jj cale
Registered User
Oh my God, hockey was not a beer league until 1990.Canada is one of the few countries where hockey is the de facto "most popular" sport. Don't forget that ice hockey is still an afterthought in the world. Go to Britain and mention hockey and they think you are talking about field hockey. My young family in Italy (like under age 10) had never seen or even heard of ice hockey (much like I hadn't heard of Netball until a couple of years ago)
Even in Sweden soccer is more popular. In the USA soccer is not a favourite. Finland maybe? In Russia soccer dominates too.
What I am trying to say is there is only so much you can "push" and invest in a sport before you get to the precipices of incremental improvement. If Canada is ordinally "ahead" of other nations, it's just by a smaller percentage, because the game is more refined now than it has ever been. It was a beer league until the 1990s.
The stuff people say on this site, incredible.