Why is Finland better than Sweden at junior level?

[teravaineSAROS]

Finland has been better in recent years, because we took the wrong path at junion level development at one point. But even if Sweden has twice the population, don't underestimate the power football has in that country. In Sweden football is #1, and no doubt many of the promising young kids choose that instead of hockey.

I hate this "football is #1 people here don't care about hockey as much" when I, as a Finn raised in Sweden who has played hockey, knows that the passion is similar but Sweden has a lot more arenas and more resources to work with a quantity of young players.


When Alexander Gustafsson wins a fight it's all "yeah we're passionate vikings" but when Sweden loses in a team sport it's all "yea whatever we don't really care for that sport so much"

 

[Hennessy]

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.

 

[Atas2000]

Gold at U18:

Finland: 4
Sweden: 0

Gold at U20:

Finland: 4
Sweden: 2

Pretty clear advantage for finland. What is finland doing better?

Because Finland develops better players recently. Period.

 

[DDRhockey]

Because Finland develops better players recently. Period.

That is true. I guess the millions of immigrants we have in sweden dont care about hockey

 

[RorschachWJK]

Sweden tends to produce clearly better Dmen and centers than Finland but these usually take a while to develop and aren't necessarily yet in full bloom during junior ages. Finland seems stronger in wingers who generally peak earlier. That could be one factor at least.

Also, at the junior level it is often enough to have a hot goalie and one great line. Depth isn't such an issue as it is later on with adult teams where Sweden has the advantage, that's for sure. The goalie position being the sole exception to this.

 

[ZEBROA]

I love the brotherly rivelery. But cant help thinking if we made a south north korea thing. Our (sweden) D and depth players Finlands Goalies and top forwards. would be crazy good.

Talent wise as a whole i think we are quite close. Finland has a upswing right now. But we have a lot promesing player on line. And theres always late bloomers comming from nowere. Like William karlsson etc...

 

[Signupnow]

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.

I was referring to the past times they met in wjc

 

[Atas2000]

That is true. I guess the millions of immigrants we have in sweden dont care about hockey

Going by the names of the young players on Sweden's junior and now NT they do care a lot. Burakowski, Zibanejad...

 

[The Cannon of Tesoma]

I love the brotherly rivelery. But cant help thinking if we made a south north korea thing. Our (sweden) D and depth players Finlands Goalies and top forwards. would be crazy good.

Talent wise as a whole i think we are quite close. Finland has a upswing right now. But we have a lot promesing player on line. And theres always late bloomers comming from nowere. Like William karlsson etc...

Nordic Hockey in alternate, hypotetic pre-1809 historical time line where 20+ million mostly Swedish speaking population of hockey fanatics would fly Tre-Kronor colors, Lol.

Even better if going to times of Great Northern war 1700-1720s assuming decisive Win for The Kingdom of Sweden. In that time line, team's roster would include players from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia...

"Co-prosperity sphere" of Swedish protestant kings would be about half of Europe with slightly different end result of 30 years war (assuming the king Gustavus II Adolfus wouldn't be killed in Lutzen)...

Nobody write sports fan fiction from alternate historical time lines,- sadly -, but reality wouldn't that simple straight forward either. There would be probably few millions people more living in Finland without those endless centuries of near continuous wars between Sweden and first Novgorod, then Czarist Russia, various coalitions etc. that nearly always were accompanied with famines and plagues, more or less forcibly (usually more) conscripted generations of males generation after generation that fought and died for the king and the country, and sometimes insanely high tax burden for keeping those wars running, vast areas of devastated and depopulated of land at the eastern frontier province...

Ultimately it is likely fortunate thing for Finnish hockey and Nordic brotherly hockey rivalry that Sweden and Swedish border province and dominion called Finland get separated as an end result of Finnish War 1808-1809. From Finnish perspective 1800 was relatively prosperous, peaceful period of time that made possible all kind developments in economy, culture, commerce, population, industry, art... ultimately the Idea of Finnish identity and nationality.

Now we try crush our old big brother in a hockey rink, our front being toward west, our National hockey team named after the iconocraphy of The Coat of Arms of Folkunga...

Sure, indeed, Best-on-best of combined Swedish and Finnish players would be rather devastating unit. On a paper.

 

[QnebO]

Two border countries couldnt possibly be more different than Finland and Sweden. Except perhaps Finland and Russia.

 

[Legend Leinonen]

K. What was the topic again?

 

[Legend Leinonen]

Two border countries couldnt possibly be more different than Finland and Sweden. Except perhaps Finland and Russia.

Well yeah Sweden's bros are Danes, Norwegians etc. I don't understand this 'brotherly one country' nonsense here. Anyway this is all off topic.

 

[NoMessi]

Nordic Hockey in alternate, hypotetic pre-1809 historical time line where 20+ million mostly Swedish speaking population of hockey fanatics would fly Tre-Kronor colors, Lol.

Even better if going to times of Great Northern war 1700-1720s assuming decisive Win for The Kingdom of Sweden. In that time line, team's roster would include players from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia...

"Co-prosperity sphere" of Swedish protestant kings would be about half of Europe with slightly different end result of 30 years war (assuming the king Gustavus II Adolfus wouldn't be killed in Lutzen)...

Nobody write sports fan fiction from alternate historical time lines,- sadly -, but reality wouldn't that simple straight forward either. There would be probably few millions people more living in Finland without those endless centuries of near continuous wars between Sweden and first Novgorod, then Czarist Russia, various coalitions etc. that nearly always were accompanied with famines and plagues, more or less forcibly (usually more) conscripted generations of males generation after generation that fought and died for the king and the country, and sometimes insanely high tax burden for keeping those wars running, vast areas of devastated and depopulated of land at the eastern frontier province...

Ultimately it is likely fortunate thing for Finnish hockey and Nordic brotherly hockey rivalry that Sweden and Swedish border province and dominion called Finland get separated as an end result of Finnish War 1808-1809. From Finnish perspective 1800 was relatively prosperous, peaceful period of time that made possible all kind developments in economy, culture, commerce, population, industry, art... ultimately the Idea of Finnish identity and nationality.

Now we try crush our old big brother in a hockey rink, our front being toward west, our National hockey team named after the iconocraphy of The Coat of Arms of Folkunga...

Sure, indeed, Best-on-best of combined Swedish and Finnish players would be rather devastating unit. On a paper.

Finland is more swedish than Skåne and Halland. Denmark might be our cousins, Norway our brothers but Finland is at worst our twin brothers that got stolen by Russia.

 

[Healthy DiPietro]

Two border countries couldnt possibly be more different than Finland and Sweden. Except perhaps Finland and Russia.

Maybe to you southerners. I don't notice any difference between Pajala and say, Enontekiö.

 

[Skeletorrr]

Maybe to you southerners. I don't notice any difference between Pajala and say, Enontekiö.

I was just about to say the same thing. Sweden - especially northern Sweden is VERY similar to Finland. I've worked in Sweden on couple of occasions and the similarities outnumber the differences by a very large margin.

I like northern sweden especially because I can understand their swedish much more than in southern Sweden

 

[ZEBROA]

Sorry for derailing from the topic.

Dont know why they are better. I dont know the difference between the Finnish junior league and the Swedish. i know swedish juniors tend to switch teams a lot. Maby our national playingsystem is harder to master and differ to much from the junior league?
I realy have no clue...

 

[QnebO]

Maybe to you southerners. I don't notice any difference between Pajala and say, Enontekiö.

Im savonian!

 

[kelsier]

I remember when growing into the hockey world as a kid there was this huge rivalry with the Swedes and even envy at some point, for the Swedes seemed like the more dominating force. But the era of Forsberg and Sundin is gone and while I still kind of view the Finland vs Sweden games as more important events than games against other countries, I don't have any bitter thoughts flying or hoping they would lose games (other than vs Finland). Those times have passed.

Today it seems like the Finnish jr coaching and player development have met the same standards held by our dear neighbours, if not even passed them. Of course I expect the Swedes to have more players in the NHL due to population and their D core doesn't show signs of weakening, however at the same time Finland has produced top end forwards and we have the quality on our side. I just hope there will be more promising D prospects coming down the pipeline to balance this generation's group of Lions. I have a feeling the next ten years are going to be written down in the history as the best ever era of Finnish hockey. Should it turn out true, I plan to enjoy every minute of it.

 

[Toro2017]

I don't know why Finland is better (at the moment), but maybe it is because Liiga has expanded to 15 teams and at the same time more and more finnish players goes to KHL, NLA, SHL and such leagues. So Liiga teams needs to take more younger players to their rosters. So maybe lately finnish players have had more games in adult leagues than players in other countries, when they play in those U18 and U20 tournaments.

 

[Lennu32]

It's all about the looks. Finland has Sebastian Aho... and Sweden has Joel Eriksson-Ek

 

[MoeTheHobo]

It's all about the looks. Finland has Sebastian Aho... and Sweden has Joel Eriksson-Ek

But Sweden also has Sebastian Aho

 

[The Cannon of Tesoma]

But Sweden also has Sebastian Aho

Haha. There is interesting question hidden in that. What is overall impact of post-WWII Finnish immigrants to Swedish hockey and it's development? I have no clear idea about that.

Some 400000-500000 Finns moved to Sweden, mostly from 50s' to 70s' because economic reasons and booming Swedish industry and economy that required more work force. Socio-economic character of vast majority of immigrants were working class people and/or peasants (that moved also to cities from rural communities when changing country), being also first modern post-war immigration wave to Sweden.

It's relatively safe to presume that at least some of Finnish immigrants or their descents continued to play/started to play hockey in their new home country (some of them probably moving back to Finland later). But into what extend? Would be nice to hear about that from Swedes, who know better.

 

[ZEBROA]

Feels like Finland always had some great players. Koivu was good, Selanne was god. Will Sweden ever get a realy good sniper? I dont mean a one hit wonder like Wild Bill probably are(i realy hope im wrong here and that he is a late bloomer). We need a trigger happy supersniper. I thought about this a long time. Just wanted to cry when Laine showed up. Wtf Finland now i will have a heavy anxiety every time he is on the ice agains us? Hate that. You gotva lot of young stars but top end snipers are the worst. They can stand minding there own buisness ,even looking bored, and woopdadoodle the puck is in the net. We need one of those.

 

[The Cannon of Tesoma]

That anxiety related to games against Sweden is very familiar to several generations of Finnish hockey fans (and apparently also to some elder players). Concept of "Finland killers" added to guys like Sundin, Forsberg, Näslund etc. is very familiar many of us. Luckily rising generation lacks that anxiety or at least it doesn't inflict to a play as destructively as before, when it felt like systemic fault of otherwise rather steadily developing, relatively high level performances of Finnish hockey/hockey players.

Few generations of Finnish players were known primarily for their solid team defense, work ethics and grinder-capability and elite goal tending, the flock being then dotted sparsely with superstar level offensive/two-way guys like Selänne and Lehtinen. Now improved level of offensive mind set and accompanied skill sets seems to be more as a default for millenial Finnish players.

 

[Raimo Sillanpää]

That anxiety related to games against Sweden is very familiar to several generations of Finnish hockey fans (and apparently also to some elder players). Concept of "Finland killers" added to guys like Sundin, Forsberg, Näslund etc. is very familiar many of us. Luckily rising generation lacks that anxiety or at least it doesn't inflict to a play as destructively as before, when it felt like systemic fault of otherwise rather steadily developing, relatively high level performances of Finnish hockey/hockey players.

Few generations of Finnish players were known primarily for their solid team defense, work ethics and grinder-capability and elite goal tending, the flock being then dotted sparsely with superstar level offensive/two-way guys like Selänne and Lehtinen. Now improved level of offensive mind set and accompanied skill sets seems to be more as a default for millenial Finnish players.

Revisionist history.
Fact is we were not that good before. In the 80’s, it was all emotion vs Sweden and losing 90% of the time. Vs Soviets it was 100% turtle - just how smaller nations play vs us at worlds. We beat the Soviets like twice..

That previous generation, knew wins were unlikely and everything was a first - Selänne, Koivu, Aki Berg all grew up with Finland being smoked by better teams.
For these kids now, 95- and younger, he firsts have already been achieved.

For all of Aho’s life, we had already won in 95, 1998 to 2005 or whatever we were in the final like every year. In 2006, when Sebastian was 8 - we were gold medal favourites until that broken stick. In 2011 a 13 year old Aho rushed out to emulate Granlund’s ilmaveivi.

He and his compatriots did not grow up with a Finland that struggled but for whom gold was a realistic shot. So they lack the fear. Instead they believe.
Self-confidence is the difference between good and very good.