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A difference of perspective: How Europeans value Olympic medals

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Ask a German, Spaniard, Dutch, Brazilian etc.. If they are happy winning the 3rd place game at the World Cup.

Same thing applies to Canada in Hockey.

Doesn't mean they wont play as hard as they can for it, just that it won't be seen as a success.
 
Smash88 said:
Ask a German, Spaniard, Dutch, Brazilian etc.. If they are happy winning the 3rd place game at the World Cup.

Same thing applies to Canada in Hockey.

Doesn't mean they wont play as hard as they can for it, just that it won't be seen as a success.
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So after winning bronze you would celebrate on the streets like those Germans did on those youtube clips?:sarcasm: Sorry had to reply to this..
 
No....I did not say that. Just answered to someone who did not know how much the Germans liked their bronze. Kinda obvious
 
Don't Esa Tikkanen have like five Stanley Cup rings and still we were in Saturday reminded of his undying words from Nagano (?): "Medal is metal."
 
cryssarn said:
The Germans were pretty happy after their bronze in the last World Cup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKLX9HMXPpw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox5u6Yi8ZJg&list=UUyaXiYDjxq4Yep2XRn61WAA
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I can only see the first video as the other one is geo blocked..

I'd expect it would be a little bigger than that if they cared so much.. we had more fans in the streets of Ottawa last year for a round 1 playoff win versus the Habs..

Clearly the Germans would have had a heck of a lot more people out there had it been for the gold..

Some people will always care, the majority won't when your expected to win.
 
clip number two is when they get the medals, and they sure are happy.
Being sad about the semi do not mean you stop playing. You ALWAYS play to win.
 
cryssarn said:
clip number two is when they get the medals, and they sure are happy.
Being sad about the semi do not mean you stop playing. You ALWAYS play to win.
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Players will always be happy, they did win a game.

and the players should always play 100%, no question. Of course 3rd is better than 4th.

But when your expected to be 1st however, 3rd is a disappointment.
 
Ofc it is. There is a big difference with being happy for a bronze medal win and satisfied. You never see a player a player who lost the semi go "meh, I wanted bronze anyway".....But you should never see a player go "meh, I'm not playing for gold...***k this".
 
Smash88 said:
Players will always be happy, they did win a game.

and the players should always play 100%, no question. Of course 3rd is better than 4th.

But when your expected to be 1st however, 3rd is a disappointment.
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And they owe it to the fans. Even though they are not playing for the gold, many fans will still watch the game and cheer for them.

"STAMFORD, Conn. – February 23, 2014 – Finland’s 5-0 victory over Team USA in Saturday’s Olympic men’s hockey bronze medal game (10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. ET/7 a.m-9:30 a.m. PT) averaged 2.5 million viewers with a 1.6 rating/5 share on NBCSN, leading the network to its 15th consecutive daytime viewership edge over the 2012 London Games, according to live plus same day fast national data released today by The Nielsen Company.



With the Team USA-Finland game anchoring its live coverage, NBCSN averaged 2.2 million viewers from 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. ET – topping by 1 million the viewership for the comparable Saturday of the 2012 London Games (1.2 million). Viewership for the United States-Finland game peaked at 3.0 million from 11:30 a.m.-Noon ET."
 
Rentsi said:
And they owe it to the fans. Even though they are not playing for the gold, many fans will still watch the game and cheer for them.

"STAMFORD, Conn. – February 23, 2014 – Finland’s 5-0 victory over Team USA in Saturday’s Olympic men’s hockey bronze medal game (10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. ET/7 a.m-9:30 a.m. PT) averaged 2.5 million viewers with a 1.6 rating/5 share on NBCSN, leading the network to its 15th consecutive daytime viewership edge over the 2012 London Games, according to live plus same day fast national data released today by The Nielsen Company.



With the Team USA-Finland game anchoring its live coverage, NBCSN averaged 2.2 million viewers from 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. ET – topping by 1 million the viewership for the comparable Saturday of the 2012 London Games (1.2 million). Viewership for the United States-Finland game peaked at 3.0 million from 11:30 a.m.-Noon ET."
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Hilariously, it had almost as much viewers in Finland, pop. 5.4M. :)
 
Rentsi said:
And they owe it to the fans. Even though they are not playing for the gold, many fans will still watch the game and cheer for them.

"STAMFORD, Conn. – February 23, 2014 – Finland’s 5-0 victory over Team USA in Saturday’s Olympic men’s hockey bronze medal game (10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. ET/7 a.m-9:30 a.m. PT) averaged 2.5 million viewers with a 1.6 rating/5 share on NBCSN, leading the network to its 15th consecutive daytime viewership edge over the 2012 London Games, according to live plus same day fast national data released today by The Nielsen Company.



With the Team USA-Finland game anchoring its live coverage, NBCSN averaged 2.2 million viewers from 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. ET – topping by 1 million the viewership for the comparable Saturday of the 2012 London Games (1.2 million). Viewership for the United States-Finland game peaked at 3.0 million from 11:30 a.m.-Noon ET."
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Agreed.
 
Rentsi said:
U.S.-Canada semifinal averaged 3.9 million viewers.
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Right in the middle of our work day, of course (9 a.m. puck drop for the Pacific coast, 1 p.m. for the Atlantic). But those numbers probably aren't quite correct in terms of "viewers". Maybe something loosely based on "households", but some of those "households" in Canada were school gyms with hundreds of students watching a single screen or office TVs with dozens watching.
 
Some people here are being deliberately obtuse and ignorant so you can feel self-righteous. Or maybe so you don't have to feel your country's victory has been diminshed in any way.

The fact is that there's a difference between these two scenarios:

i) playing in a gold medal game where it's something you've dreamed of since you were a kid, your whole sporting life has been built toward that moment, and every fibre in your being longs to win that game and hear your national anthem played

ii) playing in a bronze medal match where your personal pride and sense of duty, sportsmanship, and fair play mean you will try your very best to honor the game and your opponent, but it is not the lifelong dream you were hoping to achieve.

Both senarios are realistic and totally admirable, but the passion and the sense of 'wanting it more' will be diminished in scenario number ii). And there's nothing wrong with that. It's called being human.
 
roto said:
This works also in other direction. Many North Americans are unable to understand that NHL is just one league to Europeans. I don't remember any young Finnish player going to NHL saying "I dream of SC". They say instead "I want to play in NHL".

They don't dream about SC, but they want to get in a NHL team, get a big role and play well. SC is just a team prize that is difficult to get, because there are 30 teams and young players must play where they're drafted to. Older guys with longer careers start to talk about winning the SC if they haven't already won it.
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Exactly. I dont expect Euros to dream of the NHL like North Americans do.

Winning bronze or silver for North Americans is like winning the conference trophy. If thats all you earned, then you failed. No North American NHLer would be proud of a silver or bronze medal. Its gold or failure.
 
Cawz said:
Exactly. I dont expect Euros to dream of the NHL like North Americans do.
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They often dream of playing in NHL, but they don't dream of winning the SC. You can be an elite player and never win SC, but you need to be good to be an elite player in NHL. Another dream is to be good enough to play in the national team, and playing in NHL is one step towards that dream.

I understand that NA people see SC as the ultimate prize in ice hockey. For Europeans it's just the trophy of NHL, where any team can win. Actually it's more difficult to win the league in many clubs in European leagues, because the teams are not equalized (no draft, no salary cap, no trading of players etc).

It's much easier for kids here to dream of game winning goals in domestic leagues, WHC or Olympics. Those goals make heroes here. Very few people even know/remember which team won SC last year, but many people remember which team won the domestic league. I guess it would be the same in NA even if NHL was weaker than KHL. Why would an average joe care about some league being played overseas?

Regarding the bronze thing. Finland and Sweden are the top countries in floorball. Getting the bronze there would be for those countries like hockey bronze for Canada. USA and Canada have also teams in floorball WC and I guess they would be happy to get the bronze, because it'd require a big overachievement.

In ice hockey, almost none of the players in Finnish team this year would've made to "top-4" teams, so even the bronze is a proof that they overachieved once again. Canada is so strong that it can't overperform resultwise, it has only something to lose. Canada is always the favorite. I bet Americans really wanted to get the bronze medals, because olympic medal is olympic medal, but Finns were better and they snapped the American necks at 3-0 in the third. Until that it was an close and entertaining game with American elite players sacrificing themselves to block shots.

It's always a bit stupid to speculate on how much did team want to win. Finland looked in SF like they didn't care, but no one has drawn the card "they didn't care because it was just SF", because it doesn't make sense. It's always so easy to draw that card if team with better material loses, but it's just an excuse. Games are being played on ice and different factors affect the outcome. Probably no one had drawn the "didn't care" card if Kane had scored on one of his penalty shots and the game had ended 2-1, for example.
 
roto said:
They often dream of playing in NHL, but they don't dream of winning the SC. You can be an elite player and never win SC, but you need to be good to be an elite player in NHL. Another dream is to be good enough to play in the national team, and playing in NHL is one step towards that dream.
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I kind of have to wonder if the North Americans see it as a complete nonsensical move by Leo Komarov that he left NHL to go play in KHL partially for to get to play bigger minutes for to ensure making it to the national team for the Olympics. For an Euro, it's not so far-fetched.
 
When you're an ultra competitive athlete, like all these guys are on both teams (USA and Finland), and there's something important on the line--that being an Olympic medal--both teams are going to try their best to win. If there was anything affecting the US, it wasn't the fact they were playing for bronze, it was the fact that they lost to their arch-rivals in Canada and also lost a chance at the gold medal at the same time. But everything being equal, both teams want it just as much.
 
Cawz said:
Exactly. I dont expect Euros to dream of the NHL like North Americans do.

Winning bronze or silver for North Americans is like winning the conference trophy. If thats all you earned, then you failed. No North American NHLer would be proud of a silver or bronze medal. Its gold or failure.
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All this posts about NA winner mentality being so special is so tiresome and complete rubbish. It's as if that's something unique to Americans and Canadians.

I have news for you, it exists everywhere, and it differs nowhere. Finnish "sisu" is a word that describes that mentality.

Travel around a bit and you will see that you are no different from other people.
 
I don't even buy into that at all. The dream is to represent your country on an international stage, and hopefully win a medal. It's not gold or nothing. :shakehead
 
modofan said:
All this posts about NA winner mentality being so special is so tiresome and complete rubbish. It's as if that's something unique to Americans and Canadians.

I have news for you, it exists everywhere, and it differs nowhere. Finnish "sisu" is a word that describes that mentality.

Travel around a bit and you will see that you are no different from other people.
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Indeed
 
In hockey the bronze medal means very little to me and I think most players over here feel the same. I love how so many posters from Europe like to tell us how we feel about the bronze, or how we should feel. It's okay not to value the same things. For example I loved the Canada Cup and World Cup tournaments but if other people didn't it is no skin off my back.
 
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