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WJC: Divisions I-III

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I agree, Slovenia seemed like one of the better lower tier hockey nations. Oh well there's always next year.
 
Essentially the final of Div. 2B today at 2PM, as Spain takes on Croatia on home ice. Both teams are 4-0 and this game will decide who gets promoted.

The broadcast itself looks pretty good, but is in Spanish.

#VivaEspaña :yo::yo::yo::yo::yo:

Link: Live on Youtube now.
 
tony d said:
I agree, Slovenia seemed like one of the better lower tier hockey nations. Oh well there's always next year.
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As has been noted, these countries simply don't have the population to sustain success on the junior level. Slovenia for example only has 800 registered junior players. That means they would have roughly only 200 total players eligible to play in this tournament. Naturally there are going to be years where those numbers just simply can't compete against another team, especially if someone has a half-decent player or two, which is all it takes in some cases.
 
Namejs said:
On what specifically is your opinion based on?

Latvia is definitely better offensively when compared to Belarus, even with Bukarts, Golovkovs and also Smits missing from the line-up. If you compare all the players, Latvia, Belarus and Norway are all pretty evenly matched. It can go either way and there's no clear favorite.
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Namejs said:
Austria actually has a pretty decent team. They're a league above Slovenia/Italy, the way I see it.
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Apt, apt analysis right there, as always. Really happy to have your tremendous insight on these boards. Was away for a few days and couldn't respond at the time, don't know if I should be glad or sad about it.

At the end of the day as usual, no huge surprises in those championships. The biggest one is probably France completely scrubbing out in their division. Felt like Hungary should do better too but they still gave a good chance to finish with 6 points which is fine I guess.
 
ozo said:
Our backup goalie is 98' as well. We also are icing a defensemen, who will celebrate his 17th birthday birthday in four days.
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Judging objectively, did this team underachieve or this was pretty much expected considering the roster? I mean Namejs (and I'm sure most of the homers in Latvian hockey community) would definitely say that such a stronk Latvian team has no business losing to Italy but maybe that wasn't such a shocker, was it?
 
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SoundAndFury said:
Judging objectively, did this team underachieve or this was pretty much expected considering the roster? I mean Namejs (and I'm sure most of the homers in Latvian hockey community) would definitely say that such a stronk Latvian team has no business losing to Italy but maybe that wasn't such a shocker, was it?
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Hard to say one way or another. Yes, we played underwhelming hockey for seven out of nine first nine periods, but so did our two main rivals and we were in good position to be promoted until Ambrozheichik scored the late winner. I have to partially agree with Namejs, there were enough chances produced to beat Belarus, but we never took them and we got deservedly punished for that. Game against Italy was already meaningless and I can imagine that the spirit was low when Belarus clinched the gold hours earlier, thus I'll excuse the loss against them.

The eyebrows already were raised when we saw the kindergarden roster announced, and on top of that we dropped an exhibition game against Kazakhstan from a dominant position. Now I'll sound like a smartass here when I'll say that I was cautious even before the tournament began, but screw that, I really felt the vulnerability of this team. :/

Arguably, the talent is evident on our young roster and there a good chance, that one day down the line, the best players coming out of this tournament will be our kids and not Belarussian gold medal team members. This team had a better tournament in them, but we never did us any favors starting with a suspicious coach selection so this isn't full blooded shock of any sorts.
 
Unusual finish to the Division IA tournament. Slovenia, already relegated before the game, scores 6 goals against Italy in the first period en route to winning the game 9-5. Though I suppose that was the norm this year, which saw a lot of high scoring games by nearly every team.

Down in Division IB Hungary lost to Japan and is relegated. While Hungary did only get promoted last year, I didn't think they would fare so poorly, and really expected Japan to be sent down. Ukraine also surprised with their second place finish.
 
Yeah, besides the expected Kazakhstan gold, IB made little sense in terms of outcome. Italy staying up also gives much weaker Kazakh 96's a better chance to consolidate their conquered ground next year.
 
ozo said:
Yeah, besides the expected Kazakhstan gold, IB made little sense in terms of outcome. Italy staying up also gives much weaker Kazakh 96's a better chance to consolidate their conquered ground next year.
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Also have to wonder if this year maybe helps Latvia out next year. All those young players now have some experience at this level, plus another year of development. Certainly can't hurt them at least.

Looks like there is going to be two distinct tiers though: the three who will fight for promotion (Norway, Latvia, Germany/Denmark) and those trying to avoid relegation (Austria, Kazakhstan, Italy). Should be exciting to see at least.
 
Yeah Hungary being relegated is a big surprise and they have only themselves to blame. They outshot Ukraine 2 to 1 and Poland 2.5 to 1 and still lost points against them. This team was really good but apparently just couldn't get it done. And being true to their inability to get anything done they completely blew the Japan game.

kaiser matias said:
Looks like there is going to be two distinct tiers though: the three who will fight for promotion (Norway, Latvia, Germany/Denmark) and those trying to avoid relegation (Austria, Kazakhstan, Italy). Should be exciting to see at least.
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It's the same thing every year from the dawn of D1A.
 
kaiser matias said:
Also have to wonder if this year maybe helps Latvia out next year. All those young players now have some experience at this level, plus another year of development. Certainly can't hurt them at least.
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On paper it sounds good, but there is always a chance, that we again go young for no real reason and snub these potential returnees like this year.

SoundAndFury said:
It's the same thing every year from the dawn of D1A.
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If Kazakhstan wouldn't of underperformed last two years, I think they would of challenged for promotion, but yeah, beside ifs and buts, you are correct.
 
ozo said:
If Kazakhstan wouldn't of underperformed last two years, I think they would of challenged for promotion, but yeah, beside ifs and buts, you are correct.
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I doubt it. '12 wasn't very talented and '13 the most talented players were still 17-18 y.o. Also Latvia and Denmark had pretty stacked teams last year. I mean they couldn't get out of D1B, I find super highly unlikely they would had managed to challenge for promotion one tier higher. Doesn't make much sense, frankly.

If Kazakhstan had Koshelev and Sergeyenko this year, I guess they would have been quite competitive in D1A but yeah, that's ifs and buts.
 
Congrats to Croatia on being promoted and to Spain it's great to see them doing well, looking forward to more out of them as a hockey nation.
 
tony d said:
Congrats to Croatia on being promoted and to Spain it's great to see them doing well, looking forward to more out of them as a hockey nation.
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Thanks. It will be hard, but at least the new president of the Spanish Federation is planning to build more rinks and promote ice hockey in our country.
 
Thing is this Croatia team didnt play as well as they could. It seamed they played as much as they needed rather. To bad they got relegated last year. Woulda loved to have seen them play stronger teams this year. Its a talented bunch. They could have developed much better though, but ice time is extremely limited due to too few icerinks.
 
I'll allow myself to bump this one. No disrespect to the Danes and their brilliant perfomance this week, this also is good news for Belarussian chances of surviving in the bigs next year. They much rather take their chances with Denmark and not Switzerland or Germany, one of whom will be relegated as it turns out.
 
ozo said:
I'll allow myself to bump this one. No disrespect to the Danes and their brilliant perfomance this week, this also is good news for Belarussian chances of surviving in the bigs next year. They much rather take their chances with Denmark and not Switzerland or Germany, one of whom will be relegated as it turns out.
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Bad news for Latvia and Norway though.
 
bobbeaver said:
Thing is this Croatia team didnt play as well as they could. It seamed they played as much as they needed rather. To bad they got relegated last year. Woulda loved to have seen them play stronger teams this year. Its a talented bunch. They could have developed much better though, but ice time is extremely limited due to too few icerinks.
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Croatia was great , they were missing their best player and this was basically the same squad as the under 18 team that won in England last march
 
Guess Division 3 is all that's left, taking place in New Zealand, any predictions?
 
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