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How big is Olympic ice hockey in Europe?

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The biggest difference between hockey and football is that hockey lacks national teams which can bring one generation of players in let's say 10 or 15 years who can make some impact or success on int. stage (maybe except Slovakia). In football you have powerhouses like Germany, Italy, Brazil, Argentina etc. and then there are still countries like Croatia, Serbia, Sweden who can be competitive let's say every second championship, i.e. they can beat at least european powerhouses....

In hockey the gap is still so big that its not even enough to have players like Kopitar or Mursak in one team and go for medal....
 
Jablkon said:
The biggest difference between hockey and football is that hockey lacks national teams which can bring one generation of players in let's say 10 or 15 years who can make some impact or success on int. stage (maybe except Slovakia). In football you have powerhouses like Germany, Italy, Brazil, Argentina etc. and then there are still countries like Croatia, Serbia, Sweden who can be competitive let's say every second championship, i.e. they can beat at least european powerhouses....

In hockey the gap is still so big that its not even enough to have players like Kopitar or Mursak in one team and go for medal....
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It's often overlooked that hockey is a considerably higher-scoring game. Thus, luck has a greater impact on the outcomes of soccer matches — teams like Finland which has players from the German third league on the roster might be able to keep the score close against more talented teams.
 
kabidjan18 said:
Wrong. Watching the MLS is worse. And there are some die-hard MLS fans who say that only the Champions League is better than the MLS...smh...and that New York Red Bulls is better than QPR and Tottenham Hotspur...smh...it's technically and aesthetically worse than watching Ligue 2 football.


Olympic Basketball outside of the top powerhouses is about the level of a USA High School AAU Contest. Football is the only major sport that has a general level of parity. Hockey is second but a long second. American Football...Cricket...extremely regional presences.
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Cricket is much more international than Ice Hockey may ever be, both in number of fans and participants in the sport.

Seriously, how is the U.K, West Indies, India, South Africa and Australia a "regional presence". Basketball is extremely regional by comparison.

Ice Hockey is quite pitifully regional compared to sports like cricket, basketball and rugby.
 
Atas2000 said:
So if we include Hungary, North Korea and Spain the hockey WC will be a tougher tournament to win?

Taste differs, to me football is slow, boring and full of crap due to diving. I honestly don't know what about it can be entertaining. Yes, it gives you more time to sip on a beer and chat with your buds while watching it, because nothing happens anyway.
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Are you reall that stupid or do you just play it?

There is harder to win WC in football because there is more team that can compete and win it then it is in hockey.

And for me Hockey is kinda ******** with that you can have a ref from the same countery as your national team and still play the game:laugh: and for that i can stand the diving's in football...

But i like both sports but i like football more, haha nothing happens that says exactely how much you know about that game... like the hardcore football fans say the same thing about hockey.
 
TheTwelfth said:
Cricket is much more international than Ice Hockey may ever be, both in number of fans and participants in the sport.
Seriously, how is the U.K, West Indies, India, South Africa and Australia a "regional presence". Basketball is extremely regional by comparison.
Ice Hockey is quite pitifully regional compared to sports like cricket, basketball and rugby.
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Cricket has a larger fan base than hockey because the population density in the area is extremely high, but not that every nation you just mentioned was both south and roughly west of the prime meridian save England where the sport was founded. Compare this to basketball with perhaps a smaller overall following but a following in the USA, Argentina, Lithuania, and china. That's what I meant by regional presence. What I meant by international sports though was sports with international parity. So in other words teams other than Australia and India can win the world cup.

Perfect example of Urbanskog's point is when the USA puts 11 guys in the 18 yard box and then claims to be a top football country.

And corruption among football referees especially in Africa is more corrupt than corruption in any other sport largely because there is more money involved.
 
kabidjan18 said:
Cricket has a larger fan base than hockey because the population density in the area is extremely high, but not that every nation you just mentioned was both south and roughly west of the prime meridian save England where the sport was founded. Compare this to basketball with perhaps a smaller overall following but a following in the USA, Argentina, Lithuania, and china. That's what I meant by regional presence. What I meant by international sports though was sports with international parity. So in other words teams other than Australia and India can win the world cup.

Perfect example of Urbanskog's point is when the USA puts 11 guys in the 18 yard box and then claims to be a top football country.

And corruption among football referees especially in Africa is more corrupt than corruption in any other sport largely because there is more money involved.
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Haha football refrees corruption yeah did you wake up after that:laugh: more like the players that are corrupted... and you will never see in football that you have a same ref from the countery one of the teams that playing the game is like it is in HOCKEY there we can talk about corruptions:laugh:
 
TheTwelfth said:
Cricket is much more international than Ice Hockey may ever be, both in number of fans and participants in the sport.

Seriously, how is the U.K, West Indies, India, South Africa and Australia a "regional presence". Basketball is extremely regional by comparison.

Ice Hockey is quite pitifully regional compared to sports like cricket, basketball and rugby.
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Basketball and rugby are goodish comparisons, cricket not so.
Aus, NZ, SAFrica, Zimbabwe, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and West Indies islands are the test nations? So 9.. We have a bit 7 in hockey plus switzerland, germany.. We are quite even. Cricket just has a billion plus thanks to a billion Indians who put it ahead of religion. Seriously, the Prime Minister of India could probably recount more test averages of India's top players than varying unemployment rates in the various Indian states..

But the only truly global sport is football/soccer. Look at rugby, 32 nations in the world cup but mark my words Japan, Romania, Namibia etc do not want to face the All Blacks. 118-0 or something..
There's 3 superpowers in Rugby (Sanzar) and 5 next tier nations (5-nations) and 10 or so next level countries that yes, on their day can push even the top teams - but the win/loss record for the big three is out of the park compared to the others..

But to go back on topic.. Finland is so bad at football that if we won the world cup, it would be the least of our worries. This presumably means Armaggeddon has occurred, England, Brazil, Germany, Serbia, Russia, Holland, Argentina, Ecuador etc no longer exist.. If we win Olympic hockey.. Well, Helsinki went nuts over the world championship gold, so I presume GDP would drop by some 5% or something as everyone skips work to party until Finland is a dry country..
 
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Chimp said:
Finland is an anomaly. In which other country can you find this kind of thing happening?


Hockey and rally. Finland in a nutshell when it comes to sport, even though the country is pretty good at floorball and bandy as well. I think football never got that big in Finland since there has been no star players to lead the way and hence, the national team has been pretty bad.
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We race rally cars on this side of the pond as well. I've taken my mother on practice/press stages to the point where she had to puke. That kid has a pretty sweet car for his age.... sequential tranny....


Me/my car...

DSC02723.jpg
 
Raimo Sillanpää said:
But to go back on topic.. Finland is so bad at football that if we won the world cup, it would be the least of our worries. This presumably means Armaggeddon has occurred, England, Brazil, Germany, Serbia, Russia, Holland, Argentina, Ecuador etc no longer exist.. If we win Olympic hockey.. Well, Helsinki went nuts over the world championship gold, so I presume GDP would drop by some 5% or something as everyone skips work to party until Finland is a dry country.
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What about popularity in Slovakia? It's a fairly good hockey country.
 
kabidjan18 said:
Cricket has a larger fan base than hockey because the population density in the area is extremely high, but not that every nation you just mentioned was both south and roughly west of the prime meridian save England where the sport was founded. Compare this to basketball with perhaps a smaller overall following but a following in the USA, Argentina, Lithuania, and china. That's what I meant by regional presence. What I meant by international sports though was sports with international parity. So in other words teams other than Australia and India can win the world cup.

Perfect example of Urbanskog's point is when the USA puts 11 guys in the 18 yard box and then claims to be a top football country.

And corruption among football referees especially in Africa is more corrupt than corruption in any other sport largely because there is more money involved.
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You know where the West Indies are located, right? Having a test nation in every continent save South America and Antarctica makes it much more international and less regional than Ice Hockey. Even a country like Russia that is mostly placed in Asia has barely produced any players that have played in the NHL and been born in the Asian part of the country.
 
 
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kabidjan18 said:
What about popularity in Slovakia? It's a fairly good hockey country.
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In some aspects hockey is tied with football in Slovakia, but in the big picture football wins.

Even though there might be an even bigger lack of interest in the Slovak football league than in the hockey league, football is played at all levels. There are four things that are basically in every Slovak village - a church, a grocery store, a pub and a football pitch. The game exists in Slovakia on such a mass level that hockey could only dream of.

The only area where hockey used to win hands down was the national team, but that was in times when we had a great hockey NT and anot so good football NT. As an independent country the football team has only managed to make it to a top tourney once in 2010 (though they seem to be en route to a second one currently) despite the fact that back in times of Czechoslovakia, the Slovak part of the republic probably brought more to the success of Czechoslovak football at some points than it did bring to Czechoslovak hockey at any point of time - 17 out of 22 players on the team that won the 1976 Euro were Slovaks, on the hockey team Slovaks were in the minority every single time AFAIK.

Still, I'd say at least for this moment I'd still give the slight edge to the hockey NT over the football NT, but I think it's more due to the hype that for example surrounds the World Championship in Slovakia, even the hype that TSN creates for the WJC is small compared to what happens here around the Worlds - it's the two weeks in the year we could call ourselves the hockey republic, because you can't avoid hockey even if you'd want to.

Olympics are just as popular of course, but given the Slovak performance last year...

Anyway, comparing hockey to football on a global or even European picture makes little to no sense. You can compare hockey and football in Sweden, Russia, Czech republic or Slovakia, but not on a European level. Asides from Canada, US and Russia, hockey is a niche sport popular in a bunch of European countries with a population of 1-10 million. It might not even be crazy to say that even team handball is overally a more popular sport than hockey and it's a fact that the competition is higher in handball with more countries able to play on top level and more 2nd class countries who can on a good day beat the top teams than there ever were in hockey.
 
slovakiasnextone said:
Even though there might be an even bigger lack of interest in the Slovak football league than in the hockey league, football is played at all levels. There are four things that are basically in every Slovak village - a church, a grocery store, a pub and a football pitch. The game exists in Slovakia on such a mass level that hockey could only dream of.
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Soccer obviously butchers hockey regarding participation numbers since the former is easily accessible and cheap to play, while the latter is the most expensive sport designed for mass participation in the world. However, doesn't hockey have a considerably higher attendance than soccer in Slovakia?
 
slovakiasnextone said:
In some aspects hockey is tied with football in Slovakia, but in the big picture football wins.

Even though there might be an even bigger lack of interest in the Slovak football league than in the hockey league, football is played at all levels. There are four things that are basically in every Slovak village - a church, a grocery store, a pub and a football pitch. The game exists in Slovakia on such a mass level that hockey could only dream of.

The only area where hockey used to win hands down was the national team, but that was in times when we had a great hockey NT and anot so good football NT. As an independent country the football team has only managed to make it to a top tourney once in 2010 (though they seem to be en route to a second one currently) despite the fact that back in times of Czechoslovakia, the Slovak part of the republic probably brought more to the success of Czechoslovak football at some points than it did bring to Czechoslovak hockey at any point of time - 17 out of 22 players on the team that won the 1976 Euro were Slovaks, on the hockey team Slovaks were in the minority every single time AFAIK.

Still, I'd say at least for this moment I'd still give the slight edge to the hockey NT over the football NT, but I think it's more due to the hype that for example surrounds the World Championship in Slovakia, even the hype that TSN creates for the WJC is small compared to what happens here around the Worlds - it's the two weeks in the year we could call ourselves the hockey republic, because you can't avoid hockey even if you'd want to.

Olympics are just as popular of course, but given the Slovak performance last year...

Anyway, comparing hockey to football on a global or even European picture makes little to no sense. You can compare hockey and football in Sweden, Russia, Czech republic or Slovakia, but not on a European level. Asides from Canada, US and Russia, hockey is a niche sport popular in a bunch of European countries with a population of 1-10 million. It might not even be crazy to say that even team handball is overally a more popular sport than hockey and it's a fact that the competition is higher in handball with more countries able to play on top level and more 2nd class countries who can on a good day beat the top teams than there ever were in hockey.
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I beg to differnce... You can't compare hockey with Football in Sweden... Football has allways and will allways be the bigger sport in Sweden! its our nationalsport.
 
Urbanskog said:
Soccer obviously butchers hockey regarding participation numbers since the former is easily accessible and cheap to play, while the latter is the most expensive sport designed for mass participation in the world. However, doesn't hockey have a considerably higher attendance than soccer in Slovakia?
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No Hockey isnt the moste expensive sport in the world... far from it
 
Urbanskog said:
Soccer obviously butchers hockey regarding participation numbers since the former is easily accessible and cheap to play, while the latter is the most expensive sport designed for mass participation in the world. However, doesn't hockey have a considerably higher attendance than soccer in Slovakia?
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Yes, however the numbers of active hockey players are low not just compared to football, but also compared to the other hockey countries with population of 5-10 million.

Besides Slovan in the KHL and the play-offs the attendance in hockey has been struggling for the past few years. And I don't think you can base the popularity based on attendance of the leagues, the Slovak hockey league is higher in the hierarchy of world hockey than Slovak football league is in the hierarchy of world football. And there's not such a high difference between the (equally bad numbers) for the hockey and football league.

If Slovakia had a football club playing in a top league like Slovan in KHL in a nice arena, its games could be sold out just like Slovan's in KHL.
 
aphyro said:
No Hockey isnt the moste expensive sport in the world... far from it
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Did I say it is?

slovakiasnextone said:
Yes, however the numbers of active hockey players are low not just compared to football, but also compared to the other hockey countries with population of 5-10 million.

Besides Slovan in the KHL and the play-offs the attendance in hockey has been struggling for the past few years. And I don't think you can base the popularity based on attendance of the leagues, the Slovak hockey league is higher in the hierarchy of world hockey than Slovak football league is in the hierarchy of world football. And there's not such a high difference between the (equally bad numbers) for the hockey and football league.

If Slovakia had a football club playing in a top league like Slovan in KHL in a nice arena, its games could be sold out just like Slovan's in KHL.
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I see. Still, in a country like Belarus interest is higher in hockey but people just can't afford playing the sport.
 
alce said:
Yes, of course. :sarcasm: Although, you are Ak-Bars fan, so maybe you're living in Kazan? Then I can understand you, because Rubin Kazan is most boring football team in universe.:D
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What does that have to do with anything? You might have noticed I don't like football. Even in there would be the best team in the world in Kazan what do I care? I actually have no idea what kind of a team Rubin is. I don't know a single player. And btw the russian league is a league of foreigners. Even if I cared for football I couldn't find it interesting if our Brazilians beat their Argentinians or vice versa.
 
aphyro said:
Are you reall that stupid or do you just play it?

There is harder to win WC in football because there is more team that can compete and win it then it is in hockey.

And for me Hockey is kinda ******** with that you can have a ref from the same countery as your national team and still play the game:laugh: and for that i can stand the diving's in football...

But i like both sports but i like football more, haha nothing happens that says exactely how much you know about that game... like the hardcore football fans say the same thing about hockey.
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No, I won't call you stupid, but stubborn... More teams doesn't mean it is harder to win. End of story. I might not like football, but I know a thing or two about it. Tell me how many teams ever won the World Cup? Hint: it's pretty much the same number as the number of "big" hockey nations. Gives: it's pretty much the same number of top teams really competing for the title every time. Btw the fact I don't like football doesn't mean I don't know football. I might know it better than you.
 
Atas2000 said:
No, I won't call you stupid, but stubborn... More teams doesn't mean it is harder to win. End of story. I might not like football, but I know a thing or two about it. Tell me how many teams ever won the World Cup? Hint: it's pretty much the same number as the number of "big" hockey nations. Gives: it's pretty much the same number of top teams really competing for the title every time. Btw the fact I don't like football doesn't mean I don't know football. I might know it better than you.
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Ok.

Uruguay,Brazil,Germany,Italy,France,Spain,Argentina,England...

And now leta check how many teams that have been second and their placed.

Sweden,Netherlands,hungary,czechslovakia,poland,Chile,USA, Turkey,Austria,Croatia,Portugal.

Tell me now how many different teams that competing for medals in hockey.

Well aparenly you dont
 
Gemini said:
It's obviously huge in hockey-playing European countries. In Finland the 2006 loss to Sweden was unbearable. I think many would have preferred to let Russia annex 10% of the country rather than watch the Swedes win.
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lol !

on topic... the only way of growing hockey in eu is to have non hockey countries win some major tournaments... in germany i see a big potential... everything that wins gets the hype over here. there are olympic decisions that got created by germans because they couldnt win in the original contests... thats how bad we want medals :laugh: a 1line nhl superstar wouldnt help but the growth of hockey depends on the nation team. everything else is just a bonus
 
aphyro said:
Ok.

Uruguay,Brazil,Germany,Italy,France,Spain,Argentina,England...

And now leta check how many teams that have been second and their placed.

Sweden,Netherlands,hungary,czechslovakia,poland,Chile,USA, Turkey,Austria,Croatia,Portugal.

Tell me now how many different teams that competing for medals in hockey.

Well aparenly you dont
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Okay, so teams like Uruguay, Hungary and Austria which have last medaled in the 50s count. Guess Austria, Great Britain and Germany are contenders at hockey as well then.
 
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