1982-83-85-87-89,-90, AND 1991 Canadian rosters were all-star teams that were heavily represented by Canada Cup players during the Soviet era, or players who were among those heavily considered for representing Canada in the Canada Cup. There were many Hall of Fame NHL players among them, such as Gretzky, Lemieux, Gainey, Messier, Coffey, Clarke, Bourque and so on. I post this knowing well that you will reply with something to the effect of "those guys couldn't clean toilets at the bus depot," but you will be disingenuous in saying it.
Most dominant era in international hockey history?
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1982-83-85-87-89,-90, AND 1991 Canadian rosters were all-star teams that were heavily represented by Canada Cup players during the Soviet era, or players who were among those heavily considered for representing Canada in the Canada Cup. There were many Hall of Fame NHL players among them, such as Gretzky, Lemieux, Gainey, Messier, Coffey, Clarke, Bourque and so on. I post this knowing well that you will reply with something to the effect of "those guys couldn't clean toilets at the bus depot," but you will be disingenuous in saying it.
gwh
Registered User
- Mar 4, 2013
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Wow, that's an impressive 2.1% difference.
I know that my jaw dropped in awe.
The salient point in both cases is that no one cares because the competition wasn't up to snuff.
The real salient point is that the headline is "most dominant era in international hockey history". That itself implies that the opposition was dominated for an extended period of time.
If by definition you are looking for dominated opposition, how can you disregard the periods due to opposition being bad?
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
gwh
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So how would you grade Canadian pre-soviet winning era versus soviet winning era?
Win rate: Soviets
Number of wins: Soviets
Length in Years: Canada
Total goal for/against %?
Total win rate of all matches %?
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
gwh
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The Soviets sent B Teams to the 1976 and 1991 Canada Cups, but in the 3 CC's that were best on best - '81, '84 and '87, the Soviets outscored the Canadians, 37-34, while Canada had the edge in Wins-Losses with 4 wins, 3 losses, and 2 ties. In '84 and '87, Alan Eagleson banned European referees from medal round competition. The bias against the Soviet teams was so bad, especially by American ref Mike Noeth,! that it caused Dan Kelly, CTV game announcer, to say "I'm cheering for Canada, but this is ridiculous!" Any way you look at it though, the two teams couldn't have been more equal in every way.
I checked some of the rosters (since I really don't care about the WC) and not surprisingly you are completely full of it. 82 had 5 players from the 81 team and the rest that were either right before or after a CCup had only 1 to 3 players from those teams. You can't BS wiki these days Yak.
You can make every excuse and lie you like but the bottom line is the USSR/Russia has only won one of the 12 elite level men's international tournaments and the number would likely be zero if other teams had the same amount of preparation time.
It was clearly a dominant era of Soviet hockey. Other interpretation is just a joke. I dont understand why some posters here speaks about parity and equal conditions?? The fall of iron curtain does not have any connection with Canada present performance. The change of canadian hockey program is the reason of presents results, same counts for Sweden and USA.
And once again, no, if you apply same methods to present teams, you will not get same results. Being seperated from families without any int. access etc. is certainly smth. what the players would appreciate..... There are more factors like mentality, historical, political circmustancs .....
There is no reason to use 2015 Czech team for such hypothetical questions... Czechoslovakia was in full force in 80s except Stastnys and some other emmigrants... And we all know who was generally more succesfull and dominant.
SAying that Canada's present performance is much more immpressive than Soviets time is also far from reality. There were just separated hockey schools in that time with basically no mutual influence. Russian one was simply most dominant in some period. Whoever watched int. matches or even matches between russian and NHL teams,must confirm that there were obvious differences in skating, skills etc. And the quality was often more on russian side in all four lines.....
Some posters here should definetely have more respect. There is no reason for downgrade russian best generation....
And once again, no, if you apply same methods to present teams, you will not get same results. Being seperated from families without any int. access etc. is certainly smth. what the players would appreciate..... There are more factors like mentality, historical, political circmustancs .....
There is no reason to use 2015 Czech team for such hypothetical questions... Czechoslovakia was in full force in 80s except Stastnys and some other emmigrants... And we all know who was generally more succesfull and dominant.
SAying that Canada's present performance is much more immpressive than Soviets time is also far from reality. There were just separated hockey schools in that time with basically no mutual influence. Russian one was simply most dominant in some period. Whoever watched int. matches or even matches between russian and NHL teams,must confirm that there were obvious differences in skating, skills etc. And the quality was often more on russian side in all four lines.....
Some posters here should definetely have more respect. There is no reason for downgrade russian best generation....
Macman
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- May 15, 2004
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Not downgrading it at all. The games during that period between Canada's best and the Soviet's best were almost alway close nail-biting affairs. In other words, the exact opposite of domination for either side.
You don't understand why the banning of a country's best players from the very competitions being used to judge 'domination' has any context in this discussion?
I definitely don't disagree with your point, but the basis for Canada's current ascendancy might just as easily be the lack of any real cohesive competition from anywhere in the World. When the Soviet era ended, Canada was in a World by itself. No more Soviet powerhouse to challenge it. After Canada, the next two powerhouses are Sweden and Finland. Per capita, their programs are the equal of Canada in many ways, but their talent bases are just too small to produce the depth to compete. The next 2 in line are Russia and the United States who, based on their game in Sochi that was resolved in the 13th Round of a Shootout, appear to be tied for 4th, but still not challenging Canada's lead.
I don't buy the argument that Canada is better to a great degree than it was in the 70's and 80's. Canada may have upgraded its approach to conditioning, and they may be teaching kids some better drills, but overall, I don't really see that all that much has changed. Back in the 70's and 80's, it was Canada, the Soviets and no one else - today its pretty much Canada by itself.
Lie? Which of these numbers, taken from the actual results of these games, do you think I'm fabricating? If I'm lying, expose me by quoting the truth! And while you're uncovering a conspiracy, also please give us full credit for all of our accomplishments. How about including the 1979 NHL Challenge Cup among the "elite men's international tournaments."
Look at the NHL lineup - LaFleur, Perrault, Shutt, Gainey, Bossy, Trottier, Gillies, McDonald, Dionne, Robinson, Clarke, Potvin, etc. There were 3 Swedish players on the team - Borje Salming, Anders Hedberg, and Ulf Nillson, who were all better than the next Canadian player candidates for the team. Best of 3 at mid-season, when everyone was in top shape. The Soviets took over in Game 2, and by Game 3, the decisive match, it was a 6-0 win over the NHL. I'm sure you'll have some gimmicky little answer as to why you couldn't possibly count that a "best on best."
I notice your Canadian colleagues have abandoned you on this one, mainly because they have too much integrity and pride to look at these numbers and then try to keep a straight face trying to somehow support an argument that these games were one-sided blowouts on the part of Canada. You're alone in a rowboat here, and you're paddling yourself further out to sea!
No point responding to the rest of your dribble, but besides the fact the Challenge Cup Team was not Team Canada I can't take any series seriously where one team literally has zero preparation time and the other's is almost unlimited. Besides the Challenge Cup, with only two teams, doesn't meet my criteria for an International Tournament and thus I have excluded it, just as I excluded the 72 Summit Series.
The main reason the USA was successful in the 1980 Olympics was because they took a lot of time to prepare the team, thus showing even amateurs could be competitive against the Soviets if they had enough practice time and experience playing together.
So Czechoslovakia must have been way under USA college guys as we trained quite a lot to match russians.Are you really serious??? Also Poland beat them once....
2002-2015 (Present) is a very impressive dominance for Team Canada.
1 World Cup Gold
3 Olympic Gold
6 WJC Gold
4 WHC Gold
3 WHC Silver
4 WJC Silver
1 WJC Bronze
Pure dominance IMO, ESPECIALLY when it comes to best on best. Since 2002, Canada has won four out of the five best-on-best tournaments.
1 World Cup Gold
3 Olympic Gold
6 WJC Gold
4 WHC Gold
3 WHC Silver
4 WJC Silver
1 WJC Bronze
Pure dominance IMO, ESPECIALLY when it comes to best on best. Since 2002, Canada has won four out of the five best-on-best tournaments.
Since we weren't talking about basketball, I think maybe the word you were looking for is drivel, not dribble! Its just a technicality to say that it wasn't Team Canada, because all of the top Canadian players were on the roster. The reason they had 3 Swedes was that, in their judgment, there were no more top level Canadian players left to choose from. This series was at Madison Square Garden with all kinds of celebrities in attendance, unlike the World Cup, which will be held in the obscurity of Toronto in the late summer.
The spotlight was on the tournament, so the NHL wanted to win it badly. Bobby Clarke said he stood at center ice after the game because he just wanted to see what it meant to the Soviets to win the Challenge Cup. The Soviets came close in '72, but the Challenge Cup was the first time they had beaten the NHL's best in the NHL's own tournament. There were all kinds of recriminations post-tournament about "what happened to our game," and calls as far away as Ottawa for Canada to reinvent its game.
Drivel would have certainly been appropriate. The difference of course is that now we have the benefit of hindsight and know that many peoples expectations weren't realistic. I think there is a very good chance that the 1980 US Olympic team would have also won the Challenge Cup, big deal, we're comparing apples and oranges.
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Those are great results,however calling period of 2002-2010 as a dominant is very optimistic.There were another 2 or 3 teams on the same level.2010-15 pure dominance, for sure...
canuck2010
Registered User
- Dec 21, 2010
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There has always been 1 team kicking around that was on or superior to all of the others. Just not allowed to play in the same sandbox.
That's ridiculous. The NHL All-Stars would have crushed Team USA at Madison Square Garden, just like the Soviets 13 days earlier (Sept. 9, 1980). 13 days before their Olympic meeting, the Soviets embarrassed Team USA, 10-3, at Madison Square Garden. The "Miracle" was just that, a classic case of gross overconfidence based on the 10-3 win a few days earlier, a raucous hometown crowd, and a horrible decision by Tikhonov to pull Tretiak after the first period. It would never happen again in a million years.
In regard to the vaunted "preparation" that you talked about, yes, the Americans did try to mirror Soviet training, but if you look at their record in the Central Hockey League (equivalent to today's East Coast league) regular season prior to the Olympics, Team USA consistently struggled against CHL teams (it was a good idea on Brooks part, nonetheless). You're still in search of some understanding of the international game.
