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How can Suomi be so good?

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It must be the Finnish coaching and/or sisu. Finns usually get a boost to their game from being the underdogs that have to fight to win, and this year is pretty much the first time ever we were among the top favorites to win; I'm so glad it worked out.

Finns just simply play as a team better than anyone, despite often lacking in skill.
 
Cogsbreakaway said:
Sweden's youth are drawn to many other sports, like soccer (at least 50%), handball, floorball (Finns too), skiing, Basketball, Tennis, table-tennis etc.

Finns only have rally, hockey and the world championships in Sauna-bathing! ;)
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There are many more football players than hockey players in Finland.
 
Finland (Suomi) hasn't been that good at producing talent apart from a couple of outliers, and one swallow doesn't a summer make. If this current rate keeps up, sure, but let's give it a few years, shall we.
 
I think too many people are only looking at how many points our forwards are producing and underestimating them because of it. Points per game isn't best way to evaluate how good players are. Finns might not be best at scoring but it doesn't matter if they can shut down enemy teams top line and score now and then.
 
What a team this was, future is looking really bright!

Barkov, Puljujärvi, Aho, Rantanen, Laine, Ristolainen, Määttä, Vatanen, Juolevi.

Finland has never had big skilled players.
 
Chimp said:
Read it. It ain't hard to interpret.

Finland has 75.871 registered hockey players.

Canada has 721.504, US has 533.172, Czech Republic 109.103, Russia 99.172, Sweden 60.089, Germany 25.201 and Switzerland 23.000. Finland has enough players to perform well. They actually have more players than Sweden for example.

On a side note, Japan has double the amount of players than Slovakia.
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Yeah, and according to the IIHF numbers, Japan has almost as many senior players as Russia (last year Australia and Belgium were actually ahead of Russia). Different national federations have different ways of counting the participation numbers.
 
Cueb said:
I think too many people are only looking at how many points our forwards are producing and underestimating them because of it. Points per game isn't best way to evaluate how good players are. Finns might not be best at scoring but it doesn't matter if they can shut down enemy teams top line and score now and then.
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This.

Played well in single tournament doesn't mean you automatically become a future superstar.

Give it a few years before jump into hyper bandwagon.
 
You can only dress 20 guys. It doesn't really matter how good your best 500 players are when you can put together a team of 20 guys who can compete vs the rest.

One of the things the European hockey nations generally have going for them is that even if they only have a handful of really good NHL star players, the rest of the guys though not supremely athletically gifted tend to be pretty competent players with skill sets that are optimized for larger ice surfaces and the less physical international game.
 
swetoxic said:
no doubt about that, but somehow one has to be realistic as well.
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I didn't say those guys would be superstars. Finland hasn't had that great players as of late aside from goalies and these kids bring a lot of excitement.
 
Cueb said:
I think too many people are only looking at how many points our forwards are producing and underestimating them because of it. Points per game isn't best way to evaluate how good players are. Finns might not be best at scoring but it doesn't matter if they can shut down enemy teams top line and score now and then.
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A very, very good point here.
 
swetoxic said:
This.

Played well in single tournament doesn't mean you automatically become a future superstar.

Give it a few years before jump into hyper bandwagon.
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Yup. Short tournaments and long regular season + best-of-7-playoffs are different animals. Hype is overrated anyways. It's much nicer to enjoy the moment. Now it's Finland's moment, lets be happy.

I also hope that fans and media here in Finland give these amazing young hockey players some room to breathe and develop. No need to strangle them with overhyping, 24/7 media chase and faces in the post stamps.

Let's just enjoy hockey. And let them just be wonderful young hockey players. They don't have to carry the whole nation.
 
'Team Concept' has rather long history in Finland. It's considered honor to represent the country. Development of a Characteristic team building system has rather long and complex history already, and not without bitter lessons from past...

Traditionally Team Finland can't compete with skills of individuals alone, and thus the system has been always based on building of a coherency of functional lines for a team, not forgetting mental coaching.

In essence, old veterans, forerunners, and great pioneers form 5th, 6th, 7th... lines behind younger generations, and that source of experience, insight, and encouragement has been proven to be one of most important aspect in an evolution of Finnish hockey. This aspect is heavily reinforced by Finnish hockey institution.

It's team game, and currently Finland hold the torch in an art of building good teams from the limited player material, but achieving that torch to hold required lot of systematical work for it. It didn't drop from the sky.
 
Raptor1990 said:
The most interesting is why is Russia so good at WJC`s when about 80% of their population lives in poverty...
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Well even if your number is true, 20% of Russia's population is still 28.8 million, considerably larger than the total population of Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, and nearly as many as Canada.
 
Our teams seem to come together really fast compared to other teams in tournaments. They almost always perform as a unit rather than individuals and it shows. While other teams are often relying on individual performances we are usually pushing through as a team. That, and the fact that our coaching systems seem to be really good.

That oughta change pretty soon though with all this young top-end talent coming up. I'd say that if these guys pan out as expected we will be able to stand our ground against the other big countries even on paper in a few years. I just hope our coaching systems and team mentality doesn't change even with better players. If we keep playing the way we've played in the past with a much better roster we could finally actually be a serious threat in the Olympics.
 
Urbanskog said:
I don't under this logic. Do you think that all Swedes first start playing soccer and if they aren't good enough, they'll switch to hockey or what?
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No, but whe you're good at both sports at the certain age age, you usually chose one over the other. In Finland, that sport is hockey, because it's much more likely to make a hockey professional here than soccer. In Sweden, it's the other way arund, and those kids are looking up for the soccer mens team.
 
Cogsbreakaway said:
How can Finland be so competitive every Olympics, WC and WJC - despite never having anywhere close to the individual talent of the other top nations?

The best players are in the NHL and the best players in this league are Canadians, Americans, Swedes and Russians.
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It's not that those players perform exceptionally good when playing in national, but they are underrated or mishandled on their professional teams.
 
Chimp said:
Read it. It ain't hard to interpret.

Finland has 75.871 registered hockey players.

Canada has 721.504, US has 533.172, Czech Republic 109.103, Russia 99.172, Sweden 60.089, Germany 25.201 and Switzerland 23.000. Finland has enough players to perform well. They actually have more players than Sweden for example.

On a side note, Japan has double the amount of players than Slovakia.
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No we don't. Your number don't include recreational players, ours do.
 
rduck1 said:
Hockey would be a very different game if it was played on paper.
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For sure.

I compare the Finns to the NJD. On paper, they seem like they should not be as good. But in the ice, they play a complete team game. And of course I am generalizing, not saying this Jr team or this year NJD are the same.

I used to call the NJDevils the Borg. One hive mind. One goes down, another steps into the spot. The Finns have been the same way over the years.
 
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