Maybe it has something to do with geography? Finland and Sweden both have hundreds of thousands of lakes. In old times ice hockey was played on natural ice of ponds and lakes. Norway has very few lakes compared to Finland and Sweden. Norwegians are mostly living on coasts of the sea, where ice is not suitable for skating or playing like it is on lakes and ponds.
Why isn't norway good at hockey?
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DeflatedFootball7
Registered User
IMO, considering how limited they are rink wise, Norway is actually doing pretty well all things considered. Guy got picked last year, MEP probably gonna go top 3 rounds this year, Zucarello is a star etc etc.
And then in Europe you have guys like Haugen who is a fantastic goalie on big ice.
To me, more questionable nations in this category are Estonia and Iceland although the former is starting to produce legit prospects. Ukraine too, but there's more to it in that case.
And then in Europe you have guys like Haugen who is a fantastic goalie on big ice.
To me, more questionable nations in this category are Estonia and Iceland although the former is starting to produce legit prospects. Ukraine too, but there's more to it in that case.
Hockey is stigmatized as a Russian sport in Estonia, Iceland is tiny and has mild winters.
DeflatedFootball7
Registered User
I have noticed the majority of Estonian prospects are half Russian or Finnish, but they're still improving pretty rapidly regardless.
And yeah Iceland being small obviously is a big factor I should have mentioned, but how low ranked they are still surprises me.
Bixby Snyder
IBTFAD
Iceland has same problem as Norway. Where would you play ice hockey outdoors there? The ocean has no ice suitable for playing hockey. And, Iceland has only 300.000 inhabitants. Estonia is also a small country, with only 1,3 million people. Their bigger southern neighbour Latvia is a bigger ice hockey country but that is due to big investments in Latvian hockey during the Soviet times - and also nowadays during Latvian investments.
Estonian prospects are definitely not Russian, nor Finnish. Estonian prospects often speak Russian as their mother language though (but never Finnish).
DeflatedFootball7
Registered User
EP lists several of them with dual citizenship (Molder for instance), but maybe they just have foreign passports.
Norwegians don't have enough time between telemark skiing and eating lutefisk. In Finland we eat lutefisk only once a year, so we find time for hockey too.
Although bar fights and drinking pure vodka instead of water steal some free time too from us. But that's just good training actually.
Although bar fights and drinking pure vodka instead of water steal some free time too from us. But that's just good training actually.
Machinehead
HFNYR MVP
Probably Mats Zuccarello.
Patrick Thoresen had a lot of success in the KHL, but was an average NHL player at best.
JarvisFunk
Registered User
Conspiracy Theorist
Registered User
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Bjornar Moxnes
Fordi fellesskap fungerer
Finland is not Scandinavian. Usually I don't get angry when people say these things, but in a domino effect you've said a lot of things that's angered me, so yeah now I have to scream at you.
Bjornar Moxnes
Fordi fellesskap fungerer
Well they also have a huge population. Still a huge portion of their hockey players are in Hokkaido, which definitely puzzles me especially considering Iceland doesn't give af about hockey.
Finland is Scandinavian, but unlike other Scandinavian countries it is not Nordic.
Conspiracy Theorist
Registered User
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Finland is a Nordic country but isn't a part of Scandinavia.
TheMoreYouKnow
Registered User
I've known a few people from Baltic countries who have Russian as their mother tongue..and for the most part they were pretty strong nationalists. Russian nationalists that is.
Eisen
Registered User
Iceland? How is that suspect? It's a tiny country with only one city, really, five if we're being generous. There are about 300000 people living there. I'm not even sure they could sustain an 8 team league.
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GKJ
Global Moderator
- Feb 27, 2002
- 195,577
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It's probably just funding and investment in resources, specifically coaching. In the mid 2000's, Sweden took a big dive because of the way they were coaching younger players.
China should be better than they are, especially since their government invests so heavily in sports, and supports the athletes. You'd think they could be a modern-day Soviet Union, and they're hosting the Olympics in 4 years. They have as many registered players as Slovenia.
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WTG
December 5th
Netherlands has great skaters, I always wondered why hockey wasn't as popular.
I started playing hockey in Netherlands before I immigrated to Canada. Never really understood why a country who is crazy about Olympic skating, has the tallest male population in the world, wouldn't be good at hockey.
I started playing hockey in Netherlands before I immigrated to Canada. Never really understood why a country who is crazy about Olympic skating, has the tallest male population in the world, wouldn't be good at hockey.
