Olympics: Team Finland 2022

[Henkka]

It's obviously not the same as winning in 2006 would have been. But it would definitely be sweeter than any tournament that did not end in a gold medal.

That would give us 1994 Lillehammer failure back.

Think we played best hockey on that tournament of all these three Tournaments nearby: Olympics 1994(Bronze), WHC 1994 (Silver), WHC 1995 (Won finally Gold)

Lost only one period on that DAMN tournament. Sweden who won Gold was 3-1-1 on preliminary round.

FIN-CZE 3-1
FIN-RUS 5-0
FIN-NOR 4-0
FIN-AUT 6-2
FIN-GER 7-1
FIN-USA 6-1
FIN-CAN 3-5 (0-0, 2-2, 1-3)
FIN-RUS 4-0 (bronze game)

 

[Puck Dogg]

Today's quarter final against Switzerland should be easy given that Finland has rested and Swiss have not. Second game on the next day doesn't give them any time to recover. Both low scoring and blowout by Finland are equally possible.

 

[mattihp]

That would give us 1994 Lillehammer failure back.

Think we played best hockey on that tournament of all these three Tournaments nearby: Olympics 1994(Bronze), WHC 1994 (Silver), WHC 1995 (Won finally Gold)

Lost only one period on that DAMN tournament. Sweden who won Gold was 3-1-1 on preliminary round.

FIN-CZE 3-1
FIN-RUS 5-0
FIN-NOR 4-0
FIN-AUT 6-2
FIN-GER 7-1
FIN-USA 6-1
FIN-CAN 3-5 (0-0, 2-2, 1-3)
FIN-RUS 4-0 (bronze game)

Wow. I will need to rewatch the games that I can find. That is an amazing stat sheet.

 

[mattihp]

Today's quarter final against Switzerland should be easy given that Finland has rested and Swiss have not. Second game on the next day doesn't give them any time to recover. Both low scoring and blowout by Finland are equally possible.

The Swiss have an ability to make it difficult. They have a lot to win. They might be lacking that top calibre, but they can rest the tired ones and have almost as good guys play more..

 

[Husqvarna]

Go, go Anttila stomp around in China like Godzilla did in Japan back in the day.

Kill 'em all, man.

Marko Anttila a total "anti-hero" in many ways; but my kinda in - Finland - we trust boy.

(Don't Fear) The Reaper ... fear Marko "Mörkö" Antilla instead, folks.

 

[Husqvarna]

 

[mattihp]

Go, go Anttila stomp around in China like Godzilla did in Japan back in the day.

Kill 'em all, man.

Marko Anttila a total "anti-hero" in many ways; but my kinda in - Finland - we trust boy.

(Don't Fear) The Reaper ... fear Marko "Mörkö" Antilla instead, folks.

I prefer

 

[Husqvarna]

That would give us 1994 Lillehammer failure back.

Think we played best hockey on that tournament of all these three Tournaments nearby: Olympics 1994(Bronze), WHC 1994 (Silver), WHC 1995 (Won finally Gold)

Lost only one period on that DAMN tournament. Sweden who won Gold was 3-1-1 on preliminary round.

FIN-CZE 3-1
FIN-RUS 5-0
FIN-NOR 4-0
FIN-AUT 6-2
FIN-GER 7-1
FIN-USA 6-1
FIN-CAN 3-5 (0-0, 2-2, 1-3)
FIN-RUS 4-0 (bronze game)

I actually went to that Olympic (hockey-tournament) in Norway just to watch Finland (and a game with Sweden) back inte the mid 90's.
It was a cold, cold, frezzin', frezzin' journey and experience I can tell ya that!
The snow piles seemed to be almost two meters high along those smal tiny roads all along Lillehammer.

The Olympic (hockey-) games were actually played/held in Gjövik Olympiske Fjellhall with a 5800 capacity arena blasted into a mountain side, believe it or not.

Well, anyway I got see one of the greatest Finland teams ever seen on skates/ice (Saku Koivu & The Lot) in a easy win 7-1 against Germany - and I even got the chance to shake hands with the then Finland Primerminister - in the catacombs of the arena: Esko Aho - even though I didn't like his politics a lot.

Finland were easy, and I mean easy - with me as a live eye proof - the best team of that tournament and only lost one (ONE!) lousy period against Canada - and Finland ended third and Peter Forsberg went national stamp hero with that - rather lucky - penalty shot.

 

[Husqvarna]

Entrance of the Gjövik Olympiske Fjellhall.

1994.

 

[FiLe]

I wrote about the significance of getting less than a day of rest after the elimination game, and can't help but revisit that. Of the teams involved today, only Slovakia managed to not look hampered by it - likely in large part because the game vs. Germany wasn't exactly a high intensity one. On the flip side, Canada didn't exactly struggle vs. China either, yet they clearly ran out of gas today with 15 still on the clock. Of course, the grinding nature of the ongoing game also played a part - Sweden wore them down. It was a close game that could have gone either way otherwise.

I've seen some people - even seasoned analysts - wonder about the tournament format and the point in round robin if all teams are going to advance. Well, even if it's "only" a QF bye, there's the point - baked right into the schedule.

 

[Mestaruus]

I wrote about the significance of getting less than a day of rest after the elimination game, and can't help but revisit that. Of the teams involved today, only Slovakia managed to not look hampered by it - likely in large part because the game vs. Germany wasn't exactly a high intensity one. On the flip side, Canada didn't exactly struggle vs. China either, yet they clearly ran out of gas today with 15 still on the clock. Of course, the grinding nature of the ongoing game also played a part - Sweden wore them down. It was a close game that could have gone either way otherwise.

I've seen some people - even seasoned analysts - wonder about the tournament format and the point in round robin if all teams are going to advance. Well, even if it's "only" a QF bye, there's the point - baked right into the schedule.

There was one positive for this format for this strange time of Covid. It was a perfect way to get some practice matches under every team's belt with those almost meaningless games, because we couldn't have any practice matches and we couldn't risk for a wide Covid spread.

Perhaps two groups would be the best like it is in WHC nowadays. The group spread was okay by the ranking but it was really weird to have both of those weird NA teams made of mostly Euro players to be in same group along with another unknown, China. Germany was the only team that we had a clue about or so we thought, but they ended up being one of the biggest disappointments of this tournament and some people got fooled by that when Canada beat them 5-1. It would've been scary indeed if Canada got that kind of result against the same Germany as in 2018 Olympics, but it wasn't the case.

Anyways, group A completely sucked and I was suspecting that pretty early already. The seedings went completely wrong with that. Seed 1 USA and Seed 5 Canada was completely wrong and the teams that suffered most of this were the strong teams of groups B & C, which were CZE, SUI and SVK. We saw this really strong match up of SUI vs CZE in extra playoff round already and that was that for them. The reason for that kind of match up happening so early was because we had 3 groups that were uneven groups. It would've been a lot better to have these 12 teams spread in two groups. Czech got OT win vs ROC, OT win vs SUI and a pretty shocking loss to Denmark which however was a pretty strong team. One shocking defeat nonetheless and 2 wins against true top countries and they get rewarded with SUI again and we know how angry or motivated these top teams come in to the rematches. My point is that one shock defeat for Czechs (against Denmark) is not always forgiven in this format, but it should be and it would've been in two groups system where you would have top-2 of each group advance to the semifinals and all 8 other teams would get eliminated after the group stage. It would still be hard to recover after a shock defeat in this 2 group system, but I think that it would be slightly better instead of the lottery that happened in this tournament.

Another take on it. They never should've let China participate on the men's ice hockey tournament, as in fact they were debating that for a long time whether they should let China play or not. They should've let Norway participate instead and they would've caused some trouble in group A and the goal scored differences wouldn't have got so out of hand where it started to affect the seedings.

 

[donitsi]

12 years later, this official Finnish Ice Hockey World Championship song can be released again.

 

[Husqvarna]

If Sweden wins these Olympics then it will be like their annual Melodifestivalen boring winners, or boring so no one will even know ... but if Finlands wins, and you probably flip by them all over town:

 

[Husqvarna]

Do YOU know why?

Because of that Finland care of their hockey. And that all over.

Do you?!

 

[Husqvarna]

Legend clips.

 

[donitsi]

Legend clips.

Swedish Finns are also coming to encourage Finland:

 

[Svedu]

Is Säteri the clear number one now? He was really good against The Swiss. Olkinuora has been underwhelming in his one game this tournament, but when he's on top I do think he has an edge somehow. I guess I don't know what I´m talking about but I do have a feeling that Olkinuora could be a game winning goalie in a final if we beat Slovakia (don´t think we will).

Hopefully Manninen can keep on impressing. I demand more from both Hartikainen and Granlund, especially the latter one.
Aaltonen and Komarov have been good. Mörkö has been Mörkö. Björninen is good but I hope to see even more heart in these two final games. He will be important.
Vatanen and Hietanen need to step up their defense now. Pokka needs to be on his toes.

I do wonder if Rajala or Ojamäki could bring us a bit more needed speed in the offense...

 

[Elias40]

Greetings, Finnish hockey lovers, can you tell me something about Kari Jalonen? I mean the level of the national team, not the club. I see that he only got a chance for two world championship tournaments. The first tournament was not good, the second was. But it's been six years, then he went to Bern and won the Swiss league twice. He should be in the circle of people who could take over the Czechs for the tournament in Tampere.

 

[FiLe]

Greetings, Finnish hockey lovers, can you tell me something about Kari Jalonen? I mean the level of the national team, not the club. I see that he only got a chance for two world championship tournaments. The first tournament was not good, the second was.

A solid coach. He was offered an extension as the NT head coach in 2016 but declined because he wanted to go back to coaching club teams.

He should be in the circle of people who could take over the Czechs for the tournament in Tampere.

Well, that might be a bit difficult, as he's currently under contract for the Finnish Ice Hockey Association. He will start this spring as the head coach of the Finnish U20 team. So if the Czechs want him, they'd have to get FIHA to agree to let him go. And I'd say there's about a 0.01% chance FIHA wants to go scrambling for a new coach at this stage, especially with the recent news that the cancelled WJC will resume this August, and the current coach, Antti Pennanen, won't be available anymore.

 

[Mestaruus]

Is Säteri the clear number one now? He was really good against The Swiss. Olkinuora has been underwhelming in his one game this tournament, but when he's on top I do think he has an edge somehow. I guess I don't know what I´m talking about but I do have a feeling that Olkinuora could be a game winning goalie in a final if we beat Slovakia (don´t think we will).

I'd keep Säteri in the goal. He was good against Slovakia in the first game, of course that also gives SVK some kind of feeling about him, but got to ride to the end with him. If Slovakia beats Finland now, then I'd put Olkinuora for the bronze probably. Bronze game is played as a back to back game a day after semis I think and final is not.

 

[Snowsii]

There's been only 1 goal scored against Finland 5vs5 (First game against Slovakia)

Over 13 20mins rounds 5vs5 without GA is impressive

 

[Mestaruus]

There's been only 1 goal scored against Finland 5vs5 (First game against Slovakia)

Over 13 20mins rounds 5vs5 without GA is impressive

PP & PK have not been so good for Finland yet. It still needs fixing. Our opponent in the final will be given more PP minutes than was given to our opponent Slovakia today. Jalonen/Manner will make them practice that PP before the gold game for sure, because it was so horrible today. Have to give Slovakia credit for good PK too though.

However if our opponent in the final gets the lead from such PP, I think that Finland will start battling. I believe that Finland's chance for gold is more than 50% regardless of who is our opponent, because in player material we don't really lose and we have a coaching advantage.

 

[karhukissa]

Let's go back to 2013. And now 9 years, few medals and the best NHL core ever later i wonder if it's still like Chinese to him. Finnish coaches have created something extremely unique and powerful. Own hockey identity and playstyle you can trust to.

Selänne lyttää Meidän pelin: ”Mulle ihan kiinaa”
Teemu Selänne uskoo, että Leijonien Meidän peli -ajattelu valmistaa suomalaisia lahjakkuuksia huonosti taalaliigan vaatimuksiin.


– NHL:ssä peli perustuu reaktioihin. Kun saat kiekon, sun pitää jo tietää, mitä teet sillä. Suomessa on aikaa pitää kiekkoa omilla ja pyöriä hyökkäyspäässä, mutta täällä ei. Ratkaisut pitää tehdä nopeasti, Selänne paaluttaa.
– Koko Meidän peli on mulle ihan kiinaa. En ole koskaan ymmärtänyt sitä enkä niitä hitaita lähtöjä. Montako hidasta lähtöä näet NHL-pelissä? Ei täällä saa tulla kaikessa rauhassa omista. Joka ikinen Euroopasta tuleva joutuu muuttamaan peliä täkäläiseen muotoon.

 

[FiLe]

Own hockey identity and playstyle you can trust to.

In the NHL, the player must decide what to do next as soon as he gets the puck. In the Finnish NT, the player knows what he has to do next as soon as he gets the puck.

 

[Mestaruus]

Let's go back to 2013. And now 9 years, few medals and the best NHL core ever later i wonder if it's still like Chinese him. Finnish coaches have created something extremely unique and powerful. Own hockey identity and playstyle you can trust to.

That's why Selänne isn't a coach and probably never will be. In the studio he's just there because he's a legend and entertaining. Of course Selänne would've been more useful if all the NHL players were present in the tournament. Of the studio guys Grönman has all the expertise there. Grönman has been great this tournament.