Yeah, in Canada they do. Down there you've probably got kids who follow soccer to show everyone that they're not your average joe. I know that the MLS has a lot of hipster fans in the USA.
WJC: Tournament popularity outside Canada
- Thread starter yideboit
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Yeah, in Canada they do. Down there you've probably got kids who follow soccer to show everyone that they're not your average joe. I know that the MLS has a lot of hipster fans in the USA.
This is absolutely right, in my opinion. You have to be a fairly hardcore fan (the sort who is on hockey message boards) outside of Canada to follow prospect hockey. College hockey gets lots of attention in New England, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota; a small number of states have great interest in high school hockey too. It's very geographically limited, though. Non-pro hockey is below the radar in most of the States.
I'll add this: You used to be able to catch many many TSN feeds across the Center Ice channels in the US during those two weeks. Now, it seems to be limited to NHL Network, which has to balance WJC and other programming. So the exposure is reduced now, compared to about five years ago. You can try to find dicey streams online of dubious provenance, but that just further reduces the number of people getting exposed to the tourney in the US. of course, both of those options (Center Ice in the past, NHL Network now) are pay services. You already have to be a big hockey fan to get coverage. So the WJCs are very niche.
It's a tournament paid for and targeted to Canadians, these days. As one or two nations peak in terms of competitiveness and victories, interest can spike in those countries, which you have been seeing in Finland and Sweden, but it doesn't tend to last long.
This is true, and especially for smaller countries. Canada is big enough to divide the talent between sports and still be successful. Finland has only 5 million people so it's quite clear that if Finland would produce as much hockey talent as Canada, it wouldn't be possible to succeed in other sports. Fortunately Finland has fared quite well: 9th in volleyball WC, 9th in basketball EC (and playing in WC) and soccer is the team sport with most registered players.
The general hockey craziness in Finland is mainly related just to WHC and Olympics, when most sport fans are generally interested about ice hockey. Otherwise many sport fans don't watch any ice hockey. One reason is that you can't see any ice hockey from free channels from television.
"Boo hoo, why don't Canadians care about basketball?!?"
What are you going to do, force them to watch?
FinPanda
Barkov Stanley cup champ!
I watch WJC because I want to see how our juniors play. I'm very interested about Finnish prospects.
ps. Finland is not Scandinavian country.
ps. Finland is not Scandinavian country.
novisor
Registered User
Europe and Canada are opposites. Canada loves the WJC and with the exception of hardcore fans, don't watch the WC in May. Seems like if you don't count in Sweden, only hardcore fans watch WJC in Europe.
Another note: American hockey fans looking for coverage, any coverage, of the WJCs used to be able to log into TSN.ca and watch a wide array of clips and highlights and features and analysis. Now you would have to go through an elaborate process to set up a VPN to get your fill of Bob McKenzie.
Valid reasons to limit bandwidth? Sure. Yet it's made it more difficult, not easier, to follow the tournament in the US over the years. US media coverage is inferior and there is much less of it. Increasingly limited access to Canadian coverage is not helping.
Valid reasons to limit bandwidth? Sure. Yet it's made it more difficult, not easier, to follow the tournament in the US over the years. US media coverage is inferior and there is much less of it. Increasingly limited access to Canadian coverage is not helping.
CaseyMitts37
Registered User
The WJC is one of my favorite sporting events of the year. It's kind of popular down here in Buffalo, but the average hockey fan in Buffalo probably won't recognize any of the players besides McDavid, Eichel, and Reinhart.
One thing that I love about the tournament is the time of the year it is played: right after Christmas through the first week of January. It's always a great time of the year to relax and watch some very competitive junior hockey.
One thing that I love about the tournament is the time of the year it is played: right after Christmas through the first week of January. It's always a great time of the year to relax and watch some very competitive junior hockey.
I'm sure really bad age groups would affect the ratings, but I'm pretty sure it's here to stay. SVT has done a great job airing it and that's the main factor of it's popularity. That along with it being held during the winter holidays.
Well after reading this thread it appears to be more popular than I had thought. I was basically under the impression that outside of Canada it wasn't followed in any way. A lot of contradictions though, some people saying no one in their country cares, next one says it's popular. It's probably somewhere in the middle then.
As has been mentioned though the only reason it got so popular in Canada is TSN hyping the hell out of it like you couldn't believe.
As has been mentioned though the only reason it got so popular in Canada is TSN hyping the hell out of it like you couldn't believe.
SurMartin
Registered User
I'm not sure if it overshadows the WC yet in Sweden, but I do belive those who watch SHL/Allsvenskan on a regular basis care way more about the WJC than the WC.
This is one truly weird claim that can be quite often seen here at HFBoards. If entertainment level is so high, would it be even higher if younger and/or worse kids were playing? If you like to see mistakes, bad plays, unstructured team play and coast to coast hockey you should come to watch our beer league games. Maybe there could be a business opportunity and our beer league could become more popular than NHL?
Few years ago Finnish U20 team played regularly against teams in 2nd tier Finnish league (semi-pro). It didn't get many wins, even though the opponents weren't 100% serious and often rested some of their better players.
I think you're focused too much on physical maturity and coaching systems instead of the skill that the best junior prospects posses. This is typical of the bias that people have against the WJC. Sure, a 2nd tier Finnish elite league team may be able to beat the national junior team but it's not a fair fight and it doesn't decide anything. A win doesn't mean that 2nd tier league hockey is better than the WJC or that these players are more skilled than top WJC players.
Getting back to the WHC, OK I may have erred a little here and not given the rosters any credit compared to the WJC but I still don't give a crap about the tournament. I haven't watched it in over a decade and don't plan to because it's a bunch of 2nd tier NHL plumbers from Canada against a rag tag collection of European players from various pro leagues.
No one in Canada gives two craps about the WHC tournament. In Europe its a little different because they dont get to see NHL players play over there that often.
I would take the WJC over the WHC any day of the week because the games are very entertaining to watch and because the players actually are the best juniors in the world. If people want to get snobby and talk about "mistake free hockey" go ahead and enjoy the perfectly executed boring 2nd tier pro league of your choice.
Yeah, in 2013 for instance Canada had 2nd tier NHL plumbers like P.K. Subban, Steven Stamkos, Ryan O'Reilly, Taylor Hall, T.J. Brodie, Matt Duchene, Jordan Staal, Eric Staal, Jordan Eberle, Andrew Ladd, Wayne Simmonds, Matt Read, Claude Giroux, Brian Campbell and Jeff Skinner. What a bunch of no-names when you compare it to the WJC squads.
What exactly is it that makes the guys in this tournament better than Nathan MacKinnon, Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Drouin, Bo Horvat, Valeri Nichushkin, Leon Draisaitl and Aaron Ekblad?
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How ironic. You are clearly biased against the "euro-centric" WHC and then go right ahead and accuse people of the same against the WJHC. It's a shame that you opt not to watch the WHC. It's very entertaining and a lot of future NHL'ers are "discovered" there. The quality of hockey is also world class. But you wouldn't know, would you? Because you don't watch it.
I watch both tourneys and can't fathom why any hockey lover would not watch ether tourney.
I understand full well why people in America won't watch a tournament coinciding with the Stanley Cup playoffs. But when they start to tell you that the level of hockey in the WJC is better than in the men's tournament, they just show their ignorance.
It's not exactly competing on the same time slots so why would you choose not to watch it? It's one thing if you find it inconvenient and you don't really have the option to stay awake for the later games. If one particular game coincides with a Stanley Cup game, sure. I can see why you would choose one over the other. Especially if it's your team involved.
I'm kinda sure everyone care more about the WJC than the WC!
Everyone i'v talked with watching the WJC games but only just check a few games now and then at WC
Most people work about eight hours a day and might even have hobbies of their own. This means you're left with limited time to watch sports on TV. In early May you've got eight teams left in the Stanley Cup playoffs, which means you've usually got two games a day. Most people don't have the time to watch three hockey games a day, and I understand why people would rather see the NHL games than the WC. I prefer NHL playoffs games to Finland-Kazakstan or Finland-Austria in the WC myself. But when Finland starts to play for the medals, I'll watch the games.
Nice pair of disingenuous arguments you've made there.
2013 was a lock out year. The WHC would never see that many stars on its roster in any other year. Having said that, the 2013 team is not exactly the Olympic team roster.
and Nathan MacKinnon, Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Drouin, Bo Horvat, Valeri Nichushkin and Aaron Ekblad are all NHL players. They all happened to play in the WJC the year before!
If you want to cherry pick teams based on the NHL lockout, then how about the 2005 team Canada WJC roster. We're likely talking about 4 future hockey Hall of Fame members to 2 on your 2013 WHC team:
Sidney Crosby
Shea Weber
Brent Seabrook
Dion Phaneuf
Ryan Getzlaf
Jeff Carter
Corey Perry
Mike Richards
Andrew Ladd
Patrice Bergeron
Shawn Belle
Colin Fraser
Anthony Stewart
Stephen Dixon
Clarke MacArthur
Danny Syvret
Jeremy Colliton
Cam Barker
Nigel Dawes
Braydon Coburn
Jeff Glass
Réjean Beauchemin
How did Barkov, MacKinnon and Nichushkin do in the WJC a year ago? I didn't notice them much. I'd even venture to say that Barkov was totally invisible in our gold-medal game against Sweden.
You've also got guys who never became NHL regulars on that roster. You don't see that in the Team Canada for men. You take your average roster for Canada in the men's tournament, and it's clearly stronger than the average Team Canada in the WJC, even in hindsight.
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Watching the lesser hockey nations and observing their development is a treat though, a good example is France from this year.
Fair point. I personally find the WHC more entertaining than the SC. Even teams like France, Denmark, Norway, Latvia, Belarus etc I find entertaining to watch and to see how they are progressing over tournaments.
With the NHL it's just one long grind to get to the final stages of the season. It's just not practical to watch that amount of hockey and like you said, people have a life outside of sports. That's why I find the WHC more accessible and practical. Even if it would be played on off hours. It's not really an option for me to watch the earlier stages of the SC playoffs. Come summer, sure.
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