Winter Olympics!

Remove all ads!

Finland and Sweden could both have an "all-NHL" national team, but some of those players would be backups, 4th liners etc. In this season 29 Finnish field players have made an appearance in NHL, but maybe 20 of them play regularly (interestingly, Finland has 7 goalies in NHL). There was some controversy with Finland's olympic player selections, when one the better NHL forwards, Jussi Jokinen, was left out and replaced with players from KHL (Russia's Kontinental Hockey League).

KHL is easily the best league outside North America. Some KHL teams can compete with NHL teams in salaries, and the skill level is very high; Russia actually chose 9 players from KHL to their team. Sweden, Finland and also Switzerland have pretty good national leagues and most European countries have a professional hockey league of some level.

 

Thanks Kullervo for your very thorough answer to my question.

I hope I didn't imply that the Fins weren't good enough to make the NHL. I just was saying that with 29 players (I didn't know it was that number), unless you had the right break down of players by position (and with 7 goalies that is unlikely!) you likely would not be able to field the team entirely from NHL ranks. Do most European players play in their country of origin, or do they play in the best leagues they are capable of playing in for more competition/fame/money?

 

Those 29 are field players, not goalies. About 2 out of 3 are forwards and rest defencemen, so they would make a full roster nicely. The main problem at the moment is that we have very few world-class players and a lot of good players. On the other hand, this usually means solid teamwork.

It's safe to say that most Finnish top players play in their own national league first, and then head to NHL. Those who don't make it and those with shortish NHL career, usually move to Swedish or Swiss leagues (or KHL nowadays). The main attraction is probably money - better salaries with less taxes. Especially Swiss league is very popular among experienced players; steady incomes with decent competition level. Not much travelling to away games . Some play in the Finnish league in the latter part of their career, since almost all tend to move back to Finland eventually.

 

With the salary cap of NHL the KHL salaries are becoming increasingly popular. Heck, I think Jaromir Jagr earns a LOT more in KHL than he would in NHL. Of course to some the threshold of playing in Russia is too high, but to some it's easier than to play in NHL because the game is more similar to what they are used to back home.

 

In 2008 Jagr signed a two-year contract with Omsk (KHL) worth 20-25 million dollars. Nobody in NHL earns that much per season thanks to the salary cap, but NHL teams go around the cap by making ridiculously long contracts.

 

I'd have to say Rochette's bronze is probably the biggest (positive) event of the games. I didn't watch her (I don't watch figure skating) but going from basically an 'also competing' to bronze is a big enough wow factor -- add to that the sudden death of her mother two day before competing....

 

Actually, she was more than an "also competing". She wasn't guaranteed a medal, but she had a pretty good chance going in. But yeah, doing what she did just days after her mother's death - wow.

 

The Winter Olympics are even worse than the Summer Olympics.

It's just letting white people win at sports that no one else can afford to learn.

 

Yeah, because England mostly sucks at all winter sports?

Could not survive the game tonight without a whole lot of alcohol the US absolutely ran over us. Oh well, it's still a good result if we can beat Slovakia for bronze.

 

As a Canadian, I'm too polite to brag about that fact that (i) Canada set a record for most gold medals by a country in a Winter Olympics , (ii) we won hockey gold , and (iii) Celine Dion has traded her Canadian citizenship for a U.S. one * . So I won't.

(* Well, not really, but one can always hope!)

 

Congrats to Canada on the gold in hockey. I know that's the one that Canadians wanted more than anything. I like hockey, but no where near as much as many Canadians. Crosby now has a Stanley Cup and a Gold medal. He's what 21? 22? Sheesh. Talk about setting a high bar.

Going into the Olympics I felt that Canada had the best hockey team. I felt if anyone besides Canada won, it would have been an upset. (Not like in 1980 when the US won gold, but an upset nonetheless.)

 

Canadian referees, Canadian gold ...

 

To my knowledge, no serious complaint has been lodged against the referees regarding their handling of the hockey games -- or any other event, for that matter. As a Canadian, I resent the inference.

As a country we finally found a formula for success in terms of our funding for athletes. While we didn't "own the podium" as the stupid slogan said, we did a much better showing this time around. Given our Northern location and relative wealth, we should be doing much better than we did in the last several Winter Olympics. IIRC, Australia, a country with approximately the same population, utterly cleaned our clocks at the last several Winter Olympics. It's a given that an extremely rich and populous country such as the US, (which had around 10x our funding power behind it) will surpass us, but when you compare apples to apples we were sucking the hind tittie. So we altered our funding formula and stopped being so ridiculously polite (no one else was; I read somewhere that the team our women's hockey squad beat 18 - 0 once destroyed another team by 82 - 0. What's good for the goose is good for the gander)

 

As someone who is fairly knowledgable about hockey, and who was obviously rooting for the US to win, I had no complaints about the officiating. Canada won fair and square as far as I'm concerned. The Canadians, as I said, had the best team. Beating them once was difficult, and to come that close to beating them a second time was remarkable.

Truth be told, I thought the US was going to win when they scored that goal with 20-something seconds left in regulation. I thought that momentum would switch to their side, and they would pull it out. I couldn't have been more wrong. Canada so outplayed the US in overtime. Within minutes, I realized that unless the US got some kind of break away opportunity, they weren't winning that game.

 

Have to agree with LKD and AFI on the officiating. There were only 4 penalties called in the whole game (2 each, all justified), and I didn't see anything blatant that was missed on either side. To be honest, I don't recall where the refs were from for that game, but I think any Canadian refs are also NHL refs, so I don't think favoritism would have put them in good stead, even if it existed (which it didn't).

And I'll agree with AFI - after the US scored with 25 seconds left, I thought that was it. But shortly after overtime began, I started to think there was hope. It was a great game, and either team deserved to win.

 

Both teams have to accept the referees before the game and there weren't any complaints from US side after the game either. They allowed very physical game but that's the way finals should be played.

I also thought that USA broke Canada's spirit with that late equalizer. Most teams would have crumbled in that situation, but Canada really came out strong in OT. Crosby didn't have a huge role in earlier in the game, but he sure knew when to start playing .

 

If I had used a smiley it wouldnt have been any fun.

 

I thought you might have been joking, but the lack of a smilie made me unsure.

 

The hockey final was a pleasure to watch, fast paced action, with all the players truly caring about the outcome. When else will you see Marleau dive to block a puck?

---------- Added 0 hours, 0 minutes and 41 seconds later... ----------

Too add some more, Nash was amazing and Niedermayer seemed to be everywhere on defense.

 

They're way better. You just don't get crashes like that in the Summer Olympics. There's going to be a void in this house now that they're gone.

The hockey was a great way to finish it, it was a great match. It was very impressive seeing the Canadians regroup like that in extra time.