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Is Finland a Top 3 Hockey Nation

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Ohashi_Jouzu said:
And between Olympics, what has Finland done to raise expectations for their results vs the other competing nations?
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I may have misunderstood the question, but WHC gold in 2011 and WJC gold in 2014 should amount to some twitching in the trousers leg, no?
 
Ohashi_Jouzu said:
What's their record in the preliminary round robin and elimination stages like versus their record in medal games again? And between Olympics, what has Finland done to raise expectations for their results vs the other competing nations?

Those would be angles to consider, for sure (on top of the "on paper" stuff, of course).
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and what's the record for USA? Think someone put Finlands up in one of these lol threads. Go fetch
 
On paper, Finland doesn't produce as many elite talents as Sweden or the US for example. However, the impressive thing about them is that their team, regardless of what level (senior or junior), regardless of which players are on the roster (rookies or vets), and regardless of who they're playing against - they always compete. They are always a cohesive team that plays a strong systematic game.

If Finland's population were larger, I honestly think they'd be competing for that #1 spot with Canada. The Finns are always the team I root for if Canada is knocked out and they're still in it. I went with yes.
 
Lempo said:
I may have misunderstood the question, but WHC gold in 2011 and WJC gold in 2014 should amount to some twitching in the trousers leg, no?
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Yes, you must have, since there's a team that has won WHC gold since 2011, and has only failed to medal at the WJC once in the past decade (and that was 5 years ago), yet gets most easily dismissed by Finnish hockey fans it seems. Looking at the nationalities of the players who have gotten the directorate awards for those tournaments (WC - WJC) you can get a partial appreciation for why Finland loses ground "on paper" - even to Russia.

Now sure, things look better when it comes to the Olympics. A lot of that is thanks to 2006, which featured multiple Finnish directorate award winners. Two total goals in two semi-final losses since (6-1 loss to the US in '10, 2-1 loss to Sweden this year) obviously dulls the shine of those bronze medals (and Selanne's tournament MVP) when roughly half the people responding to this poll think of these countries in "overall" terms.
 
cryssarn said:
and what's the record for USA? Think someone put Finlands up in one of these lol threads. Go fetch
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Finland has only come out of the preliminary stage of an Olympics that involved NHLers seeded higher than 4th once, and that was 2006. The US, on the other hand, has come out of the preliminaries as their group leader in the last two Olympics (as they did in 2002, as well). And it was Canada, the eventual tournament winners, who got in the Americans' way both times with 1 goal wins (plus a 5-2 win in '02).
 
Ohashi_Jouzu said:
Finland has only come out of the preliminary stage of an Olympics that involved NHLers seeded higher than 4th once, and that was 2006. The US, on the other hand, has come out of the preliminaries as their group leader in the last two Olympics (as they did in 2002, as well). And it was Canada, the eventual tournament winners, who got in the Americans' way both times with 1 goal wins (plus a 5-2 win in '02).
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You are seriously trying to find a way to prove your point. "Come out of the preliminary stage". You know theres a sayin win the right games. The actual olympics starts after the preliminary stage.

So the preliminary stage decides the rank?
 
Ohashi_Jouzu said:
Yes, you must have, since there's a team that has won WHC gold since 2011, and has only failed to medal at the WJC once in the past decade (and that was 5 years ago), yet gets most easily dismissed by Finnish hockey fans it seems. Looking at the nationalities of the players who have gotten the directorate awards for those tournaments (WC - WJC) you can get a partial appreciation for why Finland loses ground "on paper" - even to Russia.

Now sure, things look better when it comes to the Olympics. A lot of that is thanks to 2006, which featured multiple Finnish directorate award winners. Two total goals in two semi-final losses since (6-1 loss to the US in '10, 2-1 loss to Sweden this year) obviously dulls the shine of those bronze medals (and Selanne's tournament MVP) when roughly half the people responding to this poll think of these countries in "overall" terms.
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Yeah, I was only commenting on your question what has Finland done between the Olympics to raise expectations and as far as the time between this latest Olympics and the one prior that goes it's not too shabby compared to Finland's former success... or lack of it.

I wasn't comparing it to that of USA's or anyone's really and I really don't care how the top-6 countries rank in respect to each other. It's just sad that now that the eternal Bronzer has at least some sort of gold to bring to the table we are suddenly comparing goal differences and MVPs in Olympics instead even if your question specifically was about stuff taking place inbetween.

Really, medalling in WJC sounds like something only a Finn would be building his case on, totally pitiful. What if I was to say that we have been trying to breed this gold-or-bust mentality into our juniors at least and they don't really care about lesser medals? :D

Love the preliminary bit, btw. I'm told the Canadians are more about partying at that point and the games in reality start only after a week or so.

Oh, and: I'm totally ok about losing ground "on paper" as long as the results on ice are overachieving in regards to that. I would just hate being here trying to find explanations on why the "on paper" prowess don't show up in the actual results on ice, like a desperate scientist when the actual results in reality aren't following his hypothesis.
 
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Ohashi_Jouzu said:
Finland has only come out of the preliminary stage of an Olympics that involved NHLers seeded higher than 4th once, and that was 2006. The US, on the other hand, has come out of the preliminaries as their group leader in the last two Olympics (as they did in 2002, as well). And it was Canada, the eventual tournament winners, who got in the Americans' way both times with 1 goal wins (plus a 5-2 win in '02).
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Preliminaries? who cares about them? The only thing that's good for is that you get to face an easier opponent. Did not help out Sweden much in 2010, did it? And you have to beat the good teams sooner or later anyway.
 
anders and said:
You are seriously trying to find a way to prove your point. "Come out of the preliminary stage". You know theres a sayin win the right games. The actual olympics starts after the preliminary stage.

So the preliminary stage decides the rank?
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There's also a saying "lose the right games". No one does it better than Finland, I guess.
 
Ohashi_Jouzu said:
Seriously... don't bother lying.
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Seriously. I'm totally with the camp saying that top-6 or at least top-from-2-to-6 is close enough of each other so that nothing definite can be or should be said and let the actual players sort it on the ice time after time. I'm just joining in to throw in some pointers that I feel affect on the matter in case someone should insist that the matter must be solved on paper too.
 
psycho_dad said:
Yup, Finland's world cup second place was in 2004, it's not ancient history so I did not forget about that. Seriously, I did not even count 20 years back, but like I have pointed out to you time and time again, 1996 world cup changes absolutely nothing when it comes to this ranking.
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...in your mind. But if someone has a tournament win in the time-frame that you established, it changes something in my mind in the historical perspective.

psycho_dad said:
So say a guy from Greece wins a gold in some ski cross event, and austria has 20 silver medals from downhill and all kinds of other events, you'd say that Greece is better because of that 1 gold? Ok.....well then we just have to agree to disagree.



I'd think the value of those two bronzes are at least the same as one silver, they would have to be from two different events.

But we are talking hockey now. USA's 2nd and 4th place finishes give them the average of 3rd in the last two olympics. Finland has been 3rd both times so their average is obviously the same. Finland has two medals and USA has 1, but the value of them at least to me is the same.
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Well, thats just it right there. The value to "you" is the same. The value to the rest of the world besides you and the US media ranking procedure is not the same.

So yes, I agree with you there. If you rank things different than the way the IOC and most of the planet does, then the value is the same for Finland and the US. I rank things the way the IOC and most of the world deem proper, so the values are not the same in my mind, in the IOC's mind and in most of the planet's mind.

So Finland = US in your mind
Finland < US in the rest of the world's mind

At least we've established that.

But hey, good for you for daring to be different. Who does the IOC think they are anyways, making up rules for the Olympics like they are the governing body or something. The nerve...

psycho_dad said:
You like cherry picking, doesn't it stop you at all that you have to cherry pick to even bring them even? If you're all about the current ranking, go by the last result. If you're about finding out who has been the better one since the best on best really started, then count the tournaments everyone else does. You know....the relevant ones. You need a bigger sample size to have some sort of a trend. Keep denying, keep cherry picking...you're only lying to yourself which is the worst kind of deception since you KNOW you're in the wrong and you still keep at it for some unknown reason.

There is no way to statistically prove USA ahead of Finland, it's already been established. You're trying to come up with your personal criteria to bend statistics your way, and it doesn't work either.
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I've already explained what the criteria was. I'll try to simplify it for you.

The 2014 team and 2010 teams were quite similar. Many of the same players played on both teams.

The 2014 team and 2006 team were all different. None of the players played on both teams.

If we are talking about current teams, the 2014 is current. If the 2010 team is very similar to the 2014 team, that would be considered current as well. Thats why I included it. The team that finished 2nd in the last Olympics is very similar to the current team.

The 2006 is not current. The team is completely different (hint, opposite of similar). So if you are talking about current teams, then using a team that is completely different doesnt really make sense, does it?

Thats all I'm saying. After the failure in 2006, the US changed their team for a younger make-up. Out was the likes of Weight, Guerin, Tkachuk, Chelios, Modano and Hatcher, and in came the new generation of players for the 2010 games, who are still on the team today.

2014 - current
2010 - current becasue the team is made up of many of the same players
2006 - not current because no-one is on the current team
2004 - not current because no-one is on the current team
2000 - not current because no-one is on the current team
etc.
 
Talent wise Finland is in the top 5. Canada, USA, Sweden, Russia ahead of the Finns.

Team wise Finland is in the top 3. Just look at the stats ;)

Olympics since best on best plus the most recent world cup says it all.

1998-Bronze

2004-World cup runner up

2006-Silver

2010-Bronze

2014-Bronze

:yo:
 
Finland has yet to win an olympic gold, a country that has never won an olympic gold cannot be top 3 period, no way. I'd put the US ahead of Finland just because of that.
 
For the people who voted yes you're saying Finland is a better than Sweden and Russia. You can't just go based off results in 1 tournament. Taking the big picture into account they still produce more elite level talent.

1. Canada
2. USA
3. Sweden
4. Russia
5. Finland
 
I would say that it goes Canada, Sweden, Finland, USA, Russia.

I think that people have a hard time separating individual talent and the team. They look at a country like Russia and USA and say "look at all these good players" but they never get the results, just look at Russia's flop at the Olympics.


Finland may not have the best top end players like Crosby or Ovechkin, but as a team they've consistently gotten results that prove they deserve to be in this position.

However, if you are just looking at talent, it is easy to see why Finland might be placed lower than Russia or the USA.
 
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