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Is Finland a Top 3 Hockey Nation

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Plante said:
Are we ranking them based on their teams performance?

Their countries production of hockey player?

What is the criteria for top hockey nations anyway? I imagine most of us have different views on what it means.
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well it seems that most NA fans rank countries by NHL talent and EU by international achievements. hence this poll should have 2 questions.
" Is Finland top 3 hockey country " answer being yes
" Is Finland top 3 in producing NHL talent " answer being no
 
Beau Knows said:
Tough to say. I think there is more than just the results of the Olympics that matter. The World Juniors are a reflection of the nations hockey youth and should be somewhat of a factor as well, I think. But so should the quality and quantity of pro players. Russia might not make the best international teams, but they have better star players than Finland for example. I think there are a lot of factors that go into it other than the Olympics.
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I agree on most of what you wrote. Going into a tournament, I'd say Finland is top 4. If there's a team that I can very well see win over Russia, it is Finland. But as a whole, I have to also look at the future and star production and Finland is lacking star power.
 
Ohashi_Jouzu said:
At the same time, Canada produces almost twice as many NHLers as the US despite only 1/10th the population. It's obviously not a single variable, linear function.
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But how do you compare mediocre NHL players against KHL players? Canada and USA aren't that competitive with their wc teams against european teams with mostly khl players at world champion tournaments. There are many players in other leagues that are better than bottom 6 nhl players.
 
Sabane said:
Then why not choose players who really want to play there? There are plenty of awesome Canadian/USA players playing in the Europe. I bet they would love to play at their NT. Not to mention young AHL players that didn't make the playoffs.
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That's where it gets a bit more complicated. Using Canada as an example, there are actually plenty of NHLers that are willing to play their heart out for national pride at the World Championships. Of course, the people picking the team will award invites based on talent. Some of the more apathetic, talented players will go for the sake of establishing a relationship with Hockey Canada, thus increasing their chances of making the Olympic team in the future. This of course can backfire later if they are unwilling to back-check or block shots as much as they normally would, but Hockey Canada will most likely remember the name more than the WC performance, giving more weight to future performance prior to the Olympics. The coach of the team will more than likely give ice time based on reputation rather than play; excusing the poor performance due to the small sample size.

I can't really think of an easy way to change this problem, and I don't expect to see any gold for Canada in the next 3 years.
 
Ohashi_Jouzu said:
At the same time, Canada produces almost twice as many NHLers as the US despite only 1/10th the population. It's obviously not a single variable, linear function.
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You make this argument sound as if a significant number more Americans play the sport because of the population difference when everyone knows about 100,000 more Canadians play hockey on some level. It does not change the fact that Canadians are definitely better at producing high end talent, but is somewhat misleading on face value from that statement.
 
Davebo said:
If it matters - scoring chances for and against Canada. Finland with the same amount as Norway is interesting. Latvia and Austria with more...




http://www.canada.com/olympics/news...more-scoring-chances-than-its-sochi-opponents
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That was because of the trap we played against a better team. I saw also that Canada only got 16 scoring chances against us. A lot fewer than the others. And if there only were some meter to say how great the scoring chances were I doubt that against Finland they had "the worst" scoring chances against us. I don't remember any breakaways etc. Vice versa, Canada had the way far best defense so I'm not sure if we got that good of a scoring chances eighter. Don't get me wrong that u weren't better at this game but the style Finns played made the lowest scoring chances combined when countered all the Canadas games.

A really nice stat, thanks for that! Hope there were more of those for other teams!
 
In best-on-best performances absolutely

Canada
Sweden
Finland
USA
Russia
everyone else

In terms of NHL player production
Canada
Sweden
USA
Russia
Finland

I don't think overall they are a top 3 Hockey Nation but definitely in the top 5, I personally would put them 4th ahead of Russia
 
No. I think the USA produces talent better, despite the tournament results.

They're really close to elbowing the Russians out of number 4 spot, though.
 
Davebo said:
If it matters - scoring chances for and against Canada. Finland with the same amount as Norway is interesting. Latvia and Austria with more...

Canada 22, U.S. 14;

Canada 16, Finland 5;

http://www.canada.com/olympics/news...more-scoring-chances-than-its-sochi-opponents
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Thats another reason why I have the US ahead of Finland. That one Bronze medal game notwithstanding, the US looked much better against us and I was nervous the entire time. Finland never really mounted much of an attack and never seemed to try to. They seemed content to sit back, clog the ice and play for the tie.
 
Cawz said:
Thats another reason why I have the US ahead of Finland. That one Bronze medal game notwithstanding, the US looked much better against us and I was nervous the entire time. Finland never really mounted much of an attack and never seemed to try to. They seemed content to sit back, clog the ice and play for the tie.
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so one ass whooping bronze medal game is meaningles but barely won game vs both Usa & Fin is enough to tell the difference.... where's the sense in that..? what about medals from previous olympics?
 
Cawz said:
Thats another reason why I have the US ahead of Finland. That one Bronze medal game notwithstanding, the US looked much better against us and I was nervous the entire time. Finland never really mounted much of an attack and never seemed to try to. They seemed content to sit back, clog the ice and play for the tie.
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Thanks - that was the point I was getting at. Sure the Finns held us to under 20 scoring chances, but they weren't playing to win but not lose too badly. Waiting for a chance that never happened. The US at least went back and forth with us initially.

The US is ahead of Finland in my opinion. If they had been playing for gold against Finland I suspect the outcome would be much different that it was in the bronze game.

Top 3 in the tournament? Canada/Sweden/Finland (d'uh)
Top 3 in the world? Canada/Sweden/USA
 
Davebo said:
The US is ahead of Finland in my opinion. If they had been playing for gold against Finland I suspect the outcome would be much different that it was in the bronze game.
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'If' Finland had been playing for gold against Canada, I 'suspect' the outcome 'would' be much different that it was in the preliminary game.
 
Cawz said:
Thats another reason why I have the US ahead of Finland. That one Bronze medal game notwithstanding, the US looked much better against us and I was nervous the entire time. Finland never really mounted much of an attack and never seemed to try to. They seemed content to sit back, clog the ice and play for the tie.
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You do realize that Finland wanted to secure atleast 4th place with that game against Canada and USA had to try to win? You can't really compare those games or can you??
 
Davebo said:
Thanks - that was the point I was getting at. Sure the Finns held us to under 20 scoring chances, but they weren't playing to win but not lose too badly. Waiting for a chance that never happened. The US at least went back and forth with us initially.

The US is ahead of Finland in my opinion. If they had been playing for gold against Finland I suspect the outcome would be much different that it was in the bronze game.

Top 3 in the tournament? Canada/Sweden/Finland (d'uh)
Top 3 in the world? Canada/Sweden/USA
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Yup, totally agree.

TheFeistyFinn said:
so one ass whooping bronze medal game is meaningles but barely won game vs both Usa & Fin is enough to tell the difference.... where's the sense in that..? what about medals from previous olympics?
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The US has actually won a tournament and have finished 2nd twice. Plus, they actually play to win instead of holding on trying not to lose. That gives them 3rd place in my books.
 
The Podium said:
In best-on-best performances absolutely

Canada
Sweden
Finland
USA
Russia
everyone else

In terms of NHL player production
Canada
Sweden
USA
Russia
Finland

I don't think overall they are a top 3 Hockey Nation but definitely in the top 5, I personally would put them 4th ahead of Russia
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without doping used

Canada
Finland
USA
Russia
 
On paper no but on the ice they are. Excluding 2002 they have been top 3 every year since the Olympics have been best on best.
 
Cawz said:
Yup, totally agree.


The US has actually won a tournament and have finished 2nd twice. Plus, they actually play to win instead of holding on trying not to lose. That gives them 3rd place in my books.
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it's about recent achievements not some golds 30+ years back. that's why USA doesn't belong to top 3. honestly i got no idea where you people get the idea that Finland wasn't trying to win. we lost our top4 centers for this tournament. there was no way we could have played more offensive style.
 
TheNomad said:
You make this argument sound as if a significant number more Americans play the sport because of the population difference when everyone knows about 100,000 more Canadians play hockey on some level. It does not change the fact that Canadians are definitely better at producing high end talent, but is somewhat misleading on face value from that statement.
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You have me mistaken for the guy who I replied to when he said this:

Rentsi said:
With 5.3 million people it's hard to produce as many super star players as for example USA with 313 million people.
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Rentsi said:
You do realize that Finland wanted to secure atleast 4th place with that game against Canada and USA had to try to win? You can't really compare those games or can you??
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Fin-Can was also tied for the whole third period so there was no need to take stupid risks and lose the game at regular time. USA on the other hand had to do something offensively because it was make-or-break game for them. Of course you make more scoring chances when you are forced to attack and the opposite team is on defense...
 
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