Best Hockey Nation Without an Olympic Medal

[saskriders]

This clearly would have been Slovakia before today, but now that it no longer applies to them which country would you say is the best hockey country without a medal at the Olympics. My vote would be for Latvia.

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[tobu]

You meant "without" in the title right?
Yeah I'd go with Latvia too.

 

[SotasicA]

Did West Germany ever win a medal?

 

[Mestaruus]

This clearly would have been Slovakia before today, but now that it no longer applies to them which country would you say is the best hockey country without a medal at the Olympics. My vote would be for Latvia.

You should list the options. I doubt that many remember who haven't medaled yet and I also doubt that many want to go digging which countries haven't medaled yet. Ice hockey has been in the Olympics probably at least 80 years I'm guessing, so that's a lot of possible medaling countries.

 

[The Cannon of Tesoma]

Did West Germany ever win a medal?

Yes. Bronze from Innsbruck 1976.

Ice hockey at the Olympic Games - Wikipedia

Latvia seems to be correct answer.

 

[SotasicA]

What about Poland? They have a long history of participation. They iced some decent teams in the 70's and 80's. They produced NHLers. Are they not ahead of Latvia, with their relatively short history in the international game?

 

[Lartsaman]

Latvia and Denmark.

 

[Eco]

Lativa or Denmark

 

[Lauro]

Historically? Let's just take a look at their three best rankings:

Poland 4 - 6 - 6
France 5 - 6 - 6
Belarus 4 - 7 - 9
Austria 6 - 7 - 7
Belgium 7 - 7 - 8
Italy 7 - 8 - 9
Norway 8 - 8 - 9
Japan 8 - 9 - 9
Romania 7 - 8 - 12
Latvia 8 - 9 - 11
Slovenia 7 - 9 - x
Kazakhstan 8 - 9 - x
Denmark 7 - x - x
;-)

 

[THE JAM]

Historically? Let's just take a look at their three best rankings:

Poland 4 - 6 - 6
France 5 - 6 - 6
Belarus 4 - 7 - 9
Austria 6 - 7 - 7
Belgium 7 - 7 - 8
Italy 7 - 8 - 9
Norway 8 - 8 - 9
Japan 8 - 9 - 9
Romania 7 - 8 - 12
Latvia 8 - 9 - 11
Slovenia 7 - 9 - x
Kazakhstan 8 - 9 - x
Denmark 7 - x - x
;-)

Latvia was not given a chance to medal or get a ranking during the years 1940-1991.

 

[BMann]

What about Poland? They have a long history of participation. They iced some decent teams in the 70's and 80's. They produced NHLers. Are they not ahead of Latvia, with their relatively short history in the international game?

Just two . Oliwa who was a grinder and Czerkawski who is their best player and unsurprisingly born in the deep south. Latvia is far ahead on that score. There are more clubs now in Poland and rinks. Time will tell if their juniors improve. Hopefully. They should be far stronger. You see all the players from North America with Polish heritage like Borowiecki, Oleksiak, Werenski and some in Sweden too. It's just the domestic scene in Poland needs a lot of work to catch up to Latvia.

Teams are still import laden and arenas as in the UK multipurpose rather than hockey dedicated. It's a sleeping giant if the giant can be woken.

 

[Urbanskog]

I would say that historically and in terms of relative strength at the time, Austria. Fourth place in the World Championships of 1930 (out of 12 participating teams) and 1933 (also out of 12) as well as bronze medals from the World Championships of 1931 (out of 10) and 1947 (out of 8).

 

[Eye of Ra]

Just two . Oliwa who was a grinder and Czerkawski who is their best player and unsurprisingly born in the deep south. Latvia is far ahead on that score. There are more clubs now in Poland and rinks. Time will tell if their juniors improve. Hopefully. They should be far stronger. You see all the players from North America with Polish heritage like Borowiecki, Oleksiak, Werenski and some in Sweden too. It's just the domestic scene in Poland needs a lot of work to catch up to Latvia.

Teams are still import laden and arenas as in the UK multipurpose rather than hockey dedicated. It's a sleeping giant if the giant can be woken.

Poland had several good players in the 90s outside of Oliwa and Czerkawski. Oskar Szczepaniec and Henryk Gruth was good players in NLA for exemple.

In the DEL they had:

Who are the players with polish roots in Sweden? Are you thinking about Adam Brodecki?

Btw, the polish league is actually stronger than the latvian league.

 

[SotasicA]

Oliwa who was a grinder

Kryz was not a grinder. Maybe you're being polite.

But he was one of my favourite players, the Polish Hammer.

 

[Elvs]

Latvia didn't become independent until 1991. Since then, you could say it's them. Before then, you could say they won plenty of medals as part of the Soviet Union. Same with Slovakia winnig medals as being part of Czechoslovakia.

Right now, it's Latvia or Denmark. Historically, Poland is the correct answer.

 

[Albatros]

Yes. Bronze from Innsbruck 1976.

Ice hockey at the Olympic Games - Wikipedia

Latvia seems to be correct answer.

And the whole "West Germany" is mostly a misnomer promoted by foreign sources, the team competed as Federal Republic of Germany which in turn never ceased to exist.

 

[The Cannon of Tesoma]

And the whole "West Germany" is mostly a misnomer promoted by foreign sources, the team competed as Federal Republic of Germany which in turn never ceased to exist.

Right. "West Germany" is probably used only because it's shorter and easier to use on a table.

 

[Albatros]

Right. "West Germany" is probably used only because it's shorter and easier to use on a table.

For sure one major reason, and easier for many to comprehend. Today we have Korea and DPR Korea teams in hockey, but many would rather use South Korea and North Korea instead despite both names being longer than those officially recognized by the IIHF.

But especially initially there were also various reasons related to political recognition and non-recognition. For example the term East Germany was seen as contentious because the Federal Republic didn't recognize the post-war Soviet and Polish annexation of formerly German eastern territories until 1970 (de facto) or 1990 (de jure). So when such geographical term was used in Germany to refer to the territory of the Democratic Republic especially until the late 1960s it was usually Mitteldeutschland, Central Germany. Conversely, abroad the preferential usage of West Germany and East Germany initially allowed the users to frame the territorial existence of the two German states in a new way. So in some aspects perhaps even resembling the Chinese Taipei issue of today a little bit.

Nowadays that viewpoint is of course completely obsolete, and the main source of confusion today is the common misconception that West Germany and East Germany would both have ceased to exist uniting to one new Germany, whereas in reality the so-called West simply absorbed the East and continued its own existence as before.

 

[member 305909]

Latvia today is very much like Finland in the 1980s; people are very passionate about the game and every now and then they can upset the bigger hockey powers but in the big picture they just aren't good enough. At least not yet.

 

[kaiser matias]

For sure one major reason, and easier for many to comprehend. Today we have Korea and DPR Korea teams in hockey, but many would rather use South Korea and North Korea instead despite both names being longer than those officially recognized by the IIHF.

But especially initially there were also various reasons related to political recognition and non-recognition. For example the term East Germany was seen as contentious because the Federal Republic didn't recognize the post-war Soviet and Polish annexation of formerly German eastern territories until 1970 (de facto) or 1990 (de jure). So when such geographical term was used in Germany to refer to the territory of the Democratic Republic especially until the late 1960s it was usually Mitteldeutschland, Central Germany. Conversely, abroad the preferential usage of West Germany and East Germany initially allowed the users to frame the territorial existence of the two German states in a new way. So in some aspects perhaps even resembling the Chinese Taipei issue of today a little bit.

Nowadays that viewpoint is of course completely obsolete, and the main source of confusion today is the common misconception that West Germany and East Germany would both have ceased to exist uniting to one new Germany, whereas in reality the so-called West simply absorbed the East and continued its own existence as before.

To be pedantic though, the IOC does have different country codes for West Germany (FRG) and re-unified Germany (GER), though the IOC considers all West Germany records to be part of Germany's history.

That said, you're right, East Germany joined West Germany, which retained the same official name (Federal Republic of Germany).

 

[Albatros]

To be pedantic though, the IOC does have different country codes for West Germany (FRG) and re-unified Germany (GER), though the IOC considers all West Germany records to be part of Germany's history.

Yes it does, but also some other existing countries received new codes in 1992. For example the Netherlands became NED instead of HOL.

 

[Mestaruus]

Latvia today is very much like Finland in the 1980s; people are very passionate about the game and every now and then they can upset the bigger hockey powers but in the big picture they just aren't good enough. At least not yet.

Without basketball absorbing some talent in Latvia, maybe their rise in hockey would've been faster.

 

[Nosferatu]

Gretzky was a pretty good Polish player.

 

[The Cannon of Tesoma]

Yes it does, but also some other existing countries received new codes in 1992. For example the Netherlands became NED instead of HOL.

In case of Finland, the code was SF (internationally widely and erroneously interpreted as 'Soviet Finland' during cold war era) for 'Suomi Finland'.

Now we are FI (alpha-2) and FIN (alpha-3).

In MS-DOS we are still 'Su' as Finnish keyboard setting can be still activated with command keyb su in DOS-prompt.

 

[Albatros]

I've heard the same story regarding the international vehicle registration code, but also that some of our Dutch caravaning friends were mistaken as Russians in Finland because of their NL plates which was commonly used as an abbreviation for the Soviet Union there while the local word for the Netherlands was nothing alike.

But at the Olympics I believe Finland has always used the FIN code, originally the codes were determined by each host individually but as Finland would be FIN in most languages there was never any actual variation. For example Germany had the codes ALL and ALE in 1968 in Grenoble and Mexico City after Allemagne and Alemania respectively. Nowadays for the sake of clarity the IOC is using FRG also for these games I think, although in actuality that particular code was only in use in the 1980s.