Slovenia's Hockey Accomplishments
- Thread starter wings5
- Start date
- Status
BIG fan of Slovenia! Very good team, and many of their players are playing at a pretty high level now, too! Very good to see! Just too bad it had to be at the expense of my own country that they went to the olympics.
For the OP: who's the second NHL'er? Stajan? Not really a Slovenian product, but 1 out of 148 is still amazing!
2 of 149 even better!
For the OP: who's the second NHL'er? Stajan? Not really a Slovenian product, but 1 out of 148 is still amazing!
2 of 149 even better!Jan Mursak was in the NHL, for some time!
That's right! Ah, the things I've forgotten...
Thanks!
jcbio11
Registered User
I'd just like to state that the number of registered players should be taken with a grain of salt.
There are chronic under reporters (Russia and Slovakia) and chronic over reporters (Czech republic). This is caused by different systems of funding the sport within their respective countries.
For example I believe the funding in Czech republic is somehow tied to the number of registered players, so the Hockey association there makes basically everyone who ever put on a pair of skates register with them (and keep them registered long after they stopped playing any sort of competitive hockey).
In Slovakia hockey can be sure to get the highest or second highest funding (behind only the runaway most popular soccer), so there's not much of a reason to fuss with the numbers.
That said, I believe the numbers for Slovenia are fairly accurate and their accomplishments are beyond amazing. This year they once again qualified for the elite division. Good stuff. The Kopitar situation is especially unique in hockey world.
There are chronic under reporters (Russia and Slovakia) and chronic over reporters (Czech republic). This is caused by different systems of funding the sport within their respective countries.
For example I believe the funding in Czech republic is somehow tied to the number of registered players, so the Hockey association there makes basically everyone who ever put on a pair of skates register with them (and keep them registered long after they stopped playing any sort of competitive hockey).
In Slovakia hockey can be sure to get the highest or second highest funding (behind only the runaway most popular soccer), so there's not much of a reason to fuss with the numbers.
That said, I believe the numbers for Slovenia are fairly accurate and their accomplishments are beyond amazing. This year they once again qualified for the elite division. Good stuff. The Kopitar situation is especially unique in hockey world.
It's important to keep in mind that Kopitar's dad owned his own rinks so he got a lot more ice time than anyone else coming out of the country which helps explain why he is such an extreme outlier. That said, most of the national players play at decent levels and they for sure have a great development system in place there continuing the traditions of the old Yugoslavia which had their teams almost entirely made up of Slovenians with a couple Croatians here and there basically.
I think having two teams in EBEL really helped their growth and their recent success (qualifying and playing well at that) in Sochi will really help keep the sport growing there.
It's great the see, but at the same time you have to wonder what is wrong with the federations/systems in countries like Germany, France, Japan, etc who have so many more players. Just goes to show how much passion and coaching play into the development of a nation's national program.
I think having two teams in EBEL really helped their growth and their recent success (qualifying and playing well at that) in Sochi will really help keep the sport growing there.
It's great the see, but at the same time you have to wonder what is wrong with the federations/systems in countries like Germany, France, Japan, etc who have so many more players. Just goes to show how much passion and coaching play into the development of a nation's national program.
To make any fact-based conclusions one would have to carry out some thorough research through comparative analysis.
I for one think that the relative success of Slovenian hockey has a lot more to do with the fact that the government of Slovenia has retained a number of elements of the previous socialist regime. The state of Slovenia not only owns a number of companies/banks, but it also reflects on the culture of competitive sports and other aspects of life.
There's even a 'Ministry of Sports' in Slovenia. As far as I know, there are government boarding schools/academies for young athletes and a state-funded sports institute that works with both young athletes and pros alike.
I would guess (and this really is nothing more than an educated guess) that a lot more Slovenian kids are a part of a state-funded hockey programme from an early age when compared to most if not all other 'hockey countries'.
In Canada and most other parts of the world kids mostly practice playing hockey (or any other sport for that matter) just because they like doing it. And the coaches aren't carrying out some dedicated, hardcore programme with the sole purpose of raising pro athletes. Especially not when they're 8 or 10 years old.
In other words, it's a different, top-down based approach with a focus on raising athletes.
What I find truly amazing about all this is usually a country will specialize in one or two sports. For example Germany with soccer, Japan with Volleyball and Soccer and usually this will affect the development of other sports. A country may be elite at one sport and average or poor in others. The fact that Slovenia has notable accomplishments in the sport of soccer, tennis, handball, winter olympics, basketball and can still ice a pretty good hockey team is damn impressive if you ask me. Much like the countries Croatia and Serbia.
All what you need, are 22 players for a good team. So theoretically, also Vatikan could have a good ice-hockey team.
If there is some crazy dictator, he could make it something like Soviet Union did. Make a whole team, put him in some league and drill every day. And after some years, you will definatelly see results.
If there is some crazy dictator, he could make it something like Soviet Union did. Make a whole team, put him in some league and drill every day. And after some years, you will definatelly see results.
slovakiasnextone
Registered User
Just genuinely wondering, do you have any information supporting this? Because when one looks at the official number of adult players from SZLH and the number of players in Slovak leagues from Extraliga to II. liga and at the number of Slovaks playing in various leagues all over the world according to the information from eliteprospects the numbers don't seem to differ much?
The thing about the rinks is not true. His father simply built a small backyard rink every year for his son. This is very unusual for Slovenia, that's why Anže mentions it when he talks about his childhood. Papa Kopi had some influence at the local hockey club, so Anže could maximize his potential by playing games with older guys and had a lot of ice time. BTW I think he would still succeed in NHL even without his dad playing a major role in his career, but his career path wouldn't be so smooth.
The thing about nationally funded sports in Slovenia is unfortunately very true. I think being successful in sports was declared some kind of 'national interest'. A lot of money was poured into sports teams by state-owned companies. This is somewhat connected with our national obsession being a young small country nobody ever heard about. One often hears about our sportsmen being Slovenia's best ambassadors on world stage. Everything went downhill with recent banking crisis and many good sports teams regressed (Union Olimpija in basketball is a prime example, also two of our best hockey teams in Jesenice and Ljubljana). Our national teams are also going to suffer from this, a lot of the young talent now has to go abroad to succeed on bigger stage.
About junior programs: most of the money went into senior teams and individual sports, such as alpine skiing. Junior programs in team sports are mostly funded by parents, so I don't think they are going to suffer from crisis in short term. What is different in Slovenia is that it is expected from children to compete at very early age. Teams are playing to win, not to develop individual players.
Ryker
Registered User
Hmm, none of that is true, except for the existence of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports. There are no government academies or anything similar, and Slovenian kids aren't part of state-funded hockey programs. In fact, financing is terrible and no support is really given to the kids. Parents have to finance everything. The only thing that connects the state to hockey clubs is that a state-owned company might act as a funding sponsor for some club. But that's it, and even then it's not based on some predetermined sports interest, but rather in the fact that that particular company sees such sponsorship as beneficial for its business.
Read this now, interesting thanks for the info, I had no idea they poured that much money into the programs.
Kopitar was born. Also Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia for a better part of the last century. Slovenia is an interesting country where Western Europe meets central Europe.
It's not the amount of money which is unusual, it's the source. The main difference between sports funding in western countries and in Slovenia is in number of private companies which invest in sports. Unfortunately there are many companies which are not prepared to give some money back to community. This was compensated with money from public sources. Now... not so much anymore.
That's because the registered players are those playing pro or semi-pro hockey. I mean, already in the Austrian first and second leagues you'll find at least 148 Slovenian players, so obviously it's not the whole story.
This pretty much is the embodiment of socialist thought. No one 'in the West' gives away money for no reason. Slovenian hockey clubs are not entitled to anything, if the popularity of the sport is very low.
Sponsorships are based on mutual benefit.
If there's a big enough audience, companies will support hockey teams. It's as simple as that.
I agree with that. It's the specific economic situation after fall of communism in Slovenia which enabled the development of high level sports. And this is slowly changing.
But on the other hand, good result at the Olympics and big popularity of Anže Kopitar didn't spark any new hockey projects or helped injecting some much needed (private) money in our best existing teams. Free market logic is obviously not working properly. For example there are no pro or semi-pro teams who pay their players regularly because of their failure to attract sponsors.
To keep this topic from sliding into economic debate: my opinion on the future of Slovenian hockey is not very optimistic. Quality of our national team will probably depend more and more on players, who will go abroad at very young age seeking more competitive environment for their development. It is questionable whether the number and quality of those players will be enough to keep national team on current level. My prediction is regression to the bottom of 1A division in 10 years.
- Status
