As of 2023, International hockey is dead

[Stephen]

Finland has collapsing demographics. Immigrants from middle class background like Matias Maccelli, Adam Lambert, John Gibson etc are the ones interested in hockey. They have seen McDavid lighting up the NHL and think it's cool. African immigrants in Finland are not interested in hockey. They play soccer instead. They are kinda lean guys as well. You gotta be something like 190cm / 100kg to succeed. Komarov and Barkov have Russian background. Probably much more.

John Gibson isn't from Finland. You're thinking of Christopher Gibson, who also happens to be of partial Caribbean descent.

European based players like Oliver Kylington, Johnny Oduya, Mark Owuya, Mika Zibanejad, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Lucas Raymond making it to the NHL would suggest there is some multicultural and immigrant growth in the sport, just like here in Canada.

 

[WayTooCold]

John Gibson isn't from Finland. You're thinking of Christopher Gibson, who also happens to be of partial Caribbean descent.

European based players like Oliver Kylington, Johnny Oduya, Mark Owuya, Mika Zibanejad, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Lucas Raymond making it to the NHL would suggest there is some multicultural and immigrant growth in the sport, just like here in Canada.

Yes, I always mess John and Christopher Gibson. Messi's Miami Inter's first goal was scored by Robert Taylor. Finn apparently. Hard to follow as Finland gives away passports like candy. Isn't Fedotov dual citizen as well? I doubt there's much immigrant growth in hockey. At least in Finland as it takes quite wealthy and motivated parents to put their kids on skates. While basketball and soccer you can just dump and forget your brats there.

 

[jj cale]

McDavid captaining Team Canada at the World Championships it was the same story as with the Oilers, he put up a ton of points on his own and the team finished solid 4th after losing to Switzerland.

He also won gold at the world championships as a rookie player and scored a huge goal in the gmg.

Best for us all to have Complete information.

 

[Albatros]

He also won gold at the world championships as a rookie player and scored a huge goal in the gmg.

Best for us all to have Complete information.

...his only goal in the tournament as well, Canada's leading scorer was the great Derick Brassard. Well done nonetheless, but it's not like he's ever been destroying international hockey. The only time he was the leading scorer was at U18 World Juniors in 2013.

 

[jj cale]

...his only goal in the tournament as well, Canada's leading scorer was the great Derick Brassard. Well done nonetheless, but it's not like he's ever been destroying international hockey. The only time he was the leading scorer was at U18 World Juniors in 2013.

It was a big goal, the point is is it's not like he hasn't won anything in international hockey is it? whc, wjc, under `18's , he's won all those and being as he plays for Canada his chances of winning a best on best senior sometime in the future look pretty good, it's not as if he will be captaining a bunch of scrubs in the future with Canada as I am sure you are well aware.

You were making a post implying he is not a winner but the example you give is of a tournament he had already won as a teenager. speaking of being a teenager you also state he was outscored by Derrick Brassard, a seasoned pro outscoring an 18 year old kid.......who woulda thunk?

If you were looking to convince anyone of Mcdavid not being a winner or not all he is cracked up to be you sure picked a bad example.

 

[Albatros]

It was a big goal, the point is is it's not like he hasn't won anything in international hockey is it? whc, wjc, under `18's , he's won all those and being as he plays for Canada his chances of winning a best on best senior sometime in the future look pretty good, it's not as if he will be captaining a bunch of scrubs in the future with Canada as I am sure you are well aware.

You were making a post implying he is not a winner but the example you give is of a tournament he had already won as a teenager. speaking of being a teenager you also state he was outscored by Derrick Brassard, a seasoned pro outscoring an 18 year old kid.......who woulda thunk?

If you were looking to convince anyone of Mcdavid not being a winner or not all he is cracked up to be you sure picked a bad example.

I just responded to a post that indicated McDavid is kept away from international hockey because he (now together with Bedard) would destroy it. He's played at 7 international tournaments, including 4 junior and 3 senior. Tournament top scorer once in juniors. In seniors top 10 once (3rd). He did win three tournaments with Canada, but when he was the captain and top scorer they didn't even get a medal. It's very much the same story as with Edmonton.

 

[jj cale]

I just responded to a post that indicated McDavid is kept away from international hockey because he (now together with Bedard) would destroy it. He's played at 7 international tournaments, including 4 junior and 3 senior. Tournament top scorer once in juniors. In seniors top 10 once (3rd). He did win three tournaments with Canada, but when he was the captain and top scorer they didn't even get a medal. It's very much the same story as with Edmonton.

He won't be backed up by the likes of Yamamoto and Foegele on Team Canada in a senior best on best in the future............nor Derrick Brassard for that matter.


Best to keep that in mind.

 

[WayTooCold]

...his only goal in the tournament as well, Canada's leading scorer was the great Derick Brassard. Well done nonetheless, but it's not like he's ever been destroying international hockey. The only time he was the leading scorer was at U18 World Juniors in 2013.

And what a goal it was. Gold medal winning goal against Finland. It was the 10th silver for Finland.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Bring back team europe!

 

[sdf]

Nhl at gimmick world cup:

 

[Vikz]

So, since I am currently watching the FIBA basketball world cup, I could not stop comparing it to the (much criticized) IIHF championship and decided to revive this thread.

Im not a basketball guy enough to compare the quality of players, who came to both events. However, as I know, a lot of NBA guys are not there, whether due to injuries, reabilitation, contract problems, conflicts etc. So we can just conclude that both tournaments suffer from lack of players. If anyone bothers to give better insights in to the ammount of participating stars comparing to the IIHF tournament, you are welcome to do so.

The game attendance looks slightly in favor of FIBA - 7 420 per game vs 6 909 per game in IIHF (data from wiki). Plus, the medal games are still ahead in FIBA, so the average will rise a little bit. But only a little, since the overal game amount of FIBA is so big, that even fully packed arenas will have little impact on the final average.

What are the differences between tournaments that will give edge to one or the other in this discussion and exuse the lack of spectators on the stands.

1. Geography. Riga and Tampere are far more accessible to hockey fans worldwide than Tokyo, Manila and Jakarta. Plus, Riga and Tampere are close enough for fans to visit both cities once their team advances to the playoffs.
2. Overall popularity of sport. As much as we all love hockey here, only few will argue with the fact that basketball is the second most popular sport in the world. Sure, like with hockey, basketball is the most popular sport in only few countries, but it is played worldwide, and is the second sport in most countries after football.
3. Amount of participating teams. While FIBA having 32 teams from all over the world will certainly help the scale of the tournament, having a lot of small-ish countries hurts the overall attendance - how many fans from Cape Verde or Dominical Republican can actually improve their teams attendance in Tokyo?
4. Tournament frequency. FIBA world cup is only hosted once in 4 years, which should deffinitely raise interest to any specific tournament, with fans being able to prepare in advance and not just decide "eh, I dont make it this year, Ill just go the next one".
5. Political reasons. Russia and Belarus are expelled from both events, but quality of only one of them is harmed by that fact.

To conclude, I concider that currently, international hockey is doing really well when compared to the second most popular sport in the world. Generating similar interest, while
a) being a less popular sport with much fewer fans;
b) being a yearly event, which makes it less of an occasion and allowing less time to prepare for it;
c) having 2 major powers not participating.

The only thing that excuses the poor attendance of FIBA is having it far away in Asia. But there surely was a reason why the decided to do it over there, and they failed.

If your merit of success for international tournament is football, then yeah, hockey fails. But it might be the second most popular international team sports event, unless curling or something like that is having an incredible run that I dont know about.

 

[jcbio11]

So, since I am currently watching the FIBA basketball world cup, I could not stop comparing it to the (much criticized) IIHF championship and decided to revive this thread.

Im not a basketball guy enough to compare the quality of players, who came to both events. However, as I know, a lot of NBA guys are not there, whether due to injuries, reabilitation, contract problems, conflicts etc. So we can just conclude that both tournaments suffer from lack of players. If anyone bothers to give better insights in to the ammount of participating stars comparing to the IIHF tournament, you are welcome to do so.

The game attendance looks slightly in favor of FIBA - 7 420 per game vs 6 909 per game in IIHF (data from wiki). Plus, the medal games are still ahead in FIBA, so the average will rise a little bit. But only a little, since the overal game amount of FIBA is so big, that even fully packed arenas will have little impact on the final average.

What are the differences between tournaments that will give edge to one or the other in this discussion and exuse the lack of spectators on the stands.

1. Geography. Riga and Tampere are far more accessible to hockey fans worldwide than Tokyo, Manila and Jakarta. Plus, Riga and Tampere are close enough for fans to visit both cities once their team advances to the playoffs.
2. Overall popularity of sport. As much as we all love hockey here, only few will argue with the fact that basketball is the second most popular sport in the world. Sure, like with hockey, basketball is the most popular sport in only few countries, but it is played worldwide, and is the second sport in most countries after football.
3. Amount of participating teams. While FIBA having 32 teams from all over the world will certainly help the scale of the tournament, having a lot of small-ish countries hurts the overall attendance - how many fans from Cape Verde or Dominical Republican can actually improve their teams attendance in Tokyo?
4. Tournament frequency. FIBA world cup is only hosted once in 4 years, which should deffinitely raise interest to any specific tournament, with fans being able to prepare in advance and not just decide "eh, I dont make it this year, Ill just go the next one".
5. Political reasons. Russia and Belarus are expelled from both events, but quality of only one of them is harmed by that fact.

To conclude, I concider that currently, international hockey is doing really well when compared to the second most popular sport in the world. Generating similar interest, while
a) being a less popular sport with much fewer fans;
b) being a yearly event, which makes it less of an occasion and allowing less time to prepare for it;
c) having 2 major powers not participating.

The only thing that excuses the poor attendance of FIBA is having it far away in Asia. But there surely was a reason why the decided to do it over there, and they failed.

If your merit of success for international tournament is football, then yeah, hockey fails. But it might be the second most popular international team sports event, unless curling or something like that is having an incredible run that I dont know about.

Good post and a good summary. Overall I agree with your take.

Only one note, I don't believe missing Belarus in hockey is a factor. Their fans were never known to travel in large numbers (obvious economical and geopolitical reasons) and they were mostly a pushover the last few years before they got kicked out because of Russia's invasion. They're not Russia quality wise, not even close, having them out and somebody like Austria in does not hurt the tourney.

 

[jcbio11]

Yeah there's no pride in qualifying to Euro soccer when 32 teams make it. Medal or bust. The last Euro soccer Finland managed to produce 1 single shot at goal in 3 games! What a joke.

There's no hockey gene in Finns that Croatians are lacking. It's all about bad cold weather. Finland had at some point 1 gold medal ( Swedish coach ) and 10 silvers. W/o Sweden donating gold in 2011. I don't think Finland would have won 3 skoda cups anyway.

And by the way the Granlund's swoop game winning goal against Russia in semifinal was illegal by the rules. You can't carry a puck with equipment. I could just put some super glue on my stick and carry the puck to the net.

Disagree. Europe is so stacked at soccer that it can easily have a 32 team EURO be very competitive.

 

[jcbio11]

This is valid. There's a significant Latino middle class in the US. It's growing exponentially.
I'm talking 1st and 2nd generation Latino-Americans kids paticularly in Texas, California, Arizona.
Unlike the thier economically equivalent white counterparts in these states, hockey isn't catching on with the Latino population nearly to the same degree.

Sure. It's just that the US is so stupidly large (population wise and especially compared to other traditional hockey countries, Canada, Slovakia, Czechia, Sweden, Finland) that something like this doesn't really hurt their hockey program. I mean they only really need to rely on the couple of states which are hockey hotbeds (Minnesotta, Wisconsin etc.) and have hockey be just a little more popular in the populous states like Cali or Texas and they're golden.

At this point their ascension to the world soccer scene is also inevitable. They're not quite there yet, but once all the factors are present, they will start to dominate. Hard to say when exactly this will be though.

 

[Albatros]

So, since I am currently watching the FIBA basketball world cup, I could not stop comparing it to the (much criticized) IIHF championship and decided to revive this thread.

Im not a basketball guy enough to compare the quality of players, who came to both events. However, as I know, a lot of NBA guys are not there, whether due to injuries, reabilitation, contract problems, conflicts etc. So we can just conclude that both tournaments suffer from lack of players. If anyone bothers to give better insights in to the ammount of participating stars comparing to the IIHF tournament, you are welcome to do so.

The game attendance looks slightly in favor of FIBA - 7 420 per game vs 6 909 per game in IIHF (data from wiki). Plus, the medal games are still ahead in FIBA, so the average will rise a little bit. But only a little, since the overal game amount of FIBA is so big, that even fully packed arenas will have little impact on the final average.

What are the differences between tournaments that will give edge to one or the other in this discussion and exuse the lack of spectators on the stands.

1. Geography. Riga and Tampere are far more accessible to hockey fans worldwide than Tokyo, Manila and Jakarta. Plus, Riga and Tampere are close enough for fans to visit both cities once their team advances to the playoffs.
2. Overall popularity of sport. As much as we all love hockey here, only few will argue with the fact that basketball is the second most popular sport in the world. Sure, like with hockey, basketball is the most popular sport in only few countries, but it is played worldwide, and is the second sport in most countries after football.
3. Amount of participating teams. While FIBA having 32 teams from all over the world will certainly help the scale of the tournament, having a lot of small-ish countries hurts the overall attendance - how many fans from Cape Verde or Dominical Republican can actually improve their teams attendance in Tokyo?
4. Tournament frequency. FIBA world cup is only hosted once in 4 years, which should deffinitely raise interest to any specific tournament, with fans being able to prepare in advance and not just decide "eh, I dont make it this year, Ill just go the next one".
5. Political reasons. Russia and Belarus are expelled from both events, but quality of only one of them is harmed by that fact.

To conclude, I concider that currently, international hockey is doing really well when compared to the second most popular sport in the world. Generating similar interest, while
a) being a less popular sport with much fewer fans;
b) being a yearly event, which makes it less of an occasion and allowing less time to prepare for it;
c) having 2 major powers not participating.

The only thing that excuses the poor attendance of FIBA is having it far away in Asia. But there surely was a reason why the decided to do it over there, and they failed.

If your merit of success for international tournament is football, then yeah, hockey fails. But it might be the second most popular international team sports event, unless curling or something like that is having an incredible run that I dont know about.

The games are in Okinawa, not Tokyo.

 

[NyQuil]

Disagree. Europe is so stacked at soccer that it can easily have a 32 team EURO be very competitive.

It does make the qualification process kind of pointless though.

 

[coolboarder]

My opinion is change the calendar and hockey does not need to be a winter sport only. It can be a summer sport inside an arena. If outdoor hockey is being played in California with a 75 degree weather, I do not see why couldn't they host an arena made for ice hockey in the middle of summer? If they do allow to change from winter Olympic sport to summer, NHL will be essential in off-season and there is no concern of them participating in the Olympics. Just my 2 cents.

 

[ijuka]

My opinion is change the calendar and hockey does not need to be a winter sport only. It can be a summer sport inside an arena. If outdoor hockey is being played in California with a 75 degree weather, I do not see why couldn't they host an arena made for ice hockey in the middle of summer? If they do allow to change from winter Olympic sport to summer, NHL will be essential in off-season and there is no concern of them participating in the Olympics. Just my 2 cents.

Watching a winter sport in the summer is pretty stupid. I'd rather watch summer sports in the summer. Hockey season should be from September until April.

 

[coolboarder]

Watching a winter sport in the summer is pretty stupid. I'd rather watch summer sports in the summer. Hockey season should be from September until April.

While I agree with you, you can pretty much make any ice in the summer and quality would be still there. If you want to see NHL players play, do it in the off-season.

 

[Garl]

John Gibson isn't from Finland. You're thinking of Christopher Gibson, who also happens to be of partial Caribbean descent.

European based players like Oliver Kylington, Johnny Oduya, Mark Owuya, Mika Zibanejad, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Lucas Raymond making it to the NHL would suggest there is some multicultural and immigrant growth in the sport, just like here in Canada.

All of this guys are mixed, I think only Owuya with ugandian father and a russian mother is from a 100% immigrant background

 

[Albatros]

All of this guys are mixed, I think only Owuya with ugandian father and a russian mother is from a 100% immigrant background

Zibanejad's father is from Iran and mother from Finland, himself a naturalized Swedish citizen I believe.

 

[Garl]

Zibanejad's father is from Iran and mother from Finland, himself a naturalized Swedish citizen I believe.

Yeah, I mean, Finland a hockey country

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

John Gibson isn't from Finland. You're thinking of Christopher Gibson, who also happens to be of partial Caribbean descent.

European based players like Oliver Kylington, Johnny Oduya, Mark Owuya, Mika Zibanejad, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Lucas Raymond making it to the NHL would suggest there is some multicultural and immigrant growth in the sport, just like here in Canada.

Good post, but the legendary Mark “In the Park” Owuya never made the NHL.

Very interesting career, but I’m not sure why you even know about him.

 

[Albatros]

Owuya did play some pre-season games for the Leafs, they had a lot of goalies in the system at that point though.

 

[Stephen]

Good post, but the legendary Mark “In the Park” Owuya never made the NHL.

Very interesting career, but I’m not sure why you even know about him.

Oh you’re right he never made the NHL. I know about him because he was a Toronto Marlie for a little bit, very interesting character.