Impact of Olympics on Russian Hockey

[An Argument For]

Again, I have to revert to the analysis of Brent Sutter, who, if you will recall, coached those really dominant Canadian World Junior teams in 2005-6, and then coached this past year in Sweden. He said that Canada had no real competition in those earlier years, but that the World appears to have caught up to Canada, at least as far as U20 is an indicator. His viewpoint appears to be supported by the fact that Canada has not won a Gold Medal at the WJC in the last 5 tournaments, and it has in fact failed to medal for the last 2 years. In Ufa, Canada had its only best on best team since 2005, and yet it still failed to medal.

Really strong teams from Sweden, Finland, the United States and, yes, even Russia, have emerged to successfully challenge Canada in the last 5 years. Since I have not read about any initiatives to scale back junior hockey in Canada, the only reasonable conclusion is that the well-documented efforts by hockey federations in Sweden, Finland, the United States and, yes, even Russia, to grow and substantially re-make junior hockey are starting to come to fruition. Just 5 years ago, there were no junior hockey leagues in Russia. Now, the MHL, funded and supported by the KHL and VHL, has vastly increased the number of Russian kids who have an opportunity to play hockey. Other junior leagues have sprouted up as well. I just think the World is getting better.

Why do you keep calling 2005 "those earlier years". That's less than a decade ago and every one of the big 7 hockey countries had been well established by that time. You mention Canada hasn't won a gold medal in 5 years.. thats' true. It also went 7 years without a gold medal BEFORE this supposed decline began after 2005. 2005 was the end of a long winless streak and it ended with 5 championships in a row.

The world was better in the 90's early 2000s, relatively speaking, that it is now. There was a time when Canada actually had less than half of the NHL's top 25 and top 50 scorers. Back in 98 when Bure, Jagr, and Forsberg were dominating a 36 year old Gretzky was the only Canadian in the top 5. IN 2002-03 there were only 11 Canadians in the top 30 of NHL scoring. If anything the past decade has seen a resurgance of Canadian Hockey. And our Junior teams are going through another drought in that they're failing to win it all but the production of great players has remained high..

The 2014 team might not have won a medal but as a Russian you might want to remember names like McDavid, Drouin, Reinhardt, Ekblad... i'm sure you'll see some of those again.

 

[Yakushev72]

A faulty premise, of course, based on your revealed lack of understanding when it comes to the composition, expectations/goals, and roster alternatives concerning Team Canadas of the past.

I would love to hear you expound on how my premise is false. Go ahead, if you can! Tell me about the large regions of Canada where kids have never heard of the sport of hockey, or where there are no stores that sell hockey skates or hockey sticks. Tell me about the Canadian communities where you have to travel 300 or 400 miles to get to the closest indoor rink. There are numerous areas in Russia that have just such characteristics. And please spare me the Arctic Regions, because those represent a tiny fraction of Canada's population!

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

I would love to hear you expound on how my premise is false.

For your benefit only? Not sure I'll waste the time if it's obvious enough for everyone else.

 

[Thesensation19*]

The Russian Federation wanted to showcase the KHL as a legitimate rival to the NHL this Olympics but I think the opposite may have happened. With the early flameout of the Russian team and the dominating performance by teams composed mainly of NHL players, especially Canada, the NHL made a definitive case that it is the best league.

It made me wonder: What will be the impact of these Olympics on Russian hockey development? With the Olympics being in Russia, I imagine that a lot of Russian children watched these games. Do you guys think that there will be an increase of young Russian players who will want to play in the NHL? Or maybe conversely, less Russians will want to play in the NHL and instead want to stay in Russia with the KHL out of patriotism to help develop their own league?

Also with the Russian coach being 'eaten alive' for using outdated game strategy will there be a change in the way the game is played/coached in Russia?

Russia did not use the Olympics to showcase the KHL. It had nothing to do with the KHL or club hockey and everything to do with national hockey. Russia only proved that it has much work to do in order to win a big event like this again... much work

There were many other teams that had KHL or European-club based players in general. Finland had several KHLers. Even more Finnish-league players. Even had an AHLer. And it beat the USA, full of NHLers.

National competition has very little to do these days with whats going on in the domestic leagues because so many players play abroad.

The Canadians won because they have many good players but they played like champions. They chose a system and played through that blueprint.

Austria had many Austrian league players but they didn't blow because they were lesser skilled. It prob has more to do with the fact that they were out drinking the day before their knockout game.



Why did Latvia almost upset Canada even with NO NHL players and a bunch of KHLers?

Only way to see how good the KHL is, is to watch the KHL against the NHL.

 

[Thesensation19*]

Russia didn't lose because it had lack of talent. It had a bunch of talent. A ton of it.

They lost because they didn't play together.

Ovechkin wanted to do his own thing. Malkin wanted to do his own thing. Kovalchuk even looked selfish at times and Datsyuk looked invisible the last game.

There was no order. No leadership. They played like they never played with one another.

 

[Yakushev72]

Why do you keep calling 2005 "those earlier years". That's less than a decade ago and every one of the big 7 hockey countries had been well established by that time. You mention Canada hasn't won a gold medal in 5 years.. thats' true. It also went 7 years without a gold medal BEFORE this supposed decline began after 2005. 2005 was the end of a long winless streak and it ended with 5 championships in a row.

The world was better in the 90's early 2000s, relatively speaking, that it is now. There was a time when Canada actually had less than half of the NHL's top 25 and top 50 scorers. Back in 98 when Bure, Jagr, and Forsberg were dominating a 36 year old Gretzky was the only Canadian in the top 5. IN 2002-03 there were only 11 Canadians in the top 30 of NHL scoring. If anything the past decade has seen a resurgance of Canadian Hockey. And our Junior teams are going through another drought in that they're failing to win it all but the production of great players has remained high..

The 2014 team might not have won a medal but as a Russian you might want to remember names like McDavid, Drouin, Reinhardt, Ekblad... i'm sure you'll see some of those again.

Its not me that's saying "those earlier years." Its Brent Sutter! For all I know, you may be more of a hockey expert than Brent Sutter, but it was he that pointed out the obvious - at the youth level, Canada is coming back to the pack, or, to put it more accurately, the pack has caught up with Canada. Its not my opinion - look at the record!

Back in '98, Russian hockey was barely on life support. Sure, there were a few remnants from the Soviet era, like Bure, Fyodorov, Mogilny, Yashin, Gonchar, Zhitnik, etc. These guys were all the products of Soviet hockey schools back in the '80's. By 1994, all those schools had dissolved in financial ruin, and pro hockey began disintegrating because there were no funds to pay salaries. Hockey started to come back a bit in 2004, and by 2008, some new structure began to emerge. Its obviously no mystery that when hockey is resurrected, there are going to be good hockey players again!

 

[Thesensation19*]

Yak would have been better than Popov.

WOULD HE?

The guy is a #1 pick who isn't liked by many in Edmonton because he doesn't play defense. He doesn't hustle. He doesn't backcheck and he wont forecheck aggressively. He has come out and said that is not his game and its tough to ask a dog to act as a cat.

He is just another weapon. You don't win just because you have MORE weapons.

Russia lost because Malkin tried to juggle past everyone, Ovechkin was predictable as always, Datsyuk was hurt, Kovalchuk had to take on several roles, the defense was slow, the transition was weak, the possession ineffective due to all the things above. They had strong goaltending but everything else made them lose to a much better team in the Fins.

I expected this. The only people who didn't was the ones who still believe having weapons like Yakupov would make for a better team.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Its not me that's saying "those earlier years." Its Brent Sutter! For all I know, you may be more of a hockey expert than Brent Sutter, but it was he that pointed out the obvious - at the youth level, Canada is coming back to the pack, or, to put it more accurately, the pack has caught up with Canada. Its not my opinion - look at the record!

If Canada "is coming back to the pack", that means "the pack is (or perhaps more accurately, was) catching up to Canada". Tailoring the grammar to suit your opinion could be considered "poetic license", and I hereby revoke yours.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Guys, play nice.

 

[Jussi]

My comments were based on the premise that Canadian hockey has been more or less maxed out for the last 30 years or so. You can tweak a little here and there, and maybe some years a Crosby or Lemieux just won't be produced, Canada has been operating at full bore for several decades now. Until recent years, other countries haven't had the infrastructure, organization and resources to be able to compete. But Sweden, Finland, and the United States are affluent countries that have proven themselves to be fully capable of greatly upgrading their hockey when they decided to make the commitment to do it. Same with Russia, which has become rich enough in recent years to start widespread rink-building activities, organizing large-scale junior leagues, and putting together the infrastructure to compete on a much higher level.

Only time will tell whether it will all last. Theoretically, Sweden could lose interest and just drop hockey altogether. But it doesn't seem like there is much chance of it.

A couple of things you need to be aware of. Most importantly, junior development is very cyclical and in the cases of smaller countries like Finland and Sweden it can show more clearly. Second, Swedes had their issues with junior developments over 10 years ago but resources wasn't the problem. It was how they used re: player development. They had the masses, the rinks etc but they were molding the players too early into the team concept instead of focusing on skill development. They had their big conference and focused their effort into educating coaches more on player development and development in general.

Finland had similar issues as well, we focused too much on creating hard working 3rd liners and team players than actual skills. Also the federation interpreted a national youth sports directive far too literally and restricted competitive nature among the teams and kids. We had our conference a few year ago but our federation is still a bit...lacking and although they're trying to focus more on developing skill, they have not made any great effort on educating junior coaches. They did use the 8 million euro profit from the 2012 Worlds to hire 25 regional skill development coaches but that list had some names that people found questionable(as in hired for their name rather than talent). The players we've had in recent years could have made the breakthrough despite the system as most of them were considered special talents at an early age so it might be a while before we see real results of the changes.

 

[An Argument For]

Its not me that's saying "those earlier years." Its Brent Sutter! For all I know, you may be more of a hockey expert than Brent Sutter, but it was he that pointed out the obvious - at the youth level, Canada is coming back to the pack, or, to put it more accurately, the pack has caught up with Canada. Its not my opinion - look at the record!

Back in '98, Russian hockey was barely on life support. Sure, there were a few remnants from the Soviet era, like Bure, Fyodorov, Mogilny, Yashin, Gonchar, Zhitnik, etc. These guys were all the products of Soviet hockey schools back in the '80's. By 1994, all those schools had dissolved in financial ruin, and pro hockey began disintegrating because there were no funds to pay salaries. Hockey started to come back a bit in 2004, and by 2008, some new structure began to emerge. Its obviously no mystery that when hockey is resurrected, there are going to be good hockey players again!

Remnants of the Soviet Era only account for a few of the great players in the 90s and early 2000s. Also between 1999-2004, Russia won the Juniors 3 times.. they've only won it once since this 2008 Resurrection. Also the number of Russians drafted into the NHL has slowed to dribble and it doesn't seem to be reversing.

 

[Yakushev72]

Remnants of the Soviet Era only account for a few of the great players in the 90s and early 2000s. Also between 1999-2004, Russia won the Juniors 3 times.. they've only won it once since this 2008 Resurrection. Also the number of Russians drafted into the NHL has slowed to dribble and it doesn't seem to be reversing.

Good challenge to my thesis! Even when the system is down, a big country like Russia is going to produce a few good players. There were very few stars in 1999, 2002 and 2003, just decent, sound players who played well enough to win a Gold Medal. The only really good player from that group who comes to mind is Ovechkin. Of course everything is cyclical and almost a matter of chance as to when great talent is going to filter through the system. I just think there are more countries playing at the highest level right now, and tournaments like the WJC are a toss-up.

 

[An Argument For]

Good challenge to my thesis! Even when the system is down, a big country like Russia is going to produce a few good players. There were very few stars in 1999, 2002 and 2003, just decent, sound players who played well enough to win a Gold Medal. The only really good player from that group who comes to mind is Ovechkin. Of course everything is cyclical and almost a matter of chance as to when great talent is going to filter through the system. I just think there are more countries playing at the highest level right now, and tournaments like the WJC are a toss-up.

You might be undermining your own argument here. You said Russia best period of success at the world juniors came, not because of producing top talent, but because they produced teams who could win the necessary games.

You also concluded that Canada is losing its advantage because of it's failure to win Gold at the juniors recently. Canada hasn't in anyway failed to produce top talent. In fact, in the five years that Canada hasn't won a Gold they have only lost a two round robin games.. in five tournaments. The problem is they haven't been winning the games they need to win. The quality of the players hasn't diminished at all. The number of Canadians that are drafted with high picks has been phenomenal.

I just looked at the 1st round of the drafts and added up how many Canadians had been selected. Here's the turn of the Millennium when I said Canada reached it's lowest point.

2002 - 10 Canadians
2001 - 12 Canadians
2000 - 10 Canadians
1999 - 9 Canadians (None in the top 5, first only time that has ever happened)


Here's the last five drafts, all post the 2005 Decline that you discussed.

2013 - 18 Canadians
2012 - 15 Canadians
2011 - 16 Canadians
2010 - 14 Canadians
2009 - 17 Canadians

So more than half of the players selected in the first round have been Canadian. Yet less than half of the players drafted are Canadian.

 

[Yakushev72]

A couple of things you need to be aware of. Most importantly, junior development is very cyclical and in the cases of smaller countries like Finland and Sweden it can show more clearly. Second, Swedes had their issues with junior developments over 10 years ago but resources wasn't the problem. It was how they used re: player development. They had the masses, the rinks etc but they were molding the players too early into the team concept instead of focusing on skill development. They had their big conference and focused their effort into educating coaches more on player development and development in general.

Finland had similar issues as well, we focused too much on creating hard working 3rd liners and team players than actual skills. Also the federation interpreted a national youth sports directive far too literally and restricted competitive nature among the teams and kids. We had our conference a few year ago but our federation is still a bit...lacking and although they're trying to focus more on developing skill, they have not made any great effort on educating junior coaches. They did use the 8 million euro profit from the 2012 Worlds to hire 25 regional skill development coaches but that list had some names that people found questionable(as in hired for their name rather than talent). The players we've had in recent years could have made the breakthrough despite the system as most of them were considered special talents at an early age so it might be a while before we see real results of the changes.

Sweden and Finland are doing something right. I would have really loved to have seen Finland make it through to the Gold Medal game. I'm certain they would have acquitted themselves much better than the Swedes, who were a big disappointment. When you look at the hockey playing population in comparison to other Top 5 countries, its amazing how good they have been, particularly in the last 7 or 8 years.

 

[Yakushev72]

You might be undermining your own argument here. You said Russia best period of success at the world juniors came, not because of producing top talent, but because they produced teams who could win the necessary games.

You also concluded that Canada is losing its advantage because of it's failure to win Gold at the juniors recently. Canada hasn't in anyway failed to produce top talent. In fact, in the five years that Canada hasn't won a Gold they have only lost a two round robin games.. in five tournaments. The problem is they haven't been winning the games they need to win. The quality of the players hasn't diminished at all. The number of Canadians that are drafted with high picks has been phenomenal.

I just looked at the 1st round of the drafts and added up how many Canadians had been selected. Here's the turn of the Millennium when I said Canada reached it's lowest point.

2002 - 10 Canadians
2001 - 12 Canadians
2000 - 10 Canadians
1999 - 9 Canadians (None in the top 5, first only time that has ever happened)


Here's the last five drafts, all post the 2005 Decline that you discussed.

2013 - 18 Canadians
2012 - 15 Canadians
2011 - 16 Canadians
2010 - 14 Canadians
2009 - 17 Canadians

So more than half of the players selected in the first round have been Canadian. Yet less than half of the players drafted are Canadian.

Your statistics depict something other than the argument that you are advancing. It was about 2009 when the NHL stopped drafting Russians. The rationale for not drafting Russians had much more to do with risk-reward than an overall assessment of the lack of quality of Russian talent or a sudden skyrocketing of Canadian talent. I will readily admit that there hasn't been a surplus of great Russian talent between 1994 and the present, but I don't see a sudden disappearance of Russian talent either. Compare the number of Russians drafted from 1992-99, and the numbers drafted in the last 3 or 4 years. The disparity is huge! Those numbers reflect the NHL staying away from Russians in droves.

 

[Canuck21t]

My comments were based on the premise that Canadian hockey has been more or less maxed out for the last 30 years or so. You can tweak a little here and there, and maybe some years a Crosby or Lemieux just won't be produced, Canada has been operating at full bore for several decades now. Until recent years, other countries haven't had the infrastructure, organization and resources to be able to compete. But Sweden, Finland, and the United States are affluent countries that have proven themselves to be fully capable of greatly upgrading their hockey when they decided to make the commitment to do it. Same with Russia, which has become rich enough in recent years to start widespread rink-building activities, organizing large-scale junior leagues, and putting together the infrastructure to compete on a much higher level.

Only time will tell whether it will all last. Theoretically, Sweden could lose interest and just drop hockey altogether. But it doesn't seem like there is much chance of it.

Its not me that's saying "those earlier years." Its Brent Sutter! For all I know, you may be more of a hockey expert than Brent Sutter, but it was he that pointed out the obvious - at the youth level, Canada is coming back to the pack, or, to put it more accurately, the pack has caught up with Canada. Its not my opinion - look at the record!

Back in '98, Russian hockey was barely on life support. Sure, there were a few remnants from the Soviet era, like Bure, Fyodorov, Mogilny, Yashin, Gonchar, Zhitnik, etc. These guys were all the products of Soviet hockey schools back in the '80's. By 1994, all those schools had dissolved in financial ruin, and pro hockey began disintegrating because there were no funds to pay salaries. Hockey started to come back a bit in 2004, and by 2008, some new structure began to emerge. Its obviously no mystery that when hockey is resurrected, there are going to be good hockey players again!

You and Brent Sutter are wrong. It is not true that Canadian hockey has been maxed out for the last 30 years or so. I've been hearing that other countries are catching up to Canada since the '90s and indeed 15 years ago other countries were better than Canada.

I don't know if you can watch the following video, but it's from 1999. Back then, it seemed that nothing went our way, even our women's team lost to the US. It was so bad that Canada's hockey minds had to call a summit to find ways to regain supremacy.

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categori...opes-to-restore-canadas-hockey-supremacy.html

And here are some points about Canadian hockey's demise from the same feature:

• Gretzky said player development in Canada in 1999 wasn't too different from that of his own childhood. "But," he added, "the problem is magnified now because of the infusion of Europeans into the NHL. They weren't in the league in the 1960s and 1970s."

• A large influx of European players into the NHL began after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Powerful players from former Soviet republics, as well as skilled Swedes and Finns, broke Canadians' dominance in the league.

• The summit was also prompted in part because Canada's men's team failed to make the podium at the 1998 winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. The Czech Republic won the gold, Russia took the silver and Finland finished with the bronze.
• Women's hockey was a new event at the 1998 Games, and Canada's team lost to the United States in the gold medal game.

• In 1999, Canadian players accounted for 61 per cent of the NHL roster. Another 24 per cent were European and 15 per cent were American.
• However, only three out of the 12 finalists for that year's top four NHL awards - 25 per cent - were Canadian. In 1998, two Canadians and 10 Europeans were named as finalists.

• Europeans also dominated the 1999 entry draft. Of the 28 first-round picks, only nine were Canadian.

• According to Houston, young Canadians were learning to play "conservative, defensive hockey" that restricted creativity and encouraged aggression.

• In minor hockey, a player with average skills could expect to control the puck for only 45 seconds during a game.

So there, we are maybe at our highest now, but it hasn't been like this for 30 years as you can see we were in much worse condition 15 years ago. There may be a time in the future that we'll be in difficulty again like in the late 90's, but Canada has shown in the past that it can take action and change its game too.

Will Russia do the same and change its ways or is it too proud to do anything?

 

[Canuck21t]

Your statistics depict something other than the argument that you are advancing. It was about 2009 when the NHL stopped drafting Russians. The rationale for not drafting Russians had much more to do with risk-reward than an overall assessment of the lack of quality of Russian talent or a sudden skyrocketing of Canadian talent. I will readily admit that there hasn't been a surplus of great Russian talent between 1994 and the present, but I don't see a sudden disappearance of Russian talent either. Compare the number of Russians drafted from 1992-99, and the numbers drafted in the last 3 or 4 years. The disparity is huge! Those numbers reflect the NHL staying away from Russians in droves.

So are you saying there's nothing wrong with Russian hockey?

 

[Yakushev72]

So are you saying there's nothing wrong with Russian hockey?

What I am saying is that Russian hockey has been running at about 20% capacity starting with the post-Soviet era, right up until 2009-10, when the KHL and MHL were inaugurated, and the VHL was substantially upgraded as a farm system for the KHL. This represented an attempt to regain the quality of hockey that was evident from 1956-92. There has been a huge investment in building new rinks and establishing the infrastructure to permit competitive junior hockey to take place. I am hoping that the results will start to become visible by 2018, at least at they youth level.

 

[Canuck21t]

What I am saying is that Russian hockey has been running at about 20% capacity starting with the post-Soviet era, right up until 2009-10, when the KHL and MHL were inaugurated, and the VHL was substantially upgraded as a farm system for the KHL. This represented an attempt to regain the quality of hockey that was evident from 1956-92. There has been a huge investment in building new rinks and establishing the infrastructure to permit competitive junior hockey to take place. I am hoping that the results will start to become visible by 2018, at least at they youth level.

Russian hockey has room to improve, but you know that it can never be like it used to be in 1956-92 unless you replicate the exact condition which is not possible with our present systems. Back in those days, the Soviets were able to select all the best players and make them play on one team all-year round for multiple years. That's why they were so good. We in the West didn't have that luxury and neither is today's Russian hockey.

 

[Canuck21t]

What I am saying is that Russian hockey has been running at about 20% capacity starting with the post-Soviet era, right up until 2009-10, when the KHL and MHL were inaugurated, and the VHL was substantially upgraded as a farm system for the KHL. This represented an attempt to regain the quality of hockey that was evident from 1956-92. There has been a huge investment in building new rinks and establishing the infrastructure to permit competitive junior hockey to take place. I am hoping that the results will start to become visible by 2018, at least at they youth level.

Russian hockey has room to improve, but you know that it can never be like it used to be in 1956-92 unless you replicate the exact condition which is not possible with our present systems. Back in those days, the Soviets were able to select all the best players and make them play on one team all-year round for multiple years. That's why they were so good. We in the West didn't have that luxury and neither is today's Russian hockey.

 

[Zine]

Russian hockey has room to improve, but you know that it can never be like it used to be in 1956-92 unless you replicate the exact condition which is not possible with our present systems. Back in those days, the Soviets were able to select all the best players and make them play on one team all-year round for multiple years. That's why they were so good. We in the West didn't have that luxury and neither is today's Russian hockey.

Not necessarily.

Look at WJCs. Overall results exactly mirrored senior NTs results in that Canada and USSR were neck-to-neck and a step above everybody else. However Soviet WJC teams never practiced year round, and were comprised of players from teams all over the country.

The whole 'Soviets practiced year-round' mantra is greatly overstated. Russian hockey is not on par with past Soviet greatness for vastly different reasons.

 

[An Argument For]

Not necessarily.

Look at WJCs. Overall results exactly mirrored senior NTs results in that Canada and USSR were neck-to-neck and a step above everybody else. However Soviet WJC teams never practiced year round, and were comprised of players from teams all over the country.

The whole 'Soviets practiced year-round' mantra is greatly overstated. Russian hockey is not on par with past Soviet greatness for vastly different reasons.

Well to be fair Canada didn't even have a national junior team until 1982 so it's hard to know how well the junior levels actually stacked up even at that point.

 

[Canuck21t]

Not necessarily.

Look at WJCs. Overall results exactly mirrored senior NTs results in that Canada and USSR were neck-to-neck and a step above everybody else. However Soviet WJC teams never practiced year round, and were comprised of players from teams all over the country.

The whole 'Soviets practiced year-round' mantra is greatly overstated. Russian hockey is not on par with past Soviet greatness for vastly different reasons.

Canada and USSR were neck-to-neck because the Soviets didn't use the same condition as the senior team and the reason it was above the rest is because it's the juniors where the player pool from other countries are even smaller than in senior. The 'Soviets practiced year-round' mantra is exactly why the *senior* Soviet team was so above anyone else. How can you even deny such an advantage is beyond me. If other teams did the same, I'm SURE the competition would have been a lot tougher. Imagine if Team Canada 2014 did the same, I'm sure a better chemistry would develop and our forwards would surely start to score a lot more. Chemistry is probably the main element of any winning team.

I do concur that we Canadian fans are often arrogant, but it seems that Russian fans are in denial about the reasons behind the Soviet's supremacy and are also in delusion about its future potential if your goal is to get back to Soviet-level. Seriously, you think the Soviets were supermen or something? Russia will NEVER regain the same level of the Soviet era no matter how good your training techniques are and no matter how much money you poor in your development. It will never be like it used to be because of that overstated mantra.

 

[Yakushev72]

Well to be fair Canada didn't even have a national junior team until 1982 so it's hard to know how well the junior levels actually stacked up even at that point.

Actually, Canada put together an all-star national junior team for the 1978 World Juniors in Quebec. They had some guys who later had pretty good careers in the NHL, such as Wayne Gretzky. The Soviets won the Gold Medal that year with a 3-2 win over Canada.

 

[Yakushev72]

Canada and USSR were neck-to-neck because the Soviets didn't use the same condition as the senior team and the reason it was above the rest is because it's the juniors where the player pool from other countries are even smaller than in senior. The 'Soviets practiced year-round' mantra is exactly why the *senior* Soviet team was so above anyone else. How can you even deny such an advantage is beyond me. If other teams did the same, I'm SURE the competition would have been a lot tougher. Imagine if Team Canada 2014 did the same, I'm sure a better chemistry would develop and our forwards would surely start to score a lot more. Chemistry is probably the main element of any winning team.

I do concur that we Canadian fans are often arrogant, but it seems that Russian fans are in denial about the reasons behind the Soviet's supremacy and are also in delusion about its future potential if your goal is to get back to Soviet-level. Seriously, you think the Soviets were supermen or something? Russia will NEVER regain the same level of the Soviet era no matter how good your training techniques are and no matter how much money you poor in your development. It will never be like it used to be because of that overstated mantra.

I would love it if Canadian posters would do some independent research on their own, rather than just repeating the pronouncements of TV analysts and sports writers who know absolutely nothing about Soviet/Russian hockey.

I have no idea what the future training regimens in the KHL will be, but I agree that no new regimen will be considered in the NHL. Of course its true that the far more grueling, advanced and targeted training that Soviet teams engaged in gave them a huge advantage over NHL teams. Its almost a rule of life that if you work a lot harder than someone else, you are probably going to be more successful than they are. What I would love to see is for Canadians to take ownership of their training philosophies, rather than just complaining that its no fair because the other guys outworked us. There were never any known laws in Canada or the US that prohibited playing hockey for longer than 7 months a year. Canadians made the choice to not work as hard and not work as often.

In regard to current expansion of hockey in Russia, again, instead of listening to Canadian TV analysts who know nothing about Russia at all, I would love to see Canadians who are critical of Russia get to know more about what the real situation is. We've already discussed Soviet training methods, but we haven't discussed the fact that only a tiny fraction of the potential talent pool had an opportunity to become hockey players. During the Soviet era, it is estimated that there were no more than 60 indoor rinks in the entire Soviet Union. That means your chances of becoming a hockey player were dependent on whether you were among the tiny minority who happened to live near a hockey rink. The only organized junior hockey was provided by existing pro club teams, but they didn't have a league in which they played each other.

In the last 5 years, the number of rinks increased from around 250 to almost 500, and there is an almost frantic pace of building more rinks. Well-funded and organized junior leagues have come into existence. Probably development will somewhat mirror the Canadian approach of depending on sheer numbers to produce enough talent.