I don't think there'd be a significant difference between a Canada-only and a combined Canada & US team, in terms of performance/results. Canada-only team already is virtually perfection, and you can't really improve what's already perfect. 
But even a team that's almost perfect on paper can be beaten by other teams, especially in a single-game play-off matchup.I'm too busy to find out right now, but if you pay me for that research, I can try.
There was a documentary recently on Slovak TV (can also be found on YouTube somewhere) that specifically referred to talented Slovak hockey players in the early 1990s who just couldn't get onto Czechoslovakia's national team, no matter what – even if their stats in the Czechoslovak league were sometimes better than those of their Czech peers. (I think there was at least one very prominent Slovak player example, but I forget who it was.)Definitely not. As slovakiasnextone said, this was changing through the decades, but perhaps except for the 1970s, Czechs typically dominated. In the final years of Czechoslovakia, it was utter domination by the Czechs again. At the last football World Cup for Czechoslovakia in 1990 in Italy, there were very few Slovaks on the roster.
I don't know, but there were always these quarrels (definitely among fans) as to "Why are there so many/few Czechs/Slovaks on our national team?" etc., which is why it would have been wise to split Czechoslovakia's national teams immediately after Communists were toppled in 1989/90. I'm sure the common leagues (if not the common country) would have been rescued that way.
Not a good example. First, they were phenomenal superstars, so that's a different thing from a "promising youngster" – say, someone like Dominik Simon on the current Czech team, or Martin Réway, Adam JánošÃk on the current Slovak team.
My guess would be 8-3 or 7-4 at best, in most/all games. Perpetual bench-warmers don't really count, do they? (The football version of "healthy scratch".)
Hmm... I'm sure there were only a few in the starting 11.
I agree. Although I think Visnovsky is done. Still, adding Sekera, Chara, Halak, Hossa and Gaborik? Wow. That's a major upgrade to 25% of the existing Czech roster.
And the home team even played the preliminary group in Bratislava, but it was more like a Czech squad with 2 Slovak loans. 
Even in 1985 when Czechoslovakia won the World Championship in Prague and the Slovak Dárius Rusnák was the captain, I don't think there were more than 5 or 6 Slovaks on that roster.
Thanks for those stats. I only looked up the first 3 games by Czechoslovakia in Italy in 1990, and the starters were 8-3 in favor of Czechs in the first two games, and 7-4 in the third game:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_FIFA_World_Cup_Group_A#United_States_vs_Czechoslovakia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_FIFA_World_Cup_Group_A#Austria_vs_Czechoslovakia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_FIFA_World_Cup_Group_A#Italy_vs_Czechoslovakia
Yes, the two substituting players in every game were invariably Slovaks, but...
Now, 8-3 and 7-4 may sound pretty reasonable. If someone produced these same stats for hockey World Championships and Olympics, I'm afraid the ratio would be a lot worse. I mean, at that home Worlds tourney in 1992, to have only 2 Slovaks on a 23-player roster, that's quite brutal.
I think that the TV documentary mentioned that Ivan Hlinka, while a great coach, invariably preferred to pick Czech players for the national team, when given a choice between a Czech and a Slovak player of roughly the same performance. (I think Peter Å ťastný got into a quarrel with Hlinka over that, which is why he never played for Czechoslovakia post-1989, and only joined team Slovakia after 1992.) These allegatiins/impressions may or may not be true, but it goes to show what potential conflicts could arise whenever a joint national team had to be composed.
That's horrible, even worse than I thought – only 4 Slovaks on the World Champions team! And all 4 are superstars and Slovak hockey legends, so it was impossible to leave them out. So as I was saying, unless you were an undisputed Slovak superstar, you could basically forget about playing for team Czechoslovakia, because Czech players would get nominated instead. And so, excellent, long-time Slovan players like Dornič and Bezák who had such great chemistry with PaÅ¡ek and Rusnák in Slovan, were left without a Worlds participation...
Overall, that list of Slovak Worlds participants is gruesome to look at, in how meagre it is.
Hossa would help. Tatár is a nice player but not a game-breaker, he would likely replace a player that is equally good as him. GáborÃk had a good playoff last year but I don't think he's better than Vrbata, for instance. We've got plenty of very good offensive players.
Sekera would help again. Chára has been useless on big ice for quite some time and Višňovský has retired from international hockey. Halák is an upgrade over Pavelec, though I believe that Mrázek will be better than both in a short time.
And as I mentioned in one of the past threads on this topic, I think the team would actually be weaker than the current Czech team because of the amount of ressentment and victimization on the Slovak part, and the arrogance and patronizing on the Czech side. For a glimpse of it, just read what Faterson is posting in this thread. It was always like that before 1993 and now with social networks and the trigger-happy media in both countries...
) play for the national team, he was the guy who always played with the never say die attitude and who played his heart out.With the exception of this years Worlds and perhaps the 2010 WJC every single time I remember Tatar (there's no ´ in his name btw
That's the kind of player you definitely want to have on your NT.
Also I don't even want to overrate Tatar, but: "he would likely replace a player that is equally good as him" sounds like there were dozens of Czech players who scored 29 or more goals in the NHL this year, while the truth is that Hudler and Vrbata were the only ones who scored more goals than him.
Hossa would help. Tatár is a nice player but not a game-breaker, he would likely replace a player that is equally good as him. GáborÃk had a good playoff last year but I don't think he's better than Vrbata, for instance. We've got plenty of very good offensive players.
Sekera would help again. Chára has been useless on big ice for quite some time and ViÅ¡ňovský has retired from international hockey. Halák is an upgrade over Pavelec, though I believe that Mrázek will be better than both in a short time.
And as I mentioned in one of the past threads on this topic, I think the team would actually be weaker than the current Czech team because of the amount of ressentment and victimization on the Slovak side, and the arrogance and patronizing on the Czech side. For a glimpse of it, just read what Faterson is posting in this thread. It was always like that before 1993 and now with social networks and the trigger-happy media in both countries...
I think the team would actually be weaker than the current Czech team because of the amount of ressentment and victimization on the Slovak side, and the arrogance and patronizing on the Czech side. For a glimpse of it, just read what Faterson is posting in this thread. It was always like that before 1993 and now with social networks and the trigger-happy media in both countries...
