What happened to Belarus?

[NotABadPeriod]

The qualification tournament does not include NHL players. If it did Grabovski, and maybe even KHL players (notably the Kostitsyn's) would have played. But Belarus is not the most affected team by this, and it isn't Germany either. It's Denmark, they could have easily won games and played with the big teams at the olympics. Look at these names.
Forwards: Boedker, Eller, Hansen, Nielsen, Regin
Defence: Larsen
Goalie: Andersen (back up in Anaheim)

I wonder if there is any way to move the qualifying tournaments into the offseason--change the schedule to allow these countries the chance to qualify for a best-on-best tournament by actually using their best players. They might have to change the timeline on when the automatic spots are decided but if these tournaments could be held in August, we'd see full strength Germany (missing Ehrhoff, Seidenberg, Goc, Greiss, Sulzer, etc.), Denmark, etc. fighting for these berths instead of the B squads.

 

[jekoh]

He's saying if a country has players that are good enough to play outside their own domestic leagues and end up playing in North America they are unable to play in qualifying rounds, meaning that countries with already low depth have to choose different players than their 1st choice selections.

It happened in 02 with Slovakia, NHL players were not available so they had to play that round without Chara Hossa et al. On the other hand, it didn't affect Belarus. but that doesn't mean it wasn't a factor.

Slovakia did not have to play a qualifier to get to the 2002 Olympics, they qualified automatically by finishing 7th at the 1999 Worlds.

One poster said only the top 12 teams get to go - there is an open qualification system - you would have to be living under a rock to not know that.

Many posters here are simply not very knowledgeable at all.

 

[Oilslick941611]

Slovakia did not have to play a qualifier to get to the 2002 Olympics, they qualified automatically by finishing 7th at the 1999 Worlds.


Many posters here are simply not very knowledgeable at all.

Slovakia may have qualified for the Olympics, but they only made it to the premlinary round which NHLer's were not available for and thus didn't make it to the real round in which NHLer's were available for, so really, you are just arguing semantics and the point still stands.

 

[WarriorofTime]

It's not like they were ever some sort of top team. I mean, yeah, they beat Sweden that one year but that was a once in a lifetime fluke occurrence.

 

[Namejs]

He's saying if a country has players that are good enough to play outside their own domestic leagues and end up playing in North America they are unable to play in qualifying rounds, meaning that countries with already low depth have to choose different players than their 1st choice selections.

It happened in 02 with Slovakia, NHL players were not available so they had to play that round without Chara Hossa et al. On the other hand, it didn't affect Belarus. but that doesn't mean it wasn't a factor.

so what he said makes perfect sense.

What he said makes no sense whatsoever.

If a nation's hockey program is so good that it consistently produces elite talent, they should be better than teams with no elite talent, even when that elite talent is taken away from them.

More quality -> more depth.

Unfortunately for Belarus, they have neither, so the argument is absolutely, 100% ludicrous.

They faced Slovenia and Denmark in the qualification round, both of whom missed more elite players than Belarus.

Belarus had 2 NHL players last year, now they're down to 1.

Slovenia missed Kopitar, Denmark missed about 6 NHL players.

Bottom line - they're simply not good enough.