Canada has won 4 of the last 5 Best on Best competitions.
How do I let myself get pulled into these silly arguments???
When Will The USA Be The Country To Beat? (EDIT: Not just for WJHC)
- Thread starter Penguins23
- Start date
Canada has won 4 of the last 5 Best on Best competitions.
How do I let myself get pulled into these silly arguments???
I will agree, dominate was a strong word by my part, but being 1st and 3rd two Olympics in a row is close to domination IMO; USA on the other hand has been behind Canada both times. But of course if the USA put in the effort they'd dominate the Winter Olympics
By that same argument, if China and India put all their effort into winter sports, they would dominate the Winter Olympics because they have 4 times the population of the U.S. Also, if that is the case, why has Sweden, with 3%(?) of the population of the U.S., produced a better hockey program? You can't just say, "This country has more people therefore they would dominate a sport".
Rob
Registered User
Actually baseball is more popular in Japan than in the US. Baseball is a distant third in the US. I don't now the number of registered baseball players but Japan will have a higher percentage for sure.
This is not true. He never quit football because he was getting pummeled, in fact he had walk on offers to play Div 3 football but turned them down. And it took him an extra year playing at a prep school to even get the walk on offer from Michigan.
kk87
Registered User
Bumped. Canada has better development, from minor hockey leagues all the way up to the CHL. The thing is, hockey is so ingrained in Canadian culture that it will only continue to become more prevalent. Hockey is certainly becoming a bigger deal in the States, but the fact is, the focus put on sports like baseball, basketball and football always seems to get priority status. We also have a more appropriate climate to develop young players. I know that states like Minnesota are hockey hotbeds, but on the whole, I don't think the US will surpass Canada for a long time in this regard.
SanDogBrewin
Righteous bucks!
You are not stating any facts. The US did not have all there best players playing. A lot of players did not except the invitation to the WBC every year.
SanDogBrewin
Righteous bucks!
This is correct and Canada's depth, which is insane, will never wane. As of now I am happy that US Hockey contends in the U18, U20, Worlds and the Olympics. Far cry from were USNTDP used to be.
The US will snag a Gold eventually but Canada will always be the team to beat internationally.
varsaku
Registered User
The weather is a major factor. Canada and northern USA has the weather to go outside and practice for hours. Many states in the US, kids have to spend money to go and practice at indoor ice rinks. With California and Texas growing it will still be harder to produce the number of players northern states do because of cost. It will probably continue to grow as a spectator sport, but kids will continue to pick football, baseball and basketball.
Man I'm old...and the prediction that Yanks will surpass Canada at Hockey within the nxt decade or so, has been bandied about for a long long time. Trouble is, goal post keeps getting shifted back and Yanks are no closer.
Canada still produces WAY more elite forwards. Yanks have quite a few blue chip youngsters on D, but still they pale in comparison to Canada's embarrassment of riches ( Try to imagine PK Subban playing for any other nation and riding the pine + we have Ekblad , whose gonna be a better all round D, waiting in the wings...it's still Canada here too AINEC ! )
Yanks have more top notch netties, but none better than Carey Price...
Because US NTDP have had the luxury of hothousing guys, and because Canada tends to get hit the hardest by NHL cradle robbing, recent Yankee WJC successes ( 2015 notwithstanding ) has led many people to overestimate Yanks future international hockey standing.
Heck Yanks had a better A team, comparatively speaking, when they won the World Cup in 1996, than they do now...
Today's USA A Team may win the odd head to head match-up vs Canada, BUT no way in hell they win a seven game series.
& that won't change in the foreseeable future either...
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2013 was an outlier...Injuries aside...Canada has had its best possible World Junior Team three times...Remind me again what happened in Red Deer in 1995? How about North Dakota 2005? Without even looking it up, Canada went unbeaten both times, outscoring the opposition smthg like 41-7 in 2005. I call that TOTAL DOMINATION!
P.S: Two Golds outa 3, in Best on Best tourneys, for any other nation, would be a dream come true scenario. Only in Canada could it be seen as a Major Disappointment
2013 was an outlier...Injuries aside...Canada has had its best possible World Junior Team three times...Remind me again what happened in Red Deer in 1995? How about North Dakota 2005? Without even looking it up, Canada went unbeaten both times, outscoring the opposition smthg like 41-7 in 2005. I call that TOTAL DOMINATION!
P.S: Two Golds outa 3, in Best on Best tourneys, for any other nation, would be a dream come true scenario. Only in Canada could it be seen as a Major Disappointment
When you look at the huge disparity in public interest and resources that Canada pours into hockey in comparison to the rest of the World, what is really noteworthy is how often Canada fails, rather than any success it is having. How is it, for instance, that Canada doesn't go undefeated in the WJC every year? How is it that they only have a 60% success rate in the Olympics since 1998, when all of their best players became available? The annual "we have 2 players in the NHL this year so we can't possibly win the WJC" excuse notwithstanding, how can you crow about the "embarrassment of riches" when you fail to win nearly every international tournament in which you don't have every single one of your best players on the roster, even after Canada spends about 50% of its GDP on hockey. That can certainly qualify as an embarrassment.
JackSlater
Registered User
- Apr 27, 2010
- 19,805
- 15,465
I am definitely embarrassed by Canada 66% success rate at both the WJC tournaments when everyone was available (1995, 2005, 2013) and 1998+ best on best tournaments (1998, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2014). We often refer to it as the great national shame. If Canada had only won one of those tournaments, as Sweden, Czech Republic and USA have, it would be even worse. If Canada had somehow won none of those tournaments, as (unnamed) countries have, it would be unbearable.
Given the lack of interest and the lack of competition in the rest of the World, some of that embarrassment is well justified.
Macman
Registered User
- May 15, 2004
- 3,483
- 516
You're really grasping at straws now.
The self-gloating comment about "embarrassment of riches" struck me as a little ironic in the sense that you would think that Canada would be far more dominant than it actually is. There seems to be as much or more evidence of underachievement than overachievement when you consider what Canada puts into hockey development in comparison to the rest of the World.
Or maybe Hockey is one of those sports with a higher degree of randomness in the outcome of a game. I haven't looked at the stats but for example if you compared golf and tennis it seems like a top tennis player has a much better chance at winning a tournament than a top golfer does. I'm not embarrassed by Canada's performance in hockey, besides as I've said many times you can learn much more about a nations hockey depth by looking at the statistics of their players over a whole season than from any one international tournament.
Both tennis and golf are quite ruthless in way that you just can't win by luck in major tournaments. There's a bit more randomness in golf, but still not very much.
In team sports there's always more "randomness" because a team is not the same as the sum of EA Sports ratings of the players. In ice hockey there's a lot more so called randomness than in basketball or especially in volleyball. In volleyball a weaker team can't just defend like a turtle and hope to win by lucky bounce. Team just can't win three sets by luck.
In ice hockey it's still not as random as some people think. If the difference in player material is significant, it shows on ice. You can see it in beer leagues, for example. A significantly better team can win single-handedly (even in hangover) and the opposing team basically never even gets the puck or gets out of its own zone.
In women's WHC you can see something a similar: USA and Canada are in their own league and they can absolutely destroy the weakest opponents. It looks the same on ice as on scoreboard - it's like pros vs amateurs. In tournament history Canada and USA have always been in the final and Finland has been always in the bronze game. There's no room for "lucky" winners there, because luck is just not enough.
Regarding men's ice hockey many people think that NHL players are in their own league and there's a big cap between NHL and other leagues. That's just not true. One should look the whole picture from beer leagues to NHL instead of forgetting that there's a lot of ice hockey under the top pro leagues. The amount of professional leagues guarantee that there are a lot good hockey players, who don't look like deers in headlights when put in same rink with NHL players.
In the 80's basically only NHL was a pro league, where players could focus 100% on ice hockey. Well, of course Soviet Union had its own system. We can remember the ugly beatings we saw in WHC yet in the 90's. Today all countries in major tournaments have professional ice hockey players and the tournaments are now competitive enough. In last WHC biggest goal differential was five goals, and the reason is not trap, but the lesser teams can now actually play and not just be 60 minutes in their zone. France, for example, played entertaining hockey and made to QFs.
What is randomness is that in ridiculously stupid Olympic format there are only few meaningful games, which all have to be won in order to win gold. That's randomness. Canada definitely has the best depth and best looking rosters but still those players are not that much better than others that Team Canada should be expected to win always. In women's tournaments it's a different thing and there are only two gold contenders, but in men's tournaments there many teams who are good enough to win, especially in a typical tournament format.
It's not randomness that teams with best players don't win. It belongs to team sport that the team is more than the sum of its players. It's the same in NHL, other leagues and international tournaments. I'd really like to see a real top tournament some time, like top-8 teams in, every team plays against each other and top-2 teams play for championship. NHL had a real chance to arrange a tournament like this, but we got something else...
In team sports there's always more "randomness" because a team is not the same as the sum of EA Sports ratings of the players. In ice hockey there's a lot more so called randomness than in basketball or especially in volleyball. In volleyball a weaker team can't just defend like a turtle and hope to win by lucky bounce. Team just can't win three sets by luck.
In ice hockey it's still not as random as some people think. If the difference in player material is significant, it shows on ice. You can see it in beer leagues, for example. A significantly better team can win single-handedly (even in hangover) and the opposing team basically never even gets the puck or gets out of its own zone.
In women's WHC you can see something a similar: USA and Canada are in their own league and they can absolutely destroy the weakest opponents. It looks the same on ice as on scoreboard - it's like pros vs amateurs. In tournament history Canada and USA have always been in the final and Finland has been always in the bronze game. There's no room for "lucky" winners there, because luck is just not enough.
Regarding men's ice hockey many people think that NHL players are in their own league and there's a big cap between NHL and other leagues. That's just not true. One should look the whole picture from beer leagues to NHL instead of forgetting that there's a lot of ice hockey under the top pro leagues. The amount of professional leagues guarantee that there are a lot good hockey players, who don't look like deers in headlights when put in same rink with NHL players.
In the 80's basically only NHL was a pro league, where players could focus 100% on ice hockey. Well, of course Soviet Union had its own system. We can remember the ugly beatings we saw in WHC yet in the 90's. Today all countries in major tournaments have professional ice hockey players and the tournaments are now competitive enough. In last WHC biggest goal differential was five goals, and the reason is not trap, but the lesser teams can now actually play and not just be 60 minutes in their zone. France, for example, played entertaining hockey and made to QFs.
What is randomness is that in ridiculously stupid Olympic format there are only few meaningful games, which all have to be won in order to win gold. That's randomness. Canada definitely has the best depth and best looking rosters but still those players are not that much better than others that Team Canada should be expected to win always. In women's tournaments it's a different thing and there are only two gold contenders, but in men's tournaments there many teams who are good enough to win, especially in a typical tournament format.
It's not randomness that teams with best players don't win. It belongs to team sport that the team is more than the sum of its players. It's the same in NHL, other leagues and international tournaments. I'd really like to see a real top tournament some time, like top-8 teams in, every team plays against each other and top-2 teams play for championship. NHL had a real chance to arrange a tournament like this, but we got something else...
Do you realize how defeatist this sounds? You are only feeding a sense of superiority that some people may have, which I don't think the poster you were responding to has. They were just stating the obvious, which is what the OP called for.
At this juncture, there is no reason to believe the US has made up any ground in the last 20 years since their lone best-on-best win nor will they in the foreseeable future with the talent that has recently joined, or soon will be joining, the senior level.
Some have been making the argument that Hockey Canada et al hasn't been getting enough return on their investment, enough bang for their buck as it were, compared to their Euro counterparts, as measured by INTERNATIONAL hockey successes. That argument may be SOMEWHAT valid,(although our Best on Best success rate remains the envy of the hockey world ); still...
two can play that game !
Nowadays, my understanding is that USA Hockey et al have about the same number of registered players and spend as much as we here in the Great White North do on player development , if not more -- factoring in those deep pocketed D 1 College programs, the fact that many high school coaches stateside get paid, the USHL, the shared CHL, the US NTDP, yadda yadda, it seems something of a mystery why Yanks don't seen to be subject to anywhere near the same high standards ( both at home and abroad ) as us Canucks?
As an aside, Yanks can't even use the warm climate vs cold excuse imo ( to try to explain away their also ran status ), since the vast majority of their players are from the North East where the climate IS conducive to Hockey. So this begs the question.
Why aren't Yanks doing better at international hockey than some of their comparably poorly financed European counterparts? In other words, why aren't they a close 2nd to Canada ( at a bare minimum ) in terms of winning Best on Best tourneys?
And why aren't they producing more top 25 NHL scorers, considering the number of US born NHLers?
two can play that game !
Nowadays, my understanding is that USA Hockey et al have about the same number of registered players and spend as much as we here in the Great White North do on player development , if not more -- factoring in those deep pocketed D 1 College programs, the fact that many high school coaches stateside get paid, the USHL, the shared CHL, the US NTDP, yadda yadda, it seems something of a mystery why Yanks don't seen to be subject to anywhere near the same high standards ( both at home and abroad ) as us Canucks?
As an aside, Yanks can't even use the warm climate vs cold excuse imo ( to try to explain away their also ran status ), since the vast majority of their players are from the North East where the climate IS conducive to Hockey. So this begs the question.
Why aren't Yanks doing better at international hockey than some of their comparably poorly financed European counterparts? In other words, why aren't they a close 2nd to Canada ( at a bare minimum ) in terms of winning Best on Best tourneys?
And why aren't they producing more top 25 NHL scorers, considering the number of US born NHLers?
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