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Olympics: Enjoy it, Canadian fans, while we can...

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Yakushev72 said:
Sorry, but on the face of it, this is a meaningless and ridiculous statistical analysis. Its like saying that the NY Rangers are more likely to win when playing in a city that has a population of more than 8 million, because they win more home games than road games. There is no correlation - nothing that argues that there is a reason for drawing your conclusion. If you can show that Americans are genetically excluded from being fast skaters, then you could make a supportable argument to the effect that they are more likely to lose if they are playing on a bigger ice surface. Otherwise, it makes no sense as far as I can tell.
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I think it has more to do with teams and especially coaches being familiar with the systems and style of play that work best on each size of ice surface. By the way over the same period Canada's record vs those euro teams on the big ice is 5W 6L 1T vs 11W 0L 0T on the small ice. It is undeniable that the NA teams are better on the smaller ice size.
 
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From 1996 to now the combined best on best record of CAN and USA vs SWE, FIN, RUS, CZE, SVK, SUI is 19W 2L 0T on the small ice and 10W 13L 2T on the big ice. It might not be what some people expected, but the evidence that ice size makes a difference at the elite men's level is pretty overwhelming.
 
Mr Kanadensisk said:
From 1996 to now the combined best on best record of CAN and USA vs SWE, FIN, RUS, CZE, SVK, SUI is 19W 2L 0T on the small ice and 10W 13L 2T on the big ice. It might not be what some people expected, but the evidence that ice size makes a difference at the elite men's level is pretty overwhelming.
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The sample-size is pretty small though.


When talking about the small vs big ice, it should be mentioned that Canada has won many WHC tournaments on big ice. Barring 2010 tournament when we really didn't play well, did you know that since 2011, Canada hasn't lost a single game in regulation in the RR? The record has been
20-4-3-0, where Canada has lost all the 3 games in SO (4-5 to the US in 2012, 2-3 to the Swiss in 2013, and 2-3 to France in 2014)
....everytime I see those 5 QF endings in a row, I just shake my head, because we were really close everytime (besides 2010).
Since 2011, we lost 7 games, every each of them by only a goal, and 4 of them after SO.


The Juniors are a good example. When we have a winning streak, we're winning on both small and big ice (2005-2009). When we have a losing streak, we're losing on both, small and big ice (2010-2014). Between the years 2002 and 2011 (10 gold-medal games in a row for Canada) 4 tournaments were held in Europe, we won 2 of them, and 6 in NA, we won 3 of them.



The USA won 2013 world juniors in Russia. And, last five U-18 championships were played in Europe. The US won 4 of them, Canada one.
 
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I think we'll start to win more often on big ice. I really think Ralph Krueger helped the coaching staff with how to play on big ice, we might be better on big ice than small ice now with better players coming in because 2014 was alot better than 2010.
 
True Hockey Fan said:
The sample-size is pretty small though.


When talking about the small vs big ice, it should be mentioned that Canada has won many WHC tournaments on big ice. Barring 2010 tournament when we really didn't play well, did you know that since 2011, Canada hasn't lost a single game in regulation in the RR? The record has been
20-4-3-0, where Canada has lost all the 3 games in SO (4-5 to the US in 2012, 2-3 to the Swiss in 2013, and 2-3 to France in 2014)
....everytime I see those 5 QF endings in a row, I just shake my head, because we were really close everytime (besides 2010).
Since 2011, we lost 7 games, every each of them by only a goal, and 4 of them after SO.


The Juniors are a good example. When we have a winning streak, we're winning on both small and big ice (2005-2009). When we have a losing streak, we're losing on both, small and big ice (2010-2014). Between the years 2002 and 2011 (10 gold-medal games in a row for Canada) 4 tournaments were held in Europe, we won 2 of them, and 6 in NA, we won 3 of them.



The USA won 2013 world juniors in Russia. And, last five U-18 championships were played in Europe. The US won 4 of them, Canada one.
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Sample size is always an issue when looking at best on best hockey but in this case 46 games is a fairly decent size. I'm not saying that Canada isn't good or can't win on the big ice, just that we are better on the small ice. The WC doesn't tell us much since they are pretty much exclusively played on the big ice. I haven't looked at the numbers for junior hockey, but there could be many reasons why those results would be different, such as having more team preparation time for tournaments or being less reliant on systems.
 
Ray Ferraro said:
I think we'll start to win more often on big ice. I really think Ralph Krueger helped the coaching staff with how to play on big ice, we might be better on big ice than small ice now with better players coming in because 2014 was alot better than 2010.
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Agreed, including coaches with lots of big ice experience is something I think we will see both NA teams do in the future and it will make them better teams on the larger surface.
 
I also think it's a myth that Canada/USA does better on small ice, WJC's that is. Small sample size, but since 2009, USA has won once and two European teams have won once (Sweden and Russia).
 
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TherapyforGlencross said:
I also think it's a myth that Canada/USA does better on small ice, WJC's that ice. Small sample size, but since 2009, USA has won once and two European teams have won once (Sweden and Russia).
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Good point! As with any theory that has no basis in fact or reason, it is easy to manipulate the statistics to show whatever you want to show.

For example, a lot of Canadians have lamented what they have described as the "C" level teams that Canada has sent to the WHC. So if that's true, and Canada ends up losing, is the explanation for the loss the fact that a C level team was on the ice, or that Canadians are congenitally unable to play on big ice?
 
The answer is that they didn't play well enough to win and other teams played better.

What other answer is there?
 
Yakushev72 said:
Good point! As with any theory that has no basis in fact or reason, it is easy to manipulate the statistics to show whatever you want to show.

For example, a lot of Canadians have lamented what they have described as the "C" level teams that Canada has sent to the WHC. So if that's true, and Canada ends up losing, is the explanation for the loss the fact that a C level team was on the ice, or that Canadians are congenitally unable to play on big ice?
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Personally, I believe Canada's top players can play on whatever ice they want and still have success. For example, Canada won gold quite easily (easily is not the word I'm looking for) this year in Sochi. If Canada didn't medal in Sochi, then yes, I would think Canadians have an issue on playing on large ice surfaces.

Depth wise, that's another story IMO. I think Canada's lower-end players (their C-D, or even their B team possibly) would have an issue playing on large ice surfaces; the WHC's are an example of that, I would assume.
 
Mr Kanadensisk said:
The numbers are pretty conclusive that at the top men's level it is not a myth.
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The problem is that there is a big difference in comparing the USA teams of the 1990s to the teams of today. USA was much more reliant on brute force in the 90s than today, which obviously translated better to the NHL surface, and particularly so in that era.

What was the difference in performance between USA in 2010 or 2014? Basically nothing. Anything before that is basically a different era for American hockey.
 
JackSlater said:
The problem is that there is a big difference in comparing the USA teams of the 1990s to the teams of today. USA was much more reliant on brute force in the 90s than today, which obviously translated better to the NHL surface, and particularly so in that era.

What was the difference in performance between USA in 2010 or 2014? Basically nothing. Anything before that is basically a different era for American hockey.
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That may factor into it a bit, but in the end of the day it really just comes down to common sense. The additional experience the European players and coaches have on the big ice gives them an edge on the larger surface, especially in such short tournaments. The hiring of Krueger is an acknowledgement by HC that the big ice game is different.
 
Xokkeu said:
Nobody said the game wasn't different. We said both Canada and America adjust to it relatively easy. A bigger factor having a good team. That's why the US sucked in 2004 and 2006 but was very good in 1996, 2002, 2010 and 2014.
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What about 1998? ;)
 
Xokkeu said:
Nobody said the game wasn't different. We said both Canada and America adjust to it relatively easy. A bigger factor having a good team. That's why the US sucked in 2004 and 2006 but was very good in 1996, 2002, 2010 and 2014.
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As I recall the 98 team was very similar to the 96 USA team. My point all along was that the NA teams are better on small ice than the large, the strength of the teams will obviously vary.
 
I have no idea what happened to the U.S. team in 98, on paper it had a lot going for it, to me it was not the big ice that sunk it, something else was going on there. It was every bit as strong or stronger on paper as any team there.

The hotel room incident is a clue to something amiss, to a lack of leadership and direction. On talent alone it should have made a strong challenge for Gold.

A missed opportunity for them IMO.

That team still puzzles me.
 
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