Why isn't Estonia a minor hockey power?

[ottawa]

Why aren't India or China soccer superpowers? They both have perfect conditions for that.

This is why




warning: language

 

[tony d]

They seem like a secondary or tertiary hockey nation and nothing more.

 

[Mogo]

Finland: Don't have to say much. Worth noting that hockey is the most popular sport, and they only have about 4 million more people. I think (but am not sure) that Finland may be the country most culturally linked to Estonia as well.

Denmark: Top division mainstay, probably what I would call tier 3 but seem to be rising. About 4 million more people. Much higher per capita GDP. Similar (?) Baltic sea climate.

My god you killed couple million finns!

 

[Number 57]

From Google, Estonia only has 1,3M population. That is a pretty small population and you cannot expect a country without hockey traditions to just start being a relevant international presence overnight with that small of a population. Unfortunately their best hopes is to be what Belarus/Ukraine is right now and be a div.1 club and produce a couple of decent players for the KHL

Just for fun and comparisons sake, the province of Québec has 8x the population of Estonia and huge hockey following/tradition yet they barely produce good NHLers anymore. Only a handful of stars in the league come from Québec youth hockey (Bergeron, Luongo, Crawford, Letang, Vlasic, Fleury, Huberdeau, Duclair). You cannot expect Estonia to even come close to this anytime soon.

 

[Pajicz]

I've heard some people saying that hockey was seen as the Russians sport in Estonia, which has had some effect on kids starting to play football and basketball instead. In Latvia, it's the other way round. The Russian minority are football people, and the Latvians are more into hockey.

Estonia could be a potential hockey country. The location is good, and there isn't really a clear cut number one sport. Basketball and football are the popular ones, but even them aren't really that huge.

Estonian league will never be anything, but maybe if they get a KHL team, they wouldn't be far away from countries like Ukraine and Hungary. There could be similar situation in developing Estonian prospects in Finland as there is between Denmark and Sweden.

My god you killed couple million finns!

Compared to Estonia, not Finland.

 

[AstrophysicalJet]

What makes Latvia, Belarus and Norway tier 2 Nations, and Denmark a tier 3?

also The difference in climate between the Baltic countries is not to big.
they have the same climate as most countries close to the Baltic, with exception of Northern Scandinavia.

Estonia, if I recall dont seem to be a very "sporty" nation, atleast not in the same notion as their southern brethren.

 

[AstrophysicalJet]

What makes Latvia, Belarus and Norway tier 2 Nations, and Denmark a tier 3?

also The difference in climate between the Baltic countries is not to big.
they have the same climate as most countries close to the Baltic, with exception of Northern Scandinavia.

Estonia, if I recall dont seem to be a very "sporty" nation, atleast not in the same notion as their southern brethren.

 

[Finnpin]

Finland: Don't have to say much. Worth noting that hockey is the most popular sport, and they only have about 4 million more people. I think (but am not sure) that Finland may be the country most culturally linked to Estonia as well.

Not really. Though we belong to same language group so Estonians and Finns would learn each others languages easier than others.

 

[Elvs]

The climate isn't as good as people would think. Even in northern Sweden the outdoor season for playing hockey is becoming really short.

Building more indoor rinks will be crucial for Estonia's hockey future. If they were more successful at the sport their government would probably have more interest in investing. It becomes an evil circle.

Nice to see them having some players in the Finnish program though, including a couple in Liiga/Mestis. Leo Komarov, although he represents Finland internationally, is also born in Estonia.

 

[Finnpin]

Leo Komarov, although he represents Finland internationally, is also born in Estonia.

Komarov's parents are Russians with Karelian background --> Karelia was part of Finland back in the days so they had a chance to move to Finland when Leo was a kid. I think he was only born in Estonia. No other connections.

 

[kabidjan18]

Nice to see them having some players in the Finnish program though, including a couple in Liiga/Mestis. Leo Komarov, although he represents Finland internationally, is also born in Estonia.

I would really like to see some rule that allows dual national players who perhaps represented one country at youth levels to represent their birth country at the senior level barring perhaps a certain number of call ups because of cases like in the case of Siim Liivik who's Estonian Finnish. As a young kid with an inflated ego and unrealistic dreams of his future he chose to represent Finland for one WJC. Now he's a role player in Liiga, he will likely never represent Finland again and most certainly not in any meaningful tournaments but because of a poor decision he made as a teen he can never represent Estonia either, though he sometimes does PR work for them, and while he wouldn't matter whatsoever to Finland, playing for Estonia he could be the difference between say beating and losing to a Poland or another country around that level.

 

[Siamese Dream]

I would really like to see some rule that allows dual national players who perhaps represented one country at youth levels to represent their birth country at the senior level barring perhaps a certain number of call ups because of cases like in the case of Siim Liivik who's Estonian Finnish. As a young kid with an inflated ego and unrealistic dreams of his future he chose to represent Finland for one WJC. Now he's a role player in Liiga, he will likely never represent Finland again and most certainly not in any meaningful tournaments but because of a poor decision he made as a teen he can never represent Estonia either, though he sometimes does PR work for them, and while he wouldn't matter whatsoever to Finland, playing for Estonia he could be the difference between say beating and losing to a Poland or another country around that level.

If he goes and plays in the Estonian league for 4 consecutive years he can play for them at senior level

 

[Tomas W]

If he goes and plays in the Estonian league for 4 consecutive years he can play for them at senior level

Probably would hurt his chances to pay his bills though...

 

[Theokritos]

I'm too lazy to go hunt down sources, but it's essentially common knowledge to those in the know (even superficially, Latvia has been an IIHF member since 1931, Russia 1952 - but it goes back further than that). Russia was a bandy country, and at one point they even had an entourage of diplomats travel to Riga to check out the "new sport" of hockey. Latvia, prior to the Soviet occupation, was a pretty bustling and productive place, and they caught on to/tried out new ideas and trends pretty liberally (hence them being the first European basketball champions before basketball was much of a thing in Europe).

Right. When the Russians started playing hockey in 1946 they literally had to send someone to Latvia and/or Estonia in order to get a copy of the official rules. There wasn't one available in Moscow. The Baltic countries were the only ones in the Soviet Union where hockey with the puck was played.

 

[Urbanskog]

If he goes and plays in the Estonian league for 4 consecutive years he can play for them at senior level

This is certainly a highly likely scenario.

I would really like to see some rule that allows dual national players who perhaps represented one country at youth levels to represent their birth country at the senior level barring perhaps a certain number of call ups because of cases like in the case of Siim Liivik who's Estonian Finnish. As a young kid with an inflated ego and unrealistic dreams of his future he chose to represent Finland for one WJC. Now he's a role player in Liiga, he will likely never represent Finland again and most certainly not in any meaningful tournaments but because of a poor decision he made as a teen he can never represent Estonia either, though he sometimes does PR work for them, and while he wouldn't matter whatsoever to Finland, playing for Estonia he could be the difference between say beating and losing to a Poland or another country around that level.

Eh, he moved to Finland at the age of 4 so it's not like he could have represented Estonia anyway.

 

[kabidjan18]

Eh, he moved to Finland at the age of 4 so it's not like he could have represented Estonia anyway.

True true just remembered the 10+ hockey participation rule. Still, if he was playing in FIFA, IOC, FIBA, WorldRugby and the IBF as well (not completely sure about the IBF, just based of impression) he'd be eligible. To be fair the IIHF have super light naturalization rules so if you can't redeem people of your own nationality you can forge new ones.

 

[Stephen]

I'm guessing it's a lack of infrastructure (hockey rinks). Isn't that why Norway is terrible?

 

[AstrophysicalJet]

I'm guessing it's a lack of infrastructure (hockey rinks). Isn't that why Norway is terrible?

Do you mean Estonia?

Norway is a decent team, far from terrible.

 

[jcbio11]

Do you mean Estonia?

Norways is a decent team, far from terrible.

Yup. Norway and Estonia really aren't in the same tier. Norway has been in the elite division since 2006. Estonia is stuck in I don't know which lower division and seems to be making no progress.

 

[Stephen]

Do you mean Estonia?

Norways is a decent team, far from terrible.

Norway punches under its weight relative to its neighbours in Finland and Sweden and a big part of the reason is they don't have comparable infrastructure. So the reasons for Estonia not doing very well in the hockey department probably has something to do with a lack of infrastructure as well, but they are obviously worse than Norway.

 

[GBLeaf]

For a population of 1.3m it's pretty hard to become much of a force in sport, without a real united focus in something.

It seems their major focus is weightlifting and wrestling, with some skiing too. So it's gonna be tough to have a competitive team in ice hockey for a population of 1.3m when it's not even in the top 3 sports.

 

[Franck]

Norway punches under its weight relative to its neighbours in Finland and Sweden and a big part of the reason is they don't have comparable infrastructure. So the reasons for Estonia not doing very well in the hockey department probably has something to do with a lack of infrastructure as well, but they are obviously worse than Norway.

Norway is behind in hockey infrastructure because hockey simply isn't popular enough there to justify the investment. It's only their fourth most popular sport, and it is way behind both cross-country skiing, which is to Norwegians what hockey is to Canadians, and football.

The more damning comparison for Norway is with Denmark. Hockey is less popular in Denmark than it is in Norway, yet the Danes have done a much better job at developing players for the past 15 years.

 

[Kibe]

So could this kid: http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=181420 represent Estonia? His played some international games for Finland but no WJC. I think he could be one of the better players in their NT already.

His brother: http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=43297 represents Estonia.

 

[Urbanskog]

So could this kid: http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=181420 represent Estonia? His played some international games for Finland but no WJC. I think he could be one of the better players in their NT already.

His brother: http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=43297 represents Estonia.

If he has played for at least two consecutive seasons in Estonia after his tenth birthday, then yes.

 

[kabidjan18]

If he has played for at least two consecutive seasons in Estonia after his tenth birthday, then yes.

Would the friendlies disqualify him though, or is it just sanctioned tournaments? I know it's not just WJC, Spengler cup for instance but I'm not sure friendlies count.