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WJC: Why is sweden so poor at international junior level?

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Prntscrn said:
I disagree. The unwillingness for serious competion and divisions at a young age because someone's feelings might get hurt goes perfectly with "alla ska med" imo. I think this mentality really hurt us when it matter the most in pretty much all of sports.
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I don't agree at all, in fact I would say it's the other way around. Competition is applied too early which is a big factor for losing players along the way. Players are forced to quit other sports if they want to stay on the team, TV-pucken is a dealbreaker for many and there is no need for a U16 national team. Research on kids and sports shows that kids that try multiple sports for a longer period are more succesful and it is also impossible for anyone to say which player will become the best at the age of 15-16. Maybe it's the kid that quit hockey because he wasn't elected to play tv-pucken?

The stategy for any team or sport, should always be to keep as many kids as possible in the system for as long as possible. Quantity will also bring quality.
 
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I thought they were the better team against Canada in last years final.

When you see what Pettersson and Dahlin are doing in the league this year you almost wonder how they didn't win gold.
 
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What's interesting if you look at the NHL is that Swedes are a bit of an anomaly in that they tend to peak later than other players. Very few Swedish rookies (Pettersson aside) tend to set the league on fire. There has been no Swedish Calder winner since Alfredsson/Forsberg in 1994-1996 and they were both past twenty when they won. The only other Swedish winner, Landeskog, was brought up in the junior system in Canada. Dahlin this year was the first Swedish FOA since Sundin.

However, Swedes even though not flashy do steadily improve once they find their comfort zone, cf Zetterberg and the Sedins, Markus Naslund. Even someone like Tomas Holmstrom that doggedly fought his way up from a grinder to the first line and they tend to be quite long-lived and good until they retire, unless derailed by injuries like Forsberg. Which I suspect is why there are so many Swedes in the NHL and why the numbers picked in the first round has increased. But Sweden does lack that superstar although hopefully Pettersson and Dahlin will change that in the future.

At present, Sweden has one, maybe two you can label star players, Hedman and EK65. But they do have many very good players, F. Forsberg, Landeskog, Backstrom, OEL etc.

I see a bit of the same problem with the U20, despite many playing pro, they just haven't taken that last step developmentally, especially when they're playing outside their comfort zone.
 
Prntscrn said:
It's called "Alla ska med". The mentality it's not about competing, it's about having fun.
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:laugh: ...Wait, is this a real thing? That may be the most loser mentality I've ever seen.

Kids playing in the WJC have pro aspirations. This isn't atom hockey. You play to win the game. If there's nothing to lose, there's nothing to gain.
 
OmniCube said:
:laugh: ...Wait, is this a real thing? That may be the most loser mentality I've ever seen.

Kids playing in the WJC have pro aspirations. This isn't atom hockey. You play to win the game. If there's nothing to lose, there's nothing to gain.
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Well yeah, not at this level, but at a younger age. Constant debating going on about increasing the age for points and divisions (I think the latest proposition was to not start with counting points and play in divisions until the age of 13 or 14) and how going for it at a young age is a bad thing, how it exclude and prevent kids from having fun.

I say let those who want to go all in from a young age do it and those who don't can play in teams that just plays for fun. And those who are not good enough but want to go for it just have to practice harder and they will make it soon enough
 
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Prntscrn said:
Well yeah, not at this level, but at a younger age. Constant debating going on about increasing the age for points and divisions (I think the latest proposition was to not start with calculating points and play in divisions until the age of 13 or 14) and how going for it at a young age is a bad thing, how it exclude and provent kids form having fun.
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Thanks for not thinking I was blaming you for any of this, that certainly wasn't my intention. :)

I'm all for having fun but I personally cannot freaking stand this "don't want to hurt kids self esteem" bullcrap. At a certain point, coddling older kids harms their long-term development as athletes and as people. Real life is hard and real life is not fair so there's a certain age beyond which they need to do it for real and not be treated with kid gloves.
 
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mjlee said:
What's interesting if you look at the NHL is that Swedes are a bit of an anomaly in that they tend to peak later than other players. Very few Swedish rookies (Pettersson aside) tend to set the league on fire. There has been no Swedish Calder winner since Alfredsson/Forsberg in 1994-1996 and they were both past twenty when they won. The only other Swedish winner, Landeskog, was brought up in the junior system in Canada. Dahlin this year was the first Swedish FOA since Sundin.

However, Swedes even though not flashy do steadily improve once they find their comfort zone, cf Zetterberg and the Sedins, Markus Naslund. Even someone like Tomas Holmstrom that doggedly fought his way up from a grinder to the first line and they tend to be quite long-lived and good until they retire, unless derailed by injuries like Forsberg. Which I suspect is why there are so many Swedes in the NHL and why the numbers picked in the first round has increased. But Sweden does lack that superstar although hopefully Pettersson and Dahlin will change that in the future.

At present, Sweden has one, maybe two you can label star players, Hedman and EK65. But they do have many very good players, F. Forsberg, Landeskog, Backstrom, OEL etc.

I see a bit of the same problem with the U20, despite many playing pro, they just haven't taken that last step developmentally, especially when they're playing outside their comfort zone.
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Three out of 23 most searched players on NHL.com are Swedes. Lundqvist, Erik Karlsson and Backstrom.

NHL Hockey Players
 
Well, obviously the 'having fun' attitude does work at the NHL level considering Sweden has the third most NHL players. Some kids develop earlier, some later. Physically and skillwise. You always hear NHL players talking about having fun on the ice. If you listen to players like Sundin and Forsberg they talk about how much fun they had just playing without focusing on games and points and focusing on developing their skills instead.

Almost all Swedish players have also talked about the importance of playing other sports and not just hockey as a junior. Not primarily to develop skills relevant for hockey but again just having fun and keeping their love of hockey. Then, around 12-14 they make the choice to focus on only hockey. Yes, that may Pejorative Slur their development at the junior level, but it makes them better in the NHL, and considering the small(er) pool of Swedish hockey players, we can't afford to miss a single talent because he's cut as a kid and quits.

As Mikael Rehnberg a Swedish commentator pointed out, it's pretty clear during the primary national Swedish junior tournament (for 15 year olds) TV pucken, who has hit puberty and who hasn't. The bigger players can dominate physically. That doesn't mean that they'll end up better players later on.

Sweden always has well structured and (sometimes) well coached teams, but they tend to lack that final skill player that will ultimately win at junior level.

Also, if they stop playing pre-tournament games against Canada that would help. Since it seems at least one of our better players always end up injured.
 
mjlee said:
Well, that just shows that a) Swedish fans are kinda obsessed and b) has zero correlation with actual play on ice.
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Don't be ridiculous. These are high profile players in the NHL. Lundqvist for example is frequently one of the most sold NHL jerseys and have been for years.
 
mjlee said:
So most internet hits equals star player?
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I haven't said that there's one definite definition of a star player. But obviously one way of measuring how renowned a player is is through some sort of metric methodology such as how frequently NHL.com visitors search on the player. That is probably preferable to whatever methodology you have used to deduce that Hedman and Karlsson are the only Swedish star players.
 
mjlee said:
Almost all Swedish players have also talked about the importance of playing other sports and not just hockey as a junior. Not primarily to develop skills relevant for hockey but again just having fun and keeping their love of hockey. Then, around 12-14 they make the choice to focus on only hockey. Yes, that may ****** their development at the junior level, but it makes them better in the NHL, and considering the small(er) pool of Swedish hockey players, we can't afford to miss a single talent because he's cut as a kid and quits.
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This is absolutly right. All science in this field points to not elite focus to early. Follow the science i say. Who cares if we win gold at Juniors when we win at Seniors. As you said we cant afford to miss talents. We could probably be less allround focus when going in to elite training to develop players who are exceptionaly good in one area.
 
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First i belive the winning roundrobin games curse must end. Swedish teams with lesser talent selldom gets past the mentaly "sigh of releave" phase that occurdes after the last ruond robin win for not destroying the stupid record.
Second we need coaches that react faster. I have never heard a coach being blamed for mixing lines to early when team is struggeling to get up to speed.
Third sometimes we overachive sometimes under... but quite consistend. So big depth overall with as few highs as lows.
 
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