Why Switzerland and Finland have problems winning gold?

[elmaco]

They’ve been there 7 of the past 9 years.

Complacency breeds contempt.

 

[NyQuil]

Complacency breeds contempt.

Perfection is the enemy of good.

 

[Holkoun]

Looking at the medal table: List of IIHF World Championship medalists - Wikipedia

Since 1992:
Finland 13 times in final. Only 4 golds.
Switzerland 3 times in final: 0 golds. 4 silvers in total.

Look at Sweden 12 finals: 6 gold medals. We Swedes just know winning. Or Czechia 8 finals and 7 gold medals.

Why do Finland and Switzerland have a tendency to choke?
Finland almost choked in 2022 but the home refs gave them PP on OT. Thanks to Björninen swan dive.

These 2 are small countries w/ small aging population. But still that's a really bad record.

Switzerland had their dream squad in 2024 but in the end couldn't get the job done and f* the Prom Queen. To win their first ever gold medal.

And before that finland has had 0 gold for “100” years of international hockey

 

[Speyer]

Oh come on, same song over again... Which "fact" are you referring to? It's your opinion, not a fact.

It was just an expression. Yes its my oppinion but I have made my argument in other threads on this board in great detail refering to multiple specific games where Fischers tactics contributed to the eventual losses. I would like to hear what makes him sich a geat fit for the coaching position for a change. The only thing you hear in that regard is that the NHL players are supposed to be more commited because of him. I think this narrative is overblown. I gave my reasons for that take in other threads as well. (Less overlap between WC and NHL playoffs; no Olympic games for NHL players in Fischers tenure thad led to WC declines in the past etc.)

This is (perhaps) our best generation. That doesn't mean it's the best hockey team ever, as you seem to have a little confusion here.
It's basically our average roster with Fiala, Josi, Hischier. Thats a great bunch of players but it's not like we should easily beat SWE, CAN or US purely on roster strength?!?

I think some swiss fans have a warped perception of what the WC actually is. Its far from a best on best tournament. Since Covid and the war in Ukraine started the rosters have declined a lot in terms of quality. Russia is not part of the hockey community anymore. And the days where Canada has sent bonafide allstar teams to the tournament are over too. Now you find mostly aging veterans like Tavares and up and coming players like Bedard on their rosters. The US even fields a lot of NCAA players who are not even professional hockey players yet. Now this year rosters have been a bit stronger again because the federations are treating the WC as a prep tournament for the World Cup and the Olympics. But what I have described just now partly applies to this years tournament too, and completely applies to the last few iterations. Now Josi, Hischier and Fiala were before Pasternaks arrival the three most productive NHL players at the WC. This in regard to the last NHL season. Then you got Nino and Siegenthaler on top of that. That is not nothing. And the NL players were not as bad as you implied. Some of those guys like Genoni, Bertschy, Ambühl and Löffel had a great tournament. A lot of the other domestic players were at least solid. In my book this is a team that can absolutely win the WC. And I wouldt considersuch a scenario the huge upset that you imply it to be. Jukka Jalonen has won multiple gold and silver medals with weaker finnish teams in the last few years. One of those was a purely domestic team with zero NHL players. Germany was also in the finals last year with a weaker team with Seider and Peterka as the most prominent players. The Czechs won this year. Slovakia won it in the early 2000s when they had their golden generation. So yes i think this tournament is winable for us. And after getting silver twice already in the recent past this should be the ambition. And no I dont consider this individual tournament a failure. But I would consider it a failure if this Generation should never go all the way. Especially considering how many great rosters Fischer had at his disposal over the years. And that scenario looks pretty likely at this point.

 

[Lartsaman]

Why do Finland and Switzerland have a tendency to choke?

Thats one million dollar question. I wouldn´t say that Switzerland chokes, they just reach the finals so rarely that its kind of a "new" thing for them.

I try to make some compilation of Finlands final losses, whether they were chokes or not:

1992: We had no chance to begin with(who even wins their first final?)
1994: Bad luck
1998: We had no chance
1999: Choke
2001: Choke
2007: We had no chance
2014: We like to say that it was because of the referees, and it kinda was but to be honest, we had no chance.
2016: Combination of choke and having not chance at all. Canada had done their homework better.
2021: Mikael Ruohomaa´s penalty and Petri Kontiola´s overtime mistake so CHOKE.

2004: I dont know about that, Canada was cleearly stronger so there wasnt much of a chance.
2006 Olympic final: Choke of the century

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Thats one million dollar question. I wouldn´t say that Switzerland chokes, they just reach the finals so rarely that its kind of a "new" thing for them.

I try to make some compilation of Finlands final losses, whether they were chokes or not:

1992: We had no chance to begin with(who even wins their first final?)
1994: Bad luck
1998: We had no chance
1999: Choke
2001: Choke
2007: We had no chance
2014: We like to say that it was because of the referees, and it kinda was but to be honest, we had no chance.
2016: Combination of choke and having not chance at all. Canada had done their homework better.
2021: Mikael Ruohomaa´s penalty and Petri Kontiola´s overtime mistake so CHOKE.

2004: I dont know about that, Canada was cleearly stronger so there wasnt much of a chance.
2006 Olympic final: Choke of the century

Yeah, Finland probably should have won 1999 and 2001. 2021 was winnable with better discipline.
2006 was bitter but perhaps Finland learned not to put all effort in the preliminary round and run out of gas in the final.

 

[albator71]

I would argue that Finland as been more successful then any other European countries in the last 10 years. Finland has reached the Final 5 times and won twice. Sweden has reached the Finals only 2 times, Czechia only 1 time, Switzerland 2 times, Germany 1 time.

Now USA has not reached the Finals a single time for a country that size it's pretty embarrassing and Canada has reached the Finals 7 times!! and won gold 4 times

 

[albator71]

I have a better question. Why is Canada so bad even though we have a full NHL team every year?

That's funny no other country comes even close to Canada we won 4 golds, 3 silvers in the last 10 championships!! Name me one other country that comes even close to that??

 

[swissexpert]

Now Josi, Hischier and Fiala were before Pasternaks arrival the three most productive NHL players at the WC. This in regard to the last NHL season. Then you got Nino and Siegenthaler on top of that. That is not nothing. And the NL players were not as bad as you implied. Some of those guys like Genoni, Bertschy, Ambühl and Löffel had a great tournament. A lot of the other domestic players were at least solid. In my book this is a team that can absolutely win the WC. And I wouldt considersuch a scenario the huge upset that you imply it to be. Jukka Jalonen has won multiple gold and silver medals with weaker finnish teams in the last few years.

Thanks for clarifying, that statement seems a lot more reasonable to me, and we're not really far off with our standing points.

I agree that the WC is winnable for us, it's a given if you play 3 gold medal games within 11 years. Keep in mind that the last 2 were close games, so winnability is confirmed.
But that doesn't mean it's a failure if we don't win, and that's where we disagree. Winning gold would be a major success and not something that has to be expected, quality-based.
Yes, probably a special coach like Jalonen could get gold with this team, (I mean Fischer was 1 penalty shot away in 2018, so that makes it pretty close too).

Your statement above is not true, Josi is an all-star and was the most productive NHL player after Pastrnak.
Fiala and Hischier were outscored also by Hedman, Tkatchuk, Raymon, Hagel, Nelson, Boldy. Then you have guys like Granlund, Bedard, Gaudreau, Tavares, Bunting, Zacha and so on, who are in the same ballpark scoring wise.
Nino is nothing more than a role player in the NHL, Siegenthaler had a season to forget, he is in danger of losing his job if he continues like that, already was a healthy scratch during some time this year.
Big teams have two or three lines of what we call our superstar line, and that's the difference. Genoni was great, but in terms of quality, others had far superior goaltenders.

Fiala had a great tournament, not denying that. But during the season, even his teammate Kempe (who was also at the WHC) outscored him.
Ambühl showed good spirit and will always fight till the end, but is he really someone that would be part of any roster of the big 4 nations? No chance! Same for Loeffel, Jäger, Fora etc.

So what I'm trying to say is yes, those guys played great as a team, but individually seen, most of them overperformed heavily. And this is exactly the reason I see Fischer as someone who makes the team better than it's individual parts, which is a coaches best attribute.

 

[Czechboy]

Odd topic... If I am not Canada, Sweden, Finland, Russia or America and I get 3 silvers in a decade.. I am ecstatic.

 

[NyQuil]

And the days where Canada has sent bonafide allstar teams to the tournament are over too.

It was pretty rare, even before COVID and the Ukraine war.

It's always been a few stars and then a bunch of grinders.

 

[Cinderblox]

Odd topic... If I am not Canada, Sweden, Finland, Russia or America and I get 3 silvers in a decade.. I am ecstatic.

Considering USA has never made the finals they should be too...

 

[Speyer]

Thanks for clarifying, that statement seems a lot more reasonable to me, and we're not really far off with our standing points.

I agree that the WC is winnable for us, it's a given if you play 3 gold medal games within 11 years. Keep in mind that the last 2 were close games, so winnability is confirmed.
But that doesn't mean it's a failure if we don't win, and that's where we disagree. Winning gold would be a major success and not something that has to be expected, quality-based.
Yes, probably a special coach like Jalonen could get gold with this team, (I mean Fischer was 1 penalty shot away in 2018, so that makes it pretty close too).

Your statement above is not true, Josi is an all-star and was the most productive NHL player after Pastrnak.
Fiala and Hischier were outscored also by Hedman, Tkatchuk, Raymon, Hagel, Nelson, Boldy. Then you have guys like Granlund, Bedard, Gaudreau, Tavares, Bunting, Zacha and so on, who are in the same ballpark scoring wise.

I have written that wrong. I meant the last two years. And I was thinking about PPG since pretty much all of the relevant players have missed games in that time span. Should have proof read my post better.

Nino is nothing more than a role player in the NHL, Siegenthaler had a season to forget, he is in danger of losing his job if he continues like that, already was a healthy scratch during some time this year.

Any NHL player is an above average player in this tournament. Canada and the US were fielding multiple such players and even weaker ones as well. Nino performed about as well as Kempe in this tournament who you singled out as one of the most potent offensive forwards at the WC.

Ambühl showed good spirit and will always fight till the end, but is he really someone that would be part of any roster of the big 4 nations? No chance! Same for Loeffel, Jäger, Fora etc.

Ambühl is a special case. And our forward depth was definitely weaker this year than usual, as Haas was hurt for most of the tournament and Corvi, Malgin, Meier, Suter, Hoffman were all missing. As I said, I was not just reffering to this year but to Fischers entire tenure. And in that time span there have been multiple finalists/winners of the tournament that relied mostly or even entierly on Euro players, often even NLA guys. This years tournament has had a spike in roster quality due to the World Cup of Hockey and the Olympics being on the horizon. But thats not indicative of Fischers whole time as coach. Especially in regard to the last three years. I am not arguing that Switzerland had the best roster every year in that window. But in my book the player material was good enough to win the tournament at least once.

And this is exactly the reason I see Fischer as someone who makes the team better than it's individual parts, which is a coaches best attribute.

Yes some players have overperformed but defenitely not all of them. Kurashev has been horrible. Thürkauf has been disappointing (outside very few isolated games) when compared to the season he had in the NLA. And a few others like Jäger, Simion and Herzog have been pedestrian. And thats not a player quality issue. The latter two have both shown that they can be solid offensive contriubuters at the WC. Its also not like Fischer is known as a genius when it comes to team/line composition. While some lines usually worked well on almost all of his teams others have often not. He has repeatedly struggled to find the right line mates for Hischier and Meier when Fiala was not on the roster for example. And as far you can really attribute the overperformance of specific players to the coach, I am not sure either. I dont thinks that correlates nearly as much to the coaching staff as tactics/strategy do. There are just a huge number of factors playing into this. In Fialas case maybe even the birth of his kid.

All in all I am not arguing that the WC is a mickey mouse tournament. But there is an extremely big difference to best on best Olympics when it comes to the average roster quality. I just think with the players we had at our disposal since 2018 the ambition should have been to win it at least once. And I dont think that was an unrealistic goal. If the guys cant get it done in the next few years we might have to wait a looong time to get a realistic shot again. Because we already had one of the oldest teams in the tournament and the 2000-2005 birth years have been frankly horrible compared to the standards of the players born in the ninties.

 

[swissexpert]

Any NHL player is an above average player in this tournament. Canada and the US were fielding multiple such players and even weaker ones as well. Nino performed about as well as Kempe in this tournament who you singled out as one of the most potent offensive forwards at the WC.

That's exactly what I meant, thanks for proving my point.

Nino is role player in the NHL, coulnd't even hit the 40 point mark last year, while Kempe is a 40goal scorer, 1st line player, all-star and a lot younger too.
So on paper, he should clearly be a more dominant force than Nino in this WC, but he wasn't.
Is this purely Fischer's achievement? Of course not, but you have to make something right to bring the best out of these guys. Same with Fiala, he's called our superstar and performed like one but without fan glasses, he's just a very good NHL player. Not in the same sphere as Pastrnak, Draisaitl or other NHL superstars.

And in that time span there have been multiple finalists/winners of the tournament that relied mostly or even entierly on Euro players, often even NLA guys.

why are we talking about finalists suddenly? That's what he already achieved twice, so mission accomplished I guess?

You called it a failure that he didn't win gold, let's not move the goal posts just to fit your narrative.

So let's see how many "NLA/Euro" teams won gold during his tenure:

2016:
Canada (full NHL roster including Marchand, McDavid, Stone, Perry, Hall, Scheifele etc...)
won against
Finland (half NHL roster including Barkov, Aho, Granlund, Laine, Rantanen, Saros, Koivu...)

2017:
Sweden (mostly NHL guys like Landeskog, Backstrom, Lundqvist, Hedman, Nylander etc... )
won against
Canada (full NHL roster including Giroud, MacKinnon, Scheifele, Point Marner etc...)

2018:
Sweden (full NHL roster inluding Forsberg, Balckund, Arvidsson, Nyquist, Petterson Zibanejad etc..)
won against
Fischer and his SUI flop boys

2019
Finland (mostly Euro roster but with 7 NHL players incl. Lankinen, Kakko, Jokihariu etc.)
won against
Canada (full NHL roster inl. Dubois, Couturier, Stone, Strome, Reinhart, Chabot etc...)

2021
Canada (full NHL roster but weaker than usual, incl. Henrique, Hagel, Comtois, Mangiapane, Power, Stecher, Vilardi, Hill, Kuemper etc...)
won against
Finland (mostly Euro roster, only few NHL players incl. Lundell, Ruotsalainen, Puustinen, Säteri, Määtä etc.)

2022
Finland (mostly Euro roster with NHL boost, incl. Granlund, Armia, Heiskanen, Lindell, Lehtonen, Säteri etc.)
won against
Canada (full NHL roster incl. Dubois, Barzal, Cozens, Batherson, Comtois, Severson, Chabot etc...)

2023
Canada (full NHL roster but weaker than usual, incl. Crouse, Krebs, Glass, Toffoli, McBain, Weegar, Blais, Quinn etc...)
won against
Germany (mostly Euro roster, NHL boost by Seider, Peterka, Sturm)

2024
Czech Rep. (half NHL roster incl. Kubalik, Kämpf, Pastrnak, Necas, Palat, Zacha, Gudas, Rutta, Dostal etc...)
won against
those shitty coached SUI superstars again


And now please tell me, how many of those teams should we beat on paper? Were we really supposed to win gold purely on roster strength?
Finland did it with a roster that could be described as a weaker one than ours or about the same level, and they did it twice, congrats to Jalonen!
He's seen as a hockey god because of this and rightfully so.
No one would've seen it as a failure if he didn't win gold with those teams.

Look at all the appereances (0 in 8 years) by team USA, crazy isn't it?
And they brought some fantastic teams, far, far superior to anything Fischer ever got to work with. In 2019 they didn't even make the semis with Eichel, Gaudreau, J. Hughes, Q. Hughes, Kreider, Larkin, DeBrincat Suter, Fox, Hanifin, Demko.
Now that's what I call a failure!

CZE was only in the finals once, SWE twice, RUS also 0 finals (before excluded in 2022).
Those teams had way better rosters to work with, there is no denying that.

So after reviewing all these team that did and did not make the finals, I have even greater respect for the achievements by our Swiss boys.
Not once we could ice a top 4 roster in terms of individual quality, and still managed two silver medals. You could further proove this with the average betting odds, there wasn't a year where the public saw us as a top 4 gold candidate.

TL;DR
Thread title is a joke. If anything, Finland and Switzerland are the 2 nations that overperformed the most during the last 9 years, especially Suomi.
Canada was more successful but iced some international All-Star rosters.

 

[jj cale]

Somehow, someway some fans will find a way to get Canada into every international subject on here even if they had absolutely nothing to do with the thread originally.

For some reason, they just have to be there, another chance to take a shot at them in any way, even when the posters with an eternal grudge don't have a clue what they are talking about.

Isn't it time to get a life fellows? they aren't the illuminati or anything.

Relax.

 

[swissdude]

Somehow, someway some fans will find a way to get Canada into every international subject on here even if they had absolutely nothing to do with the thread originally.

For some reason, they just have to be there, another chance to take a shot at them in any way, even when the posters with an eternal grudge don't have a clue what they are talking about.

Isn't it time to get a life fellows? they aren't the illuminati or anything.

Relax.

well you're right about mentioning canada in this thread is strange. and I agree on the illuminati thing related to the players but if it comes to the NHL and its owners not so much

 

[Czechboy]

And they brought some fantastic teams, far, far superior to anything Fischer ever got to work with. In 2019 they didn't even make the semis with Eichel, Gaudreau, J. Hughes, Q. Hughes, Kreider, Larkin, DeBrincat Suter, Fox, Hanifin, Demko.
Now that's what I call a failure!

Just reading and intervening... this is what bugs me. The narrative is the US hasn't won it since the 1930's becuase they dont' care and send shit rosters. They've sent some incredibly strong rosters. This year was a beautiful squad. This one from you as well.

And Czech Squad and Swiss squad today line up pretty evenly. You big advantage is you have a Josi and we don't. I'd expect a best on best matchup to go to OT in 2024. I probably wouldn't sleep the night before.lol

 

[Speyer]

That's exactly what I meant, thanks for proving my point.

Nino is role player in the NHL, coulnd't even hit the 40 point mark last year, while Kempe is a 40goal scorer, 1st line player, all-star and a lot younger too.
So on paper, he should clearly be a more dominant force than Nino in this WC, but he wasn't.
Is this purely Fischer's achievement? Of course not, but you have to make something right to bring the best out of these guys.

I don't think I did. For one you are ignoring a very important aspect of this issue: players can also underperform not just overperform. So if Nino plays better at the WC than Kempe its not him overperforming but rather Kempe underperforming. And its not like the Swiss rosters of the past few years are full of overperformers all the time either. This year a lot of the depth players were disappointing. Most of them have already proven that they can be better at this tournament. And guys like Meier and Hischier had disappointing tournaments in the past too. But what is it that Fischer does to get "the best" out of his players? All I am hearing are vague arguments about intangibles. Does he inspire the players with speeches like Al Pachino in "Any given Sunday"? There are just so many factors that are much more important for a WC performance than anything the coach can influence. Is the player healty? Is he tired after a long season? Did he play well during the season and can he carry it over to the tournament or not? Does jetlag/travel impact him? How does his private life impact him? Is he actually diled in or thinking about his next career move? There are just so many things factoring into a players performance at a short tournament as the WC for anybody to give most of the credit to the coach if it pans out for once. On the other hand the coach shouldnt take most of the blame if it doesnt either.

Same with Fiala, he's called our superstar and performed like one but without fan glasses, he's just a very good NHL player. Not in the same sphere as Pastrnak, Draisaitl or other NHL superstars.

That may be true but which actual superstars are even coming to the WC regularly in the recent past? Canada never brings any of them anymore. Bedard was a bit of an exception as he is sort of a budding superstar who isnt quite there yet in terms of his play. But like it was in Crosbys case, I don't see him attending this tournament very many times in his career. Russia usually brought some of their best players but they are out of the tournament indefinitely. The US hasnt brought any superstar since Kane. Then you have Draisaitl who played a couple of times in the tournament but for a weaker teams. Finland had Rantanen reporting once in the last five years but thats it. Sweden had Nylander Dahlin and Petterson report a couple of times in the same timeframe, but its very debatable if they actually were NHL superstars at the time when they reported. Hedman only played one tournament in that stretch. And Pastrnak suited up for one and a half tournaments in the same timeframe. So its just a fact that very few of the NHLs very best players are part of the WC at this point. So Josi but also Hischier, Meier and Fiala were usually among the best players in the tournament when they reportet. At least on paper.

And now please tell me, how many of those teams should we beat on paper? Were we really supposed to win gold purely on roster strength?

Hockey games are not won on paper. You cant make a case for any team that it needs to win in any year based on roster strength. What you can do is argue that a tournament is winnable with a certain roster. You are factoring out a lot of context in your list down below as well. For instance certain advantages european countries have. Like playing on the bigger ice surface and having better roster cohesion over the years. Or the fact that not all the countries care about winning the WC the same amount. Canada cares much less about the tournament than the euro teams for instance. Sweden was definitely saturated for a while in the early 2020's from their earlier wins. And the US dont care about winning the tournament whatsoever. For those guys its mainly a chance to get a vacation while playing some hockey. This also explains this take from you:

Look at all the appereances (0 in 8 years) by team USA, crazy isn't it?
And they brought some fantastic teams, far, far superior to anything Fischer ever got to work with. In 2019 they didn't even make the semis with Eichel, Gaudreau, J. Hughes, Q. Hughes, Kreider, Larkin, DeBrincat Suter, Fox, Hanifin, Demko.
Now that's what I call a failure!

You called it a failure that he didn't win gold, let's not move the goal posts just to fit your narrative.

So let's see how many "NLA/Euro" teams won gold during his tenure:

2016:
Canada (full NHL roster including Marchand, McDavid, Stone, Perry, Hall, Scheifele etc...)
won against
Finland (half NHL roster including Barkov, Aho, Granlund, Laine, Rantanen, Saros, Koivu...)

This tournament was in fact unwinnable for Switzerland. Sure would have been nice to reach the quarters instead of Denmark, but thats beside the point.

2017:
Sweden (mostly NHL guys like Landeskog, Backstrom, Lundqvist, Hedman, Nylander etc... )
won against
Canada (full NHL roster including Giroud, MacKinnon, Scheifele, Point Marner etc...)

This tournament was unwinnable too.

2018:
Sweden (full NHL roster inluding Forsberg, Balckund, Arvidsson, Nyquist, Petterson Zibanejad etc..)
won against
Fischer and his SUI flop boys

This tournament was winnable. If Fiala hadn't faned on his famous chance we would have won it. That doesn't mean that losing was a shame but victory was definitely in our grasp here.

2019
Finland (mostly Euro roster but with 7 NHL players incl. Lankinen, Kakko, Jokihariu etc.)
won against
Canada (full NHL roster inl. Dubois, Couturier, Stone, Strome, Reinhart, Chabot etc...)

This tournament was winnable too. We were up a goal vs Canada in the quarters and dominating them until the coaching staff gave out the directive to hold onto the lead and park the bus infront of our goal. Of course Canada scored the equalizer seconds before time was up. And therefore they won in OT after we lost practically all our momentum. Our roster was also stronger on paper than Finlands. We had Josi, Hischier, Fiala, Nino and also Andrighetto as our NHL players. And Hofmann coming of the best year of his career scoring 30 goals in the NLA. Could have had Malgin too, if Fischer hadn't decided to ban him that year due to him missing the stupid prospects camp. The Finns did also not have 7 but only two (fulltime) NHL players. Kakko was still an Euro as it was his draft year. Lankinen played zero games for Chicago that year. And Johkihariu was and is a third pairing guy in the NHL, nothing more. Now that doesnt mean an automatic win for us in a possible matchup. But we certainly would not have been the underdog in that case.

2021
Canada (full NHL roster but weaker than usual, incl. Henrique, Hagel, Comtois, Mangiapane, Power, Stecher, Vilardi, Hill, Kuemper etc...)
won against
Finland (mostly Euro roster, only few NHL players incl. Lundell, Ruotsalainen, Puustinen, Säteri, Määtä etc.)

Another winnable tournament in my book. We only had Meier, Hischier, Kurashev and Siegenthaler as NHL reinforcements. But they had good support from the NLA group. Scherwey, Berschy, Hofmann and JJ.Moser all had very good tournaments. Andrighetto was on the team too but underperformed unfortunately just like Meier and Hischier. That just goes to show you that Fischer doesnt get always the best out of his players. Canada probably had their weakest roster ever that year. At lot of third pairing guys and third and fourth liners in the NHL. Guys like Hagel, Power and Mangiapane weren't as good back then as they are now. They sort of rose to the occasion and won the tournament despite it. They were probably better on paper than our team, especially regarding depth but certainly not unbeatable. Germany and Latvia beat them in their group stage games.

You are also exagerating Finlands NHL reinforcements once again. Lundell and Puustinen still played in Finland back then. Säteri in the KHL. Which leaves Ruotsalainen and Mätää. The former played like 17 games in the big League. And Maata, while never known as offensive dman was coming of his worst offensive season in the NHL with only four points. So I dont think its far fetched to say that the Fins were primarely an Euro-Team that year.

Now if we had beaten Germany, a mostly DEL based team with Rieder and Kahun as their most notable players we could have played Finland in the semis and Canada in the finals. So this year would have been a golden oportunity to get the gold. It wouldt have been easy but Switzerland winning this tournament wouldn't have been an upset in the least.

2022
Finland (mostly Euro roster with NHL boost, incl. Granlund, Armia, Heiskanen, Lindell, Lehtonen, Säteri etc.)
won against
Canada (full NHL roster incl. Dubois, Barzal, Cozens, Batherson, Comtois, Severson, Chabot etc...)

Also a winnable tournament in my book. We had Meier, Hischier, Siegenthaler, Moser and Suter as NHL reinforcements. Also Malgin had his best WC performance that year at any WC and was one of the tournaments top scorers. We actually beat Canada 6-3 in the group stage. Its also up for debate if Finland really had a better roster than we had in 2022. Lethonen has like 10 NHL games under his belt, none of them he played in 21-22. Säteri played like 6 games for Montreal that season and didnt exactly excell in any of them. Its a bit of a stretch to call him an NHL player. The most notable players were basically Heikanen, Granlund and to a lesser degree Lindell. Certainly a good team. Maybe even better on paper than us that year. But there is no way that they were in a completely different tier like you are insinuating.

2023
Canada (full NHL roster but weaker than usual, incl. Crouse, Krebs, Glass, Toffoli, McBain, Weegar, Blais, Quinn etc...)
won against
Germany (mostly Euro roster, NHL boost by Seider, Peterka, Sturm)

Another winnable tournament in my book. We had Fiala, Niederreiter, Hischier, Siegenthaler and Moser as NHL reinforcements. Some of them arrived late but they were all there come quarter finals. Everyone had us pegged as favourites against the Germans in that game. Of course we lost. Fischer cetainly didnt improve our chances by not playing Niederreiter, Hischier, Malgin and Kukan in the game before the quarters against Latvia. This completely destroyed the rythm of the team in the quarters. Maybe its was justified in Hischiers case who suffered from jetlag but not for the other guys.

Canada on the other hands didn't have a player as good as Hischier or Fiala on the roster that year but better depth. Still they were far from being unbeatable in that tournament. In fact we did beat them again in the group stage.

2024
Czech Rep. (half NHL roster incl. Kubalik, Kämpf, Pastrnak, Necas, Palat, Zacha, Gudas, Rutta, Dostal etc...)
won against
those shitty coached SUI superstars again

Again a winnable tournament for us. The game was close enough for an extended period of time to argue that we could have won that game under certain circumstances (unlike the finals in 2013 for example). I would say though the Czechs had the better roster after all their late reinforcements had arrived.

So all in all we had six tournaments that were winnable in Fischers tenure and two that were a lost cause from the get go. What we got out of it are two second places. Is that enough? Thats hard to say. The thing is we have the best generation of hockey players Switzerland has ever seen right now. We might not get the chance to seriously contend for WC gold over multiple years for decades, maybe for our lifetimes once this generation is done.

So with that outlook, its just not enough. We had a set of very rare chances to contend and we still gave away to many of them to easily. Now I dont blame Fischer exclusively for this as you accuse me to. In fact I think the players are just as much if not more "responsible" than him. A few of them have been complete disappearing acts in the most important games. But Fischer has contributed to give away some of those chances with his bad tactics. And he has contributed to losses in knockout games at the Olympics too. I think if we had had a more competent coach at the bench during the last few years, the chances to get gold would have been higher. Winning the WC would not have been a guarantee, far from that. But I don't believe we would have gifted away so many quarterfinals in that case.

On top of that Fischer is alienating players that are not to his liking. Banning Bichsel from the NT so long was undeserving. Who knows if he ever suits up for the NT again if he is not allowed to go to the next Olympics and the home WC. And its not like decent prospects are growing on trees right now.

 

[swissexpert]

It is laughable to call a tournament winnable, just because we already reached the finals....
Of course its winnable. Every tournament is winnable if you are a top 8 team, as it is for a few other teams too. Thats not the same as saying it is a failure not to win it.

You are arguing against yourself even more here.... on one hand you brag how good these guys performed altough other had better rosters but in the same time, you critisize Fischer for not winning more.
On paper, we were not a top 4 team in one of these years and still reached the finals twice.
Best swiss generation ever? Who cares! That means nothing if you refuse to compare it to the world.
The best Italian generation ever will not reach the semis and you won't be hearing them cry about it.

Yeah, let's agree to disagree. I'm not gonna change your hatred anyway. Good thing we have people in charge with a better self-assessment.

 

[Czechboy]

I don't think I did. For one you are ignoring a very important aspect of this issue: players can also underperform not just overperform. So if Nino plays better at the WC than Kempe its not him overperforming but rather Kempe underperforming. And its not like the Swiss rosters of the past few years are full of overperformers all the time either. This year a lot of the depth players were disappointing. Most of them have already proven that they can be better at this tournament. And guys like Meier and Hischier had disappointing tournaments in the past too. But what is it that Fischer does to get "the best" out of his players? All I am hearing are vague arguments about intangibles. Does he inspire the players with speeches like Al Pachino in "Any given Sunday"? There are just so many factors that are much more important for a WC performance than anything the coach can influence. Is the player healty? Is he tired after a long season? Did he play well during the season and can he carry it over to the tournament or not? Does jetlag/travel impact him? How does his private life impact him? Is he actually diled in or thinking about his next career move? There are just so many things factoring into a players performance at a short tournament as the WC for anybody to give most of the credit to the coach if it pans out for once. On the other hand the coach shouldnt take most of the blame if it doesnt either.




That may be true but which actual superstars are even coming to the WC regularly in the recent past? Canada never brings any of them anymore. Bedard was a bit of an exception as he is sort of a budding superstar who isnt quite there yet in terms of his play. But like it was in Crosbys case, I don't see him attending this tournament very many times in his career. Russia usually brought some of their best players but they are out of the tournament indefinitely. The US hasnt brought any superstar since Kane. Then you have Draisaitl who played a couple of times in the tournament but for a weaker teams. Finland had Rantanen reporting once in the last five years but thats it. Sweden had Nylander Dahlin and Petterson report a couple of times in the same timeframe, but its very debatable if they actually were NHL superstars at the time when they reported. Hedman only played one tournament in that stretch. And Pastrnak suited up for one and a half tournaments in the same timeframe. So its just a fact that very few of the NHLs very best players are part of the WC at this point. So Josi but also Hischier, Meier and Fiala were usually among the best players in the tournament when they reportet. At least on paper.




Hockey games are not won on paper. You cant make a case for any team that it needs to win in any year based on roster strength. What you can do is argue that a tournament is winnable with a certain roster. You are factoring out a lot of context in your list down below as well. For instance certain advantages european countries have. Like playing on the bigger ice surface and having better roster cohesion over the years. Or the fact that not all the countries care about winning the WC the same amount. Canada cares much less about the tournament than the euro teams for instance. Sweden was definitely saturated for a while in the early 2020's from their earlier wins. And the US dont care about winning the tournament whatsoever. For those guys its mainly a chance to get a vacation while playing some hockey. This also explains this take from you:






This tournament was in fact unwinnable for Switzerland. Sure would have been nice to reach the quarters instead of Denmark, but thats beside the point.


This tournament was unwinnable too.


This tournament was winnable. If Fiala hadn't faned on his famous chance we would have won it. That doesn't mean that losing was a shame but victory was definitely in our grasp here.



This tournament was winnable too. We were up a goal vs Canada in the quarters and dominating them until the coaching staff gave out the directive to hold onto the lead and park the bus infront of our goal. Of course Canada scored the equalizer seconds before time was up. And therefore they won in OT after we lost practically all our momentum. Our roster was also stronger on paper than Finlands. We had Josi, Hischier, Fiala, Nino and also Andrighetto as our NHL players. And Hofmann coming of the best year of his career scoring 30 goals in the NLA. Could have had Malgin too, if Fischer hadn't decided to ban him that year due to him missing the stupid prospects camp. The Finns did also not have 7 but only two (fulltime) NHL players. Kakko was still an Euro as it was his draft year. Lankinen played zero games for Chicago that year. And Johkihariu was and is a third pairing guy in the NHL, nothing more. Now that doesnt mean an automatic win for us in a possible matchup. But we certainly would not have been the underdog in that case.



Another winnable tournament in my book. We only had Meier, Hischier, Kurashev and Siegenthaler as NHL reinforcements. But they had good support from the NLA group. Scherwey, Berschy, Hofmann and JJ.Moser all had very good tournaments. Andrighetto was on the team too but underperformed unfortunately just like Meier and Hischier. That just goes to show you that Fischer doesnt get always the best out of his players. Canada probably had their weakest roster ever that year. At lot of third pairing guys and third and fourth liners in the NHL. Guys like Hagel, Power and Mangiapane weren't as good back then as they are now. They sort of rose to the occasion and won the tournament despite it. They were probably better on paper than our team, especially regarding depth but certainly not unbeatable. Germany and Latvia beat them in their group stage games.

You are also exagerating Finlands NHL reinforcements once again. Lundell and Puustinen still played in Finland back then. Säteri in the KHL. Which leaves Ruotsalainen and Mätää. The former played like 17 games in the big League. And Maata, while never known as offensive dman was coming of his worst offensive season in the NHL with only four points. So I dont think its far fetched to say that the Fins were primarely an Euro-Team that year.

Now if we had beaten Germany, a mostly DEL based team with Rieder and Kahun as their most notable players we could have played Finland in the semis and Canada in the finals. So this year would have been a golden oportunity to get the gold. It wouldt have been easy but Switzerland winning this tournament wouldn't have been an upset in the least.




Also a winnable tournament in my book. We had Meier, Hischier, Siegenthaler, Moser and Suter as NHL reinforcements. Also Malgin had his best WC performance that year at any WC and was one of the tournaments top scorers. We actually beat Canada 6-3 in the group stage. Its also up for debate if Finland really had a better roster than we had in 2022. Lethonen has like 10 NHL games under his belt, none of them he played in 21-22. Säteri played like 6 games for Montreal that season and didnt exactly excell in any of them. Its a bit of a stretch to call him an NHL player. The most notable players were basically Heikanen, Granlund and to a lesser degree Lindell. Certainly a good team. Maybe even better on paper than us that year. But there is no way that they were in a completely different tier like you are insinuating.



Another winnable tournament in my book. We had Fiala, Niederreiter, Hischier, Siegenthaler and Moser as NHL reinforcements. Some of them arrived late but they were all there come quarter finals. Everyone had us pegged as favourites against the Germans in that game. Of course we lost. Fischer cetainly didnt improve our chances by not playing Niederreiter, Hischier, Malgin and Kukan in the game before the quarters against Latvia. This completely destroyed the rythm of the team in the quarters. Maybe its was justified in Hischiers case who suffered from jetlag but not for the other guys.

Canada on the other hands didn't have a player as good as Hischier or Fiala on the roster that year but better depth. Still they were far from being unbeatable in that tournament. In fact we did beat them again in the group stage.




Again a winnable tournament for us. The game was close enough for an extended period of time to argue that we could have won that game under certain circumstances (unlike the finals in 2013 for example). I would say though the Czechs had the better roster after all their late reinforcements had arrived.

So all in all we had six tournaments that were winnable in Fischers tenure and two that were a lost cause from the get go. What we got out of it are two second places. Is that enough? Thats hard to say. The thing is we have the best generation of hockey players Switzerland has ever seen right now. We might not get the chance to seriously contend for WC gold over multiple years for decades, maybe for our lifetimes once this generation is done.

So with that outlook, its just not enough. We had a set of very rare chances to contend and we still gave away to many of them to easily. Now I dont blame Fischer exclusively for this as you accuse me to. In fact I think the players are just as much if not more "responsible" than him. A few of them have been complete disappearing acts in the most important games. But Fischer has contributed to give away some of those chances with his bad tactics. And he has contributed to losses in knockout games at the Olympics too. I think if we had had a more competent coach at the bench during the last few years, the chances to get gold would have been higher. Winning the WC would not have been a guarantee, far from that. But I don't believe we would have gifted away so many quarterfinals in that case.

On top of that Fischer is alienating players that are not to his liking. Banning Bichsel from the NT so long was undeserving. Who knows if he ever suits up for the NT again if he is not allowed to go to the next Olympics and the home WC. And its not like decent prospects are growing on trees right now.

This may be the longest reply I've ever seen on HF

 

[Speyer]

This may be the longest reply I've ever seen on HF

I guess you are not much on the main board then. Because if thats the longest post you have ever seen on here you have seen nothing yet

 

[Speyer]

It is laughable to call a tournament winnable, just because we already reached the finals....
Of course its winnable. Every tournament is winnable if you are a top 8 team, as it is for a few other teams too. Thats not the same as saying it is a failure not to win it.

You are arguing against yourself even more here.... on one hand you brag how good these guys performed altough other had better rosters but in the same time, you critisize Fischer for not winning more.
On paper, we were not a top 4 team in one of these years and still reached the finals twice.
Best swiss generation ever? Who cares! That means nothing if you refuse to compare it to the world.
The best Italian generation ever will not reach the semis and you won't be hearing them cry about it.

Yeah, let's agree to disagree. I'm not gonna change your hatred anyway. Good thing we have people in charge with a better self-assessment.

I dont really need to get tipps on how to argue cohesively from someone who holds on to "facts" that are plain wrong (your comments about the rosters above). But its not like you actually want to engage in a dialogue about the points I made. But that's ok we dont have to continue this any further. Its not like I hate anybody affiliated with hockey though. I couldnt care less about Fischer as a person. I just think other people would be suited better for the position from a fans perspective. Thats about it.

 

[ORRFForever]

It's hard to win Gold - as well it should be.

TBH, the is only one country that wins Gold on a regular basis so, everyon minus Canada, could say they have trouble winning Gold.

 

[WayTooCold]

Switzerland medalled the first time in 1928. 96 years ago they won their first medal = bronze.

So gold medal is to be expected by such old power.
They are not some sympathetic little guy like Latvia pucking around in bronze medal game once in 2 decades.
Switzerland has played in gold medal games many times.
I didn't get the vibe they were going hard for the gold medal in 2024. They were happy w/ silver.

Germany had Russia in ropes in 2018 Olympics. They had 3-2 lead in the 3rd w/ powerplay. They choked and let Russia tie shorthanded and win in overtime.

 

[Jon Riley]

Weird discussion, I kind of agree with both?
I mean, with Fischer Switzerland has been consistently icing a roster capable of going deep in the tournament, reach the final and even win, no doubt about it.
At the same time Switzerland has never been and presumably will never be "the big favourite" that needs to win for the tournament not to be a failure.
Not reaching the quarters is a failure, and that happened under Fischer. Going out at the first elimination round is a disappointment, if not an all out failure. That also happened under Fischer.
Getting two silvers on the other side is still quite a feat. 2 finals in 8 years is something that I for sure believe that can (and maybe should) happen but it is still not given.
Could someone else than Fischer have taken the gold? Probably.
Bringing home worse results than Fischer i think it would have been much more probabile, though.

That said there is plenty of reasonable criticism that can be moved to Fischer, the management (or scapegoating) of talented players that he personally doesn't like.
The often very conservative roster choices, or the problems he has in finding a good line chemistry with talented players etc., for example. But saying that Switzerland got 2 silver despite Fischer, or saying that his job had no particular effect and the same results of better could have been easily obtained by other is still a very harsh and unfair judgment I believe.

I have never been a Fischer hater but I still think his time is coming to an end, maybe give him another shot with this group, but when all the veterans are up for retirement I would let someone else guide the transition to the new generation