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Why is Finland better than Sweden at junior level?

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Eye of Ra said:
what success?

losing to finland in olympics 1998? losing to canada in world cup 1996? losing to belarus in 2002? losing to czech in 2004? losing to slovakia 2010? losing to team europe in 2016? losing to germany in 2018? sweden is a loser nation. no other big nation have that bad track record as sweden has in best on best tournaments.
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I'd trade all the junior medals for the two olympic golds.
 
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Eye of Ra said:
what success?

losing to finland in olympics 1998? losing to canada in world cup 1996? losing to belarus in 2002? losing to czech in 2004? losing to slovakia 2010? losing to team europe in 2016? losing to germany in 2018? sweden is a loser nation. no other big nation have that bad track record as sweden has in best on best tournaments.
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You are not used to play desperate hockey like we do everytime. We had been doing it for 20 years against soviets and Canada and now again with such a low talent we have. Once some talents appears we crash everybody like peace of cake cause we can take it more easy:))
 
There's no doubt in my mind that Sweden is more consistent in the U-20s (especially the past 10 years). Anyways, I hope Finland catches up, as the rivalry will only intensify, which is a good thing for hockey fans! Heja Sverige! Hyvä Suomi!
 
There is time for everything, said a wise unknown man of Biblical times, maybe King Solomon himself. Not pretending to share the same wealth of wisdom and depth of mind as this prophetical figure of the shadowy distant past but I do say the time has come to Finland junior hockey to blossom and harvest the fruit after a long dry season. And there will be yet another time, and another after that, other times of other rules, rulers and regimes . Life is is a roller-coaster and so is history in all its aspects, a great cycle and roller-coaster.

And every dynasty and empire rises, thrives and declines once in time, every palace is just a defiant prelude to its ruins, and in the ruins there you see the coming of the next era and the rise of all its glorious shrines and shining temples .
 
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Eye of Ra said:
finland have more registered players than sweden.

hockey is nr 1 in finland, soccer is nr 1 in sweden
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Although hockey is the most popular sport in Finland, there are still more registerd players in soccer than in hockey.
 
For some reason, Swedes seems to generally develop later than other countries top players. The term late bloomer is quite frequently used for Swedish players and we can also see a fair amount of players picked in later rounds (or signing as free agents) being succesful NHL players.

A problem has also been coaching. The idea of developing and selecting coaches from within the national system. All cast in the same mould, no seldom with no experience of mens hockey. Look at Grönborg, he has never coached a mens team before being named coach for the National team.

One last factor is the lack of winning culture in Sweden, the ability to perform in the most important games. It's just not in our blood.
 
Seiza said:
For some reason, Swedes seems to generally develop later than other countries top players. The term late bloomer is quite frequently used for Swedish players and we can also see a fair amount of players picked in later rounds (or signing as free agents) being succesful NHL players.

A problem has also been coaching. The idea of developing and selecting coaches from within the national system. All cast in the same mould, no seldom with no experience of mens hockey. Look at Grönborg, he has never coached a mens team before being named coach for the National team.

One last factor is the lack of winning culture in Sweden, the ability to perform in the most important games. It's just not in our blood.
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Before 2011 it seemed like Finland lost every final they made it to.
 
Finland has lately been producing great goalies & forwards the past few years, add in the fact that they usually develop quite quickly. Sweden, meanwhile, has been producing great D & two-way forwards which develop slower.

As for the "Sweden sucks at men's tournaments" I see some write here, not really, we're the second most decorated national team the past 30 years. A better sentiment would be that Sweden has a tendency to choke.
 
Se829ne said:
Overall, I agree. It's also very easy to demonstrate why:

NHL Regular season 2018:

FIN: NHL.com - Stats

SWE: NHL.com - Stats

At least Sweden has been producing more of these "better players" than Finland.
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Yes it s the first time that the Top 6 Finns has score more Points than the Top 6 Swedes. In Depth the Swedes better. But my prediction ist,that the top 10 Finns are better than the Swedes in next 5 Years. Finland becomes stronger and stronger!
 
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Ducks76 said:
Yes it s the first time that the Top 6 Finns has score more Points than the Top 6 Swedes. In Depth the Swedes better. But my prediction ist,that the top 10 Finns are better than the Swedes in next 5 Years. Finland becomes stronger and stronger!
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Top 10 forwards you mean. Top 10 players is kind of a toss up for the next 5 years I would say.

There are two areas where I think Finland edged Sweden in in the past 30 years or so and that is the number of u20 gold medals and the amount of top end NHL level Goaltenders.

U20 overall I think it is pretty close. I can give it to finland if it makes some finn happy somewhere.

In basically any other regard Sweden dominates finland. More depth, more high end talent, more international success etc. This while having less amount of active players. If anything, Finland should ask themselves why they are outperformed by Sweden in such a way that they are. Sure Sweden have almost double the amount of population so there are bound to be double amount of talent, at least on paper. But stats show that Sweden have had more than double the amount of nhl players for a very long time despite hockey being the number 2 sport by a very wide margin in Sweden. Socioeconomic factors should not matter since both countries are kind of equal in that regard. If anything, there should be more finish parents willing to pay extra to make their kids play hockey since it is the number one sport in the country.

Now finally, Finland is catching up, and I don't think that anyone should be surprised about it, more so why it took them so long to catch up.
 
The most impressive part about the Swedes is how they year after year have success on the small ice. Ice size doesn't really matter, they even won their U20 gold on small ice. Finns have been horrible as last time they got U20 medal on small ice was 2003! Awful.

2009 7th
2010 5th
2011 6th
2012 4th
2015 7th
2017 9th
2018 6th

So only once even in the semis. Finland is not even close to Sweden what comes to success on U20 level.
Sweden hasn't finished worse than 4th after 2006 when they were 6th! 6 times in the finals, 7 medals.

I just hope and pray that 2019 WJC will bring something different..
 
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FinPanda said:
The most impressive part about the Swedes is how they year after year have success on the small ice. Ice size doesn't really matter, they even won their U20 gold on small ice. Finns have been horrible as last time they got U20 medal on small ice was 2003! Awful.

2009 7th
2010 5th
2011 6th
2012 4th
2015 7th
2017 9th
2018 6th

So only once even in the semis. Finland is not even close to Sweden what comes to success on U20 level.
Sweden hasn't finished worse than 4th after 2006 when they were 6th! 6 times in the finals, 7 medals.

I just hope and pray that 2019 WJC will bring something different..
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Exceptional the U18! They won 2016 in USA Gold. ;)!
 
Paul Maurice said:
I'll gladly swap our junior success to their adult success.
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It will come... just be patient. Sweden vs Finland best on best will be a little bit like watching Preds vs Jets, Preds with better offensive D and good and even forwards. Wpg with good defense and significantly better offensive edge among forwards. Even the colours will match. =)
 
Matte99 said:
It will come... just be patient. Sweden vs Finland best on best will be a little bit like watching Preds vs Jets, Preds with better offensive D and good and even forwards. Wpg with good defense and significantly better offensive edge among forwards. Even the colours will match. =)
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Nah. Sweden will always be a lot better because of how many good players they have. You can build four first lines if all the best players come.
 
Its because Swedish top prospects are usually D´s, and Finlands top prospects are forwards, and in the end of the day it seems that some times you need that offensive beast more than that defensive beast.

Sweden does well on small ice, put that elite D or two in small rink and they will shut people down, while Finland likes to get that one Elite forward every now and then and deploy him in big rink to skate circles around others.
 
This is not true. Yes they won over sweden in recent year, however the level of hockey played has been like barcelona in 2012 playing against getafe in terms of quality of play, sweden has always dominated them but somehow manage to lose in some fluke way when they should of won 5 to 0
 
Signupnow said:
This is not true. Yes they won over sweden in recent year, however the level of hockey played has been like barcelona in 2012 playing against getafe in terms of quality of play, sweden has always dominated them but somehow manage to lose in some fluke way when they should of won 5 to 0
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:huh:
 
Signupnow said:
This is not true. Yes they won over sweden in recent year, however the level of hockey played has been like barcelona in 2012 playing against getafe in terms of quality of play, sweden has always dominated them but somehow manage to lose in some fluke way when they should of won 5 to 0
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:huh:

That's a lot of fluke for Finns then. In those two (2) occasions when Team Finland has managed to get in a final and win anything at all in men's tournaments so far, Finals' results against Sweden are:

4-1 (1995 Worlds, Sweden)
6-1 (2011 Worlds, Slovakia)

Fluke Ends here.
 
More about that "fluke".

U20 tournament 2014 at Malmö, won by Team Finland against Team Sweden 3-2... how much "fluke" there was? (I didn't watch that tournament).

U18 2016 Final at Grand Forks ended 6-1 for Finns against Sweden, and 1999 in Germany, FIN-SWE end result was 2-2 (no playoffs). Finland won the tournament.

These are only times when Finland and Sweden have been competing in finals against each other in U18 and U20 levels.

Amount of "fluke" and "level of domination" are irrelevant in meaningless games, but later in a tournament it can be decisive factor for success. Finns have their fare share of occasions when that "fluke" has not appeared for their benefits.

EDIT: Sweden won Gold in U20 tournament of 1981, Finland being second. Match between countries ended 2-1 for Sweden. No playoffs.
 
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