Unpopular opinions

[Hockeyville USA]

The Sharks would have a Cup if they didn't trade Brad Boyes for a washed up Curtis Brown. People forget how productive Boyes was in Boston and St Louis

 

[Michael Farkas]

Brad Boyes being promoted as someone that would help a playoff team is the 2004 version of people thinking Jared McCann would help their team today...

 

[Staniowski]

Was Paul Kariya working a 9-5 job in 1994 ? How many Canadian hockey players at the Olympics did ?

I think pros were allowed to play in '94 anyway.

 

[Staniowski]

correct me if i'm wrong on teams like sweden but weren't they actually amateurs and not actually pros being passed off as amateurs by giving them " millitary" designations like the u.s.s.r guys? if not then yes.................strip them too. I think the C.S.S.R was doing the same thing too as they were under the Soviets thumb. Those guys were pros and everyone knows it.................hockey was their profession.


It was cheating and they shouldn't have been getting away with those shenanigans. I hate to hit the Czechs with anything as they had no choice in the matter but the soviet medals for sure should be stripped IMO.

The problem with the rules re: amateurs vs professionals is that it created an unequal situation, with the Soviet Union able to dominate in hockey.

But I never had a problem with the best Soviet players playing in the Olympics. In fact, I liked it. It's just that everybody else should've been permitted to send their best players too.

Of course we got to that point eventually.

Like, in other sports, we saw the best competing. In downhill skiing, for example, these guys competed all winter against each other on the World Cup circuit. Were they pros? I don't know, but they must have been compensated in some form. And they were the best in the world in their sport.

Hockey should've been the same.

 

[The Panther]

Yeah, the whole amateur vs. pro thing seems a very early-20th century thing, maybe. Hobey Baker famously refused to turn pro. As a Princeton man, turning pro was thought to be base and a bit cheap.

 

[Mike C]

Jacques Plante is the best goalie ever, and probably a top-ten all-time player.

That's not terribly outlandish

 

[Mike C]

The Soviet Union should have all their olympic hockey gold medals stripped from them for circumventing the rules.

And I was nice there by not out and out calling it for what it was...............................plain old cheating.

Doug Collins says "right on brother!"

 

[jj cale]

Doug Collins says "right on brother!"

 

[jj cale]

The problem with the rules re: amateurs vs professionals is that it created an unequal situation, with the Soviet Union able to dominate in hockey.

But I never had a problem with the best Soviet players playing in the Olympics. In fact, I liked it. It's just that everybody else should've been permitted to send their best players too.

Of course we got to that point eventually.

Like, in other sports, we saw the best competing. In downhill skiing, for example, these guys competed all winter against each other on the World Cup circuit. Were they pros? I don't know, but they must have been compensated in some form. And they were the best in the world in their sport.

Hockey should've been the same.

I wouldnt have had a problem with it either if everyone could have done the same and of course they should have been able to.


But of course they were not but the Russians found a loop hole based on deception. It was cheating and they shouldn't have been able to get away with it but they can still right the wrong and hold them accountable for it, it's not too late for that.

I'll stand by my opinion on this till they put me in the grave.

 

[Overrated]

correct me if i'm wrong on teams like sweden but weren't they actually amateurs and not actually pros being passed off as amateurs by giving them " millitary" designations like the u.s.s.r guys? if not then yes.................strip them too. I think the C.S.S.R was doing the same thing too as they were under the Soviets thumb. Those guys were pros and everyone knows it.................hockey was their profession.


It was cheating and they shouldn't have been getting away with those shenanigans. I hate to hit the Czechs with anything as they had no choice in the matter but the soviet medals for sure should be stripped IMO.

Make no mistake all European countries were sending their best players.

West Germany got a bronze in 76. Here is an interview with Erich Kunhackl who was paid about 120k DM in the early 80s. He played in the Olympics twice (76 & 84).

»Der kriegt was auf die Nase«

SPIEGEL-Interview mit Eishockey-Nationalspieler Erich Kühnhackl *

www.spiegel.de

The average salary of a German back in the early 80s was 33k DM

Durchschnittsentgelt – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

I am pretty sure there was not a single Soviet player paid that much.

The Swedes won several medals throughout the 80s, the Finns got a silver in 88. All of their players came from the top Swedish, Finnish and Swiss leagues.

 

[jj cale]

Make no mistake all European countries were sending their best players.

West Germany got a bronze in 76. Here is an interview with Erich Kunhackl who was paid about 120k DM in the early 80s. He played in the Olympics twice.

»Der kriegt was auf die Nase«

SPIEGEL-Interview mit Eishockey-Nationalspieler Erich Kühnhackl *

www.spiegel.de

The average salary of a German back in the early 80s was 33k DM

Durchschnittsentgelt – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

The Swedes won several medals throughout the 80s, the Finns got a silver in 88. All of their Who came from the top Swedish, Finnish and Swiss leagues.

Doesn't matter what they were paid, whatever they were paid was a hockey salary, they trained as hockey players all year round and got perks the regular population didnt......................hockey was their job hence........they were pros, let's not kid ourselves. Military foot soldier my ass, their task was to be the best hockey players they could be. You can be damn well sure Krutov Fetisov and Makarov weren't dodging bullets in afghanistan.

That's the olympics for ya.................corrupt as f*** right to this day.

Their main thing here was just making sure Canada couldn't send it's best and spoil the party for Europe who to this day are their main ass kissers.

What a joke that thing is.............and yet people fawn over that farce.

 

[Overrated]

That's the olympics for ya.................corrupt as f*** right to this day.

Their main thing here was just making sure Canada couldn't send it's best and spoil the party for Europe who to this day are their main ass kissers.

What a joke that thing is.............and yet people fawn over that farce.

I don't know how did the Western Europeans circumvent the rules but in the CSSR (and the USSR) it was the various organizations and businesses that ran hockey teams. Poldi Kladno (the team Jagr played for before coming over to the NHL) was run by the Poldi metallurgical plant and the players were formally employed as the metallurgical workers. So when you read the names of the Eastern Bloc team like Krylya Sovetov Moscow (Soviet Wings), it was a team actually run by the Soviet aircraft manufacturing plant in Moscow

Dux Factory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

and not just a catchy name like Edmonton Oilers which of course isn't run by an Oil plant in Edmonton. Since Dynamo was run by the KGB for example, all of the Dynamo players were KGB agents.


The popular Prague based club Sparta Praha was affiliated with ČKD

ČKD - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Holecek (Sparta player) said in this interview he was formally employed as a Locomotive worker and was getting a Locomotive worker's salary.

 

[MadLuke]

Doesn't matter what they were paid, whatever they were paid was a hockey salary, they trained as hockey players all year round and got perks the regular population didnt......................hockey was their job hence........they were pros, let's not kid ourselves. Military foot soldier my ass, their task was to be the best hockey players they could be.

And what that significantly different than say Canadian that played for the national team ? I feel they all sport and living expense paid and were full-time athlete with the only goal to be the best they could at hockey doing nothing else, people were not sending actual amateur (would an american college player with a giant scholarship just to play sport be that different than the USSR trick ? depend on the college I guess, how real of a student they were)

 

[Hanji]

Doesn't matter what they were paid, whatever they were paid was a hockey salary, they trained as hockey players all year round and got perks the regular population didnt......................hockey was their job hence........they were pros, let's not kid ourselves. Military foot soldier my ass, their task was to be the best hockey players they could be. You can be damn well sure Krutov Fetisov and Makarov weren't dodging bullets in afghanistan.

That's the olympics for ya.................corrupt as f*** right to this day.

Their main thing here was just making sure Canada couldn't send it's best and spoil the party for Europe who to this day are their main ass kissers.

What a joke that thing is.............and yet people fawn over that farce.

Interestingly it was the Western European countries who were initially instrumental in prohibiting Canada/USA from using their best players. See the IIHF congress as late as the early 1950s as proof. This was before the Soviet Union played a single international game.

Countries like Sweden used ‘company teams’ to circumvent the rules.
What, you think Sven Tumba was an amateur player?

And the funny thing is, Canada didn't much care because they were still winning. It wasn't until the Soviet Union entered the contest and started winning everything did Canada have issues with fake amateurism, even though the Soviets were doing nothing different than other countries.
But of course Russia got all the blame for the fake amateurism stuff; they’re the ready-made bad guys.

 

[Overrated]

Interestingly it was the Western European countries who were initially instrumental in prohibiting Canada/USA from using their best players. See the IIHF congress as late as the early 1950s as proof. This was before the Soviet Union played a single international game.

Countries like Sweden used ‘company teams’ to circumvent the rules.
What, you think Sven Tumba was an amateur player?

And the funny thing is, Canada didn't much care because they were still winning. It wasn't until the Soviet Union entered the contest and started winning everything did Canada have issues with fake amateurism, even though the Soviets were doing nothing different than other countries.
But of course Russia got all the blame for the fake amateurism stuff; they’re the ready-made bad guys.

Wasn't even the USA involved in that? I remember reading about some top IIHF guy from the USA who was very much against allowing NHLers. There were barely any Americans in the NHL back in the 1960s anyways. It of course makes sense as countries like Sweden or the USA would not be getting many medals had Canada played at full strength. The USSR was very unlikely to not get a medal.

 

[Hanji]

Wasn't even the USA involved in that? I remember reading about some top IIHF guy from the USA who was very much against allowing NHLers. There were barely any Americans in the NHL back in the 1960s anyways. It of course makes sense as countries like Sweden or the USA would not be getting many medals had Canada played at full strength. The USSR was very unlikely to not get a medal.

You’re likely thinking of Bunny Ahearne. He was British though.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

@Overrated @jj cale

You may call it circumventing the rules if you want to, but the way I understood it is the Swedish players indeed had jobs alongside their hockey careers. Teams were sponsored by major employers that would fix jobs for players that would grant them time off for practice and games. From the late 70s onwards, some players would get compensation to go semi-pro. I haven’t done a deep dive into how it worked, but Kent Nilsson said in an interview that he used to get up at 5 AM, work full-time and then go to hockey practice in the evenings, before his club arranged for him to become “halftime pro”. And earning a good living wage playing hockey full time in Sweden didn’t really become commonplace until the 90s.

Sven Tumba was mentioned by @Hanji . Was he a full time professional? I’d wager he had to work like everyone else early on, but he on the one hand married into wealth, and was also able to leverage his hockey stardom and outgoing, charismatic personality into different business deals and sponsorships. He was an entrepreneur. There was of course privilege and opportunity that came from being a famous hockey player in a mixed/open economy like Sweden’s, different from what was presented the players behind the iron curtain, and Tumba was pretty successful in making the best out of it. Certainly a gray area where you can argue the fairness, but alas…

From my perspective, the amateur rules were always an archaic, dumb, bourgeois ideal that should have been ridden off well prior to the fact, and I don’t agree with the sentiment that the Soviets should be stripped of their medals. It’s history now, and a part of the development of our game into what it is today.

Edit: I might add a famous example of Tumba’s entrepreneurial spirit.

He once staged a coup to provide everyone of his teammates a new television, by placing an Electrolux sticker on the front of their helmets and wearing them during a world championship game, which speaks to my point of what was in for the Tre Kronor stars of that day, despite not being professional hockey players. There were certain perks coming from the success and fame, some could leverage it better than others, but little things like posing for an ad for some extra cash, getting bought meals and drinks in restaurants, and the rare opportunity to travel the world were probably considered quite nice features for the amateur hockey star of the day.

 

[jj cale]

Interestingly it was the Western European countries who were initially instrumental in prohibiting Canada/USA from using their best players. See the IIHF congress as late as the early 1950s as proof. This was before the Soviet Union played a single international game.

Countries like Sweden used ‘company teams’ to circumvent the rules.
What, you think Sven Tumba was an amateur player?

And the funny thing is, Canada didn't much care because they were still winning. It wasn't until the Soviet Union entered the contest and started winning everything did Canada have issues with fake amateurism, even though the Soviets were doing nothing different than other countries.
But of course Russia got all the blame for the fake amateurism stuff; they’re the ready-made bad guys.

I am well aware of how crooked the western European nations were in all of this so what? The Russians were still cheating.

And what that significantly different than say Canadian that played for the national team ? I feel they all sport and living expense paid and were full-time athlete with the only goal to be the best they could at hockey doing nothing else, people were not sending actual amateur (would an american college player with a giant scholarship just to play sport be that different than the USSR trick ? depend on the college I guess, how real of a student they were)

fine......................then the Canadian nhl players should have been able to play right?

Were they?


The whole thing was crooked and everyone being honest knows it.

 

[Overrated]

@Overrated @jj cale

You may call it circumventing the rules if you want to, but the way I understood it is the Swedish players indeed had jobs alongside their hockey careers. Teams were sponsored by major employers that would fix jobs for players that would grant them time off for practice and games. From the late 70s onwards, some players would get compensation to go semi-pro. I haven’t done a deep dive into how it worked, but Kent Nilsson said in an interview that he used to get up at 5 AM, work full-time and then go to hockey practice in the evenings, before his club arranged for him to become “halftime pro”. And earning a good living wage playing hockey full time in Sweden didn’t really become commonplace until the 90s.

Sven Tumba was mentioned by @Hanji . Was he a full time professional? I’d wager he had to work like everyone else early on, but he on the one hand married into wealth, and was also able to leverage his hockey stardom and outgoing, charismatic personality into different business deals and sponsorships. He was an entrepreneur. There was of course privilege and opportunity that came from being a famous hockey player in a mixed/open economy like Sweden’s, different from what was presented the players behind the iron curtain, and Tumba was pretty successful in making the best out of it. Certainly a gray area where you can argue the fairness, but alas…

From my perspective, the amateur rules were always an archaic, dumb, bourgeois ideal that should have been ridden off well prior to the fact, and I don’t agree with the sentiment that the Soviets should be stripped of their medals. It’s history now, and a part of the development of our game into what it is today.

Edit: I might add a famous example of Tumba’s entrepreneurial spirit.

He once staged a coup to provide everyone of his teammates a new television, by placing an Electrolux sticker on the front of their helmets and wearing them during a world championship game, which speaks to my point of what was in for the Tre Kronor stars of that day, despite not being professional hockey players. There were certain perks coming from the success and fame, some could leverage it better than others, but little things like posing for an ad for some extra cash, getting bought meals and drinks in restaurants, and the rare opportunity to travel the world were probably considered quite nice features for the amateur hockey star of the day.

Tumba was a 50s and a 60s player, it's likely there was very little money in Swedish hockey back then so he had to have another source of income as well. Things definitely must have changed by the 1970s. I don't know much about Swedish hockey but it seems quite unlikely that they were working full time jobs and played on the side for fun since Germans who have been throughout the entire history of hockey vastly inferior to the Swedes (while having an 8:1 advantage in the number of people) had already a pro league in the 1980 with their star player Erich Kunhackl making 4x the average West German salary. Hockey is also the national sport of Sweden with a huge player base and a huge fanbase. It just makes no sense that they would not pay their players with such a high revenue they were generating.

Also there already were Canadians in the Swedish league like the WHA player Mike Ford (D) or the NHL player Darwin Mott (LW):

Did they also play for free?

 

[Hanji]

I am well aware of how crooked the western European nations were in all of this so what? The Russians were still cheating.

Of course. But why single out the Soviets when everybody was corrupt?
I mean (like previously mentioned) Canadian national team members were full-time hockey players too. It’s a stretch to even call them amateurs .

Seems to me your issue really isn’t with innate pro/amateurism as much as preserving some weird notion of Canadian superiority regardless of who’s doing what.
Then again this thread is titled Unpopular Opinions.

​

 

[jj cale]

Of course. But why single out the Soviets?
Like previously mentioned, the Canadian national team members were full-time hockey players too. It’s a stretch to even call them amateurs .

Seems to me your issue really isn’t with innate pro/amateurism as much as preserving some weird notion of Canadian superiority regardless of who’s doing what.
Then again this thread is titled Unpopular Opinions.

​

Exactly

 

[Hanji]

Tumba was a 50s and a 60s player, it's likely there was very little money in Swedish hockey back then so he had to have another source of income as well. Things definitely must have changed by the 1970s. I don't know much about Swedish hockey but it seems quite unlikely that they were working full time jobs and played on the side for fun since Germans who have been throughout the entire history of hockey vastly inferior to the Swedes (while having an 8:1 advantage in the number of people) had already a pro league in the 1980 with their star player Erich Kunhackl making 4x the average West German salary. Hockey is also the national sport of Sweden with a huge player base and a huge fanbase. It just makes no sense that they would not pay their players with such a high revenue they were generating.

Also there already were Canadians in the Swedish league like the WHA player Mike Ford (D) or the NHL player Darwin Mott (LW):
View attachment 886153

Did they also play for free?

There were Canadians in the Swedish league as early as the early 1960’s.
These guys weren't playing for free.

 

[MadLuke]

fine......................then the Canadian nhl players should have been able to play right?

Were they?

They should have (if anyone that is not a rich gentleman or working at 9-5 could) and that rules for gentleman or amateur only was a bad one from the moment Olympics got big.

At first some people won medal without knowing they did or what they were and it was possible for an amateur to win, it was a fun little affair with people running their first marathon in their life, but once it got big in most sport they were all, all-time "pro" athlete, some archery, guns kept, weight lighting kept some amateur element to it, but none of the most popular one.

Once you get big company, money to go to "school" or state sponser that let you be an all-time athlete or making money from your sport the difference become really thin if any.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Tumba was a 50s and a 60s player, it's likely there was very little money in Swedish hockey back then so he had to have another source of income as well. Things definitely must have changed by the 1970s. I don't know much about Swedish hockey but it seems quite unlikely that they were working full time jobs and played on the side for fun since Germans who have been throughout the entire history of hockey vastly inferior to the Swedes (while having an 8:1 advantage in the number of people) had already a pro league in the 1980 with their star player Erich Kunhackl making 4x the average West German salary. Hockey is also the national sport of Sweden with a huge player base and a huge fanbase. It just makes no sense that they would not pay their players with such a high revenue they were generating.

Also there already were Canadians in the Swedish league like the WHA player Mike Ford (D) or the NHL player Darwin Mott (LW):
View attachment 886153

Did they also play for free?

To be clear: the Olympic ideal of amateurism was stupid and became increasingly ridiculous as time progressed. Early in the history of the modern Olympic games, they didn’t even allow the working class to compete because they were thought to have a physical advantage over the “gentlemen” amateur athletes they were promoting. The last IOC president to vehemently defend the amateurism of the Olympic games was a long serving American by the name of Avery Brundage, and he did so in the face of immense pushback not the least when it became apparent the USSR and other countries from the Eastern bloc sent government sponsored full-time “amateurs” to compete. His argument was that what the Soviets were doing wasn’t that different from the athletic scholarships present in some western countries. The IIHF apparently started to cautiously veer from the amateur ideal in the early 1970s with compromises allowing nine non-NHL (for whatever reason) professionals to compete for Canada, but reverted that decision as Brundage and the IOC threatened hockey’s status as an Olympic event.

Nevertheless, Brundage seemed aware that many athletes weren’t living up to the amateur ideal — doing sponsorship deals and whatnot — and even suggested ending the winter games by the 1970s because of what he saw as rampant commercialization among the athletes.

Swedish hockey for sure grappled with the amateur ideal vs. more modern realities during the 1960s and 1970s. It’s hard to say what kind of money could be earned playing hockey at the time. Rögle BK got a wealthy sponsor in the 1960s who acquired Canadian Des Moroney as well as Ulf Sterner to help them push towards the top division. It’s probably safe to say there was some money in it for them in going there, but I’m not sure how it was worked out. Iirc, Sterner ran a sports goods store while playing for Rögle, and I’m guessing that on paper that business was what helped him retain “amateur status”. Des Moroney wasn’t a national team player, I don’t necessarily think they needed any loophole for him and the other few early Canadians playing there. He was a player-coach for many years and for several teams, I think he could be compensated for coaching perhaps? He also studied to get a Swedish PE teacher’s license for a while.

By the mid-70s the Swedish Elite League was established and from then-on I think professionalization and commercialization of the sport was seriously being promoted, mainly to counter competition from foreign pro leagues. That all players became paid professionals didn’t occur over night, however. As late as the 1990s there were still non-paid semiprofessionals in the league, I’ve gathered from anecdotal evidence. I listened to an interview with Torbjörn Lindberg (b. 1970) who had been a regular roster player for Luleå since 1988-89, and he said that despite that he was only offered a salary in 1998-99, returning after “turning pro” for a season in the German league.

 

[Michael Farkas]

. It’s probably safe to say there was some money in it for them in going there, but I’m not sure how it was worked out.

I don't know either. But it's mentioned in the parting-ways announcements that he signed a contract with Rogle B.K. so, fair to say that there was money involved assumedly; also I found this in The Hockey News...

“I have a good job in Sweden, and I can also play hockey there,” said Sterner, who will make up his mind in the spring.

‘‘Hockey is more fun in Europe. Here you don’t pass as much, and it’s a rougher game. I was not the worst player on the Rangers, but I needed more experience.

“It’s easier in the NHL. They play harder and faster, but not as rough as the AHL.

“I’m not sure I’m coming back.”

Sterner, 6-2 and 185 pounds, has been rattled with elbows and body checks, and hasn’t retaliated. He was benched briefly by Coach John Crawford of Baltimore, and has been shifted from line to line.

“He hasn’t been happy here,” said a Baltimore source, close to the Clippers. “They hit him all the time, and I think he feels there are too many games. He feels hockey is a business here, not a sport.”