don't know what you're taking about & bring nothing more than the same old complaints with no context to them.

Once again you're ignoring how long it took to get that Miracle on Ice moment. It was 14 Olympic games in. The women's game has had 7. If you don't want to sit back and enjoy watching teams develop/grow fine. Just watch the Canada/USA games. Don't pretend they're pointless though because we have the men's hockey we do now because they went through those growing pains. It has to happen. The Chinese men's team couldn't even pull off anything remotely in-house developmental despite throwing so much money at the problem. Is it a sad fact that the Sabres/majority of the men's hockey world can't wave a magic wand and be competitive immediately?

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

It's somewhat amusing listening to someone say the "lesser hockey" on the women's side isn't compelling or noteworthy yet watches/follows the Sabres on a regular basis. Surely you see the point here. No one is forcing you to watch anything, watch what you want to watch but don't go around accusing other teams of being pointless to watch. Maybe it is for you but who cares. What's important is the bigger picture just like it is for the Sabres. The bigger picture is in the women's game it's getting noticeably better after multiple federations (Sweden/China specifically) tried to tank their women's program. If that's not for you fine, just don't comment on something you don't know what you're taking about & bring nothing more than the same old complaints with no context to them.

Once again you're ignoring how long it took to get that Miracle on Ice moment. It was 14 Olympic games in. The women's game has had 7. If you don't want to sit back and enjoy watching teams develop/grow fine. Just watch the Canada/USA games. Don't pretend they're pointless though because we have the men's hockey we do now because they went through those growing pains. It has to happen. The Chinese men's team couldn't even pull off anything remotely in-house developmental despite throwing so much money at the problem. Is it a sad fact that the Sabres/majority of the men's hockey world can't wave a magic wand and be competitive immediately?

You actually played the "your team is crap" card. Ffs. What an infantile argument.

 

[Czechboy]

Finally see my Czech ladies...

5-0 over Germany and shots are 23-4... they pulled their starter for 3rd period to rest up against Sweden.

6-0 now.

Lots of blowouts in both pools. I think we are at a balance of 16-2 for tourney so far and good chance we are not even close to a medal.

 

[Czechboy]

Well, bring on Sweden tomorrow... like that we rested the starter in third period. Carla has us very well structured and the girls have a nice energy. 18 goals for and 2 against is pretty good.

All of this to have to beat Sweden and then, most likely, Finland for the honor of a whipping from US/Can and a potential Bronze match against the Swiss. That is the best case scenario.lol To get a bronze we have to beat every nation from 3 to 8.lol

 

[WRC]

Then the quarterfinals have Canada/USA thoroughly destroying the unfortunate 3rd/4th place finishers from "B"

This isn't the format.

All 5 teams from group A make the QFs. Top 3 from group B as well. The top 2 teams from A play the 2nd and 3rd from B.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

This isn't the format.

All 5 teams from group A make the QFs. Top 3 from group B as well. The top 2 teams from A play the 2nd and 3rd from B.

Thanks.

 

[Jukurit]

Seems like Susanna Tapani leaving for a friend's wedding in the middle of a tournament has caused some controversy in Finland. Former players are heavily criticising it. People seem to think this make Finnish women's hockey seem amateurish.

 

[jj cale]

Seems like Susanna Tapani leaving for a friend's wedding in the middle of a tournament has caused some controversy in Finland. Former players are heavily criticising it. People seem to think this make Finnish women's hockey seem amateurish.

In a hockey first country like Finland, expect heat with a move like that.

Can't wait to see what goes down if they fail to win in the next best on best considering the recent international success, it won't be pretty given the expectations. They are the team with the second most amount of pressure after Canada.

It's a different boat to exist in trust me, enjoy.

 

[Gigantor The Goalie]

You actually played the "your team is crap" card. Ffs. What an infantile argument.

Way to miss the point by miles. This is what you're doing, ragging on the lower teams at the Women's Worlds for being pointless to watch & as soon as it's turned around you have no proper response. The point is there's lots of reasons to watch the "bad" teams & as NHL fans we do it all the time for our own team because we believe it'll lead to something. There's a point to watching Japan, Czechia, Germany, Switzerland, etc. just like there's a point to watching the Sabres. You understand why people find reasons to continually watch the Coyotes, Sabres, Red WIngs, etc and don't lambast them, why are you doing the same here?

 

[TribalPhoenix]

Way to miss the point by miles. This is what you're doing, ragging on the lower teams at the Women's Worlds for being pointless to watch & as soon as it's turned around you have no proper response. The point is there's lots of reasons to watch the "bad" teams & as NHL fans we do it all the time for our own team because we believe it'll lead to something. There's a point to watching Japan, Czechia, Germany, Switzerland, etc. just like there's a point to watching the Sabres. You understand why people find reasons to continually watch the Coyotes, Sabres, Red WIngs, etc and don't lambast them, why are you doing the same here?

I think the primary issue is when the Sabres, Coyotes, Red Wings play, you know there is a chance of an upset because the difference in margin of talent isn't even remotely the same.

Watching Canada/USA play a team like Hungary of Japan is a guaranteed dummy job. Consequently, there is absolutely no drama, and nothing compelling about it.

That's terrible for everyone except the 23 women on each of the Canada and USA rosters.

Women's hockey becomes pointless outside of the finals game, and when you've seen the two teams play each other that often, it's the same thing as watching the Leafs and the Sabres play 3 times in 10 days. It's not a true tournament at the end of the day.

I realized this when I worked at the 2016 U18 Women's Tournament in St. Catharines. Watching teams like France and Switzerland get trotted out against the US and Canada was painful to watch. While the teams doing the dummying are all giddy, the teams who aren't are pretty beaten down - and when that's 75% of the teams, that's not good for growing the sport.

That's why it irks me with the outrage from when the tournament was cancelled, and it was all about "letting little girls see others chase their dreams and be them one day"... but the dream is, in reality, the chance to go beat up on other women who don't get the same dedication, funding, resources, etc. It's like a UFC fighter who walks into a small town MMA promotion and fight the champion, and say they're "just chasing a dream like everyone else."

I'm all for women's sport growing, but the message needs to be making sure the product is viable and entertaining. That means pushing for more funding and resources for OTHER countries, so every tournament isn't a rerun of the same two teams crushing everyone en route to another ho-hum final.

One more note; the sport consumer has a finite number of hours not just for sport, but entertainment in general. So am I going to watch Canada ring up Japan 9-0, or am I going to watch NFL Preseason for my Fantasy Pool, or maybe an episode of House of The Dragon? Ultimately, the product has to separate itself as a non-substitutable option - we watch the NHL because a hockey fan can't get better. The NFL has a saying: "Any Given Sunday", and it smacks true.

Until that happens, I'm sad to say it's always going to be bush league.

 

[Gigantor The Goalie]

In a hockey first country like Finland, expect heat with a move like that.

Can't wait to see what goes down if they fail to win in the next best on best considering the recent international success, it won't be pretty given the expectations. They are the team with the second most amount of pressure after Canada.

It's a different boat to exist in trust me, enjoy.

None of the Finnish staff or players will admit it but they have to be very concerned about the quarter final match up looming between them and Czechia. Finland wants a shot at Gold but the idea of having to go through a Czech team that nearly upset the US at the Olympics, in '21 lost only 1-0 to Finland in the Quarters and is straight up dominating Pool B even more than they did in '21 has to be worrying. That will be the Quarter's game to watch, Finland fighting for a chance to upset one of the giants and Czechia trying to make their way into the top pool.

 

[Nate070]

None of the Finnish staff or players will admit it but they have to be very concerned about the quarter final match up looming between them and Czechia. Finland wants a shot at Gold but the idea of having to go through a Czech team that nearly upset the US at the Olympics, in '21 lost only 1-0 to Finland in the Quarters and is straight up dominating Pool B even more than they did in '21 has to be worrying. That will be the Quarter's game to watch, Finland fighting for a chance to upset one of the giants and Czechia trying to make their way into the top pool.

If Finland plays Czechia in the quarterfinal I think they will lose...

 

[Czechboy]

If Finland plays Czechia in the quarterfinal I think they will lose...

It's be a very close match IMO

Problem is that if we lose we stay in B pool and we never have an opportunity to beat the Swiss or Japan. We have to beat the Finn's to get a crack at 4 or 5 spot in A pool.

Note: I'm not saying we would beat Japan or Swiss but I'd like a chance to find out

 

[Czechboy]

Swedes were better in first to my eye.

0-0

Swedes need to win in regulation to avoid Canada and US. Czechs just need a point. Winner gets Finn's or Swiss and loser gets Canada or US.

Getting out of pool B is like the Shawshank Redemption because you never get to play the 4 and 5 seeds. You have to beat 1,2 or 3 seed.

 

[Czechboy]

I'd also like to thank Czech TV for showing every highlight from the world jrs. I had to miss that tourney as I was travelling. It was cool to see all the games in order and all the goals. Bednar had a really bad tournament. Mysak was everywhere! Sapo is always in the right spot.