WJC: Is this years Austria the worst team ever in the history of WJC?

[HungryFrank]

Austria will be knocked out and all will be able to relax because U20 players won't have to waste their highly precious time playing teams not worthy of their excellence

 

[Smif]

I don’t understand what’s the issue with letting the athletes play as ROC or whatever, can’t use flag or anthem, whatever, let the teenagers compete

Easy pass for me. They're banned, move along.

 

[Nogatco Rd]

2018 Canada is making a strong case for itself IMO

 

[SwedishFire]

How did Japan do the year Forsberg had 10 points against them?

Worse. Something like 1 - 58 in goals.

Edit 1993 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships - Wikipedia

They actually scored 9 goals!
5 - 83.

 

[Vikz]

You guys know that Russia should not be in the discussion here? Austria won its promotion in 2020 fair and square, and never got demoted because due to COVID there were no D1 games.
So, blame COVID. Austria was good enough in 2020 with Kasper and Rossi, but after two years being locked in the top division, there are no players left from that team that was competitive. They should have been demoted last year, it just never happened.

 

[jcbio11]

This just proves that Russia should be at the tournament.

I’m sure that we can all agree that what Russia is doing is wrong but you should ban the teenagers because of it. It’s not like it is their choice or their fault.

No. The right decision has been made for once by the IIHF.

Rene Fasel is thankfully gone because that guy I am sure would have argued for having Russia in, perhaps even visited Moscow and hugged it out with Mr. P. like he did when Belarus almost hosted the WCH.

 

[majormajor]

The sad thing is that for every Austria game in a tournament like this, that's one fewer best on best matchup between Canada and US, or Sweden v Czechia. We're starved for those games all year and then we only a get a few of them, sandwiched between unwatchable blowouts. This has to be fixed.

My solution would be to start the tournament with an upper pool and a lower pool. The winner of the lower pool gets to advance to the semis or quarters, depending on how you want to do it. Every team has a chance. But the important thing is that the lower ranked clubs have to win to move up. In essence, they can't play Canada if they can't beat Latvia.

 

[Gold Standard]

No, Japan in '93 still maintains its #1 ranking as the worst team ever at the World Juniors.

 

[ijuka]

Yeah, without Russia it's a bit lame, not too interested in this WJC either. Doesn't help that Finland has the worst coach since Rautakorpi.

 

[Zine]

Yeah, without Russia it's a bit lame, not too interested in this WJC either. Doesn't help that Finland has the worst coach since Rautakorpi.

It really exemplifies just how niche of a sport hockey is globally.

Taking Russia (or any one of the elite teams) out of the equation totally alters the dynamics of things.
Wasnt expecting that to this degree.

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

Well at least Kazakhstan is the number 1 exporter of Potassium.

This suit is grey

 

[hangman005]

Just cleaned this thread, if you want to discuss politics, twitter technically still exists. Otherwise expect to be warned and thread banned

 

[alko]

I believe the 98 or 99 Kazakhstan team didn’t even have their own equipment and had to borrow some for the tournament.

And they beat Canada.

 

[GAGLine]

Well at least Kazakhstan is the number 1 exporter of Potassium.

Albania's chief export is chrome.

 

[GermanSpitfire]

Not ever - but they’re bad.

 

[novisor]

It really exemplifies just how niche of a sport hockey is globally.

Taking Russia (or any one of the elite teams) out of the equation totally alters the dynamics of things.
Wasnt expecting that to this degree.

A take that shows no thinking. Take the US out of basketball or baseball and the impact is way bigger than taking Russia out of hockey. Hockey has more parity than pretty much any widely played sport other than soccer.

 

[Rob]

On thing is for certain, as long as Russia is out of the tournament we are going to see more teams like Austria get blown out. I doubt Norway will be any better next year.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

On thing is for certain, as long as Russia is out of the tournament we are going to see more teams like Austria get blown out. I doubt Norway will be any better next year.

Austria is likely significantly worse then Norway will be next year. This Austrian team without Covid would have been relegated 2 tournaments ago and likely wouldn't even be in this tournament at all. The group that brought them up into the main tournament have all essentially aged out for this tournament.

 

[Oilslick941611]

And they beat Canada.

Yeah, was the year with FInley as goalie? And Canada finished 8th? That was an underperformering team coming off the dominance of 5 golds.

 

[Czechboy]

Come here to pump Austria's tires a little and holy hell does thread derail!

They went 4-2 today against Germany. They may give Latvia a go? Agreed, the team that qualified them aged out and they probably wouldn't have made it here if not for covid.

Also, every World Juniors I can remember going back to the 90s had a team that always had their asses handed to them. Can someone show me some pools from previous years where both pools were extremely competive? I don't remember one.

Also, both pools are completely up for grabs tomorrow.. it's been really competitive. No one has dominated.. so far.

 

[cmcneil02]

I think the crowd gave Austria energy in the third period because holy cow they were all over Germany lol.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

For some reason I thought Denmark was really bad in 2019 because they didn’t score a goal in the round robin and lost 14-0 to Canada. But they actually held Russia, Czechia, and a strong Swiss team to just 4-0. So yeah this Austria team is by far the worst in recent memory. I’m expecting an easy win for Germany who is the second worst team in the tournament imo

how is Germany worse than Latvia?? I thought german hockey has made a big step up in the past 7 or so years??

 

[Sheppy]

Yeah, it’s bad

 

[SoundAndFury]

I think what happened today is the combination of 3 things:

1) Germany is objectively not very good other than Quapp who is spectacular. This also applies to the "they only lost to Sweden 1-0" argument. They allowed 44 shots just that their goalie stopped 43.

2) Score effects that led to a major momentum shift towards Austria after their 2nd goal. Germany went to the 2nd intermission leading 4-1 and probably feeling like they got the job done. Which, frankly, they have. But it did lead to a complete Austrian pile-up in the 3rd.

3) Players aren't stupid, when they saw Germany is sitting back and it became a two-goal game, they gave everything they got. It's better to give it all for a period than try your luck in the best-out-of-3 series against an objectively stronger team.

And the reverse applied in Germany's case - they knew they have a 3-goal lead against the team that can't buy a goal, they have a game to play tomorrow and QFs after. You might think they should have taken one game/period/shift at the time and whatnot but anyone who has done sports knows often time it doesn't work like that and you can't help it.

So it was sort of like a perfect storm which, in the end, still only led to 1 goal being scored in the 3rd. I don't think Latvia is going to allow any of that (again, neither did Germans before taking that 4-1 lead) and Austrians are just going to get suffocated by that defense of the team that, at the end of the day, simply has more talent. It won't be some 7-0 blowouts because that's just not how Latvia operates but most likely just 2 solid wins with Austria scoring less than 2 goals on average in the process.

 

[Pieck]

how is Germany worse than Latvia?? I thought german hockey has made a big step up in the past 7 or so years??

Germany has had some good prospects in recent years, but they’ve aged out mostly. Latvia seems to have a pretty strong team for their standards. It’s close but Latvia seems better to me from what I’ve seen