I want the sport to grow bigger....So for me there's no reason to cheer for Canada. The sport is as big as it gets there
Slovakia only got around 8.000 registered players. If they win some big games there's a chance we got even more players from that country in the future
Same with Switzerland, Latvia, Germany, Norway and Denmark etc.
I wouldn´t really put all of those teams in the same category, especially not Germany and Switzerland.
Acc. to 2011 IIHF stats:
Germany: 8,224 senior and 18,128 junior (okay considering their population it isn´t that high, btu let´s forget about that)
Switzerland: 11,129 senior and 13,775 junior players
Especially with the seniors, Russia for example claims to have only 2,050 senior players, so the Germans and Swiss are pretty well off.
Slovakia: 2,072 senior and 5,896 junior players
Latvia: 2,930 senior and 1,417 junior players
Denmark: 1,764 senior and 2,245 junior players
Norway: 1,968 senior and 3,709 junior players
Btw list also needs Slovenia: 155 senior players
and 700 juniors