Canadian Junior's

[Ritchie]

Anyone watch thisÉ(thats my question mark, keyboard is stuck on french mode or somthing)

Canada takes its 5th straight gold medal. It actually took place where I live, Ottawa. I even made it to a USA-Kazakstan game, which was fairly boring do to it being a blow out. The USA-Canada game that ended the preliminary rounds was one of the best hockey games I have ever watched.

Anyways, Congrats to the Canadian Juniors!

[PGVan]

The World U20 tournament has a long way to go to be significant anywhere but Canada. Hell, there is no television coverage in the USA. The IIHF runs a bad format and now they're hosting 2 of every 3 tournaments in Canada because it's the only place they can make a profit with the U20 tournament.

I really do wonder why Canada sees this as a "do or die" tournament as maybe 20% of the players who represent Canada at the U20 event every year will go on to have significant NHL careers.

For me, this U20 tournament is more about watching the prospects and finding out who I would and wouldn't like my favourite NHL team (Canucks) to go after in the draft.

[skittlez]

lol this is random, but if u hold down ctrl + shift it will usually switch back to the normal keyboard mode (on my laptop anyway :P)

[NeedleInTheHay]

The world juniors we're on the NHL network in the US.... How did Tavares do?

[Zephyr]

I watched most of the games. I like this tournament since it pits country versus country, rather than teams in a league. It's more like the olympics, national pride and all that. The players really care. Plus, this is something we're really good at. It's great to see Canada remain a producer of terrific hockey talent. I also have to say Ottawa did a superb job - you could really feel the electricity of the crowd even on tv.

Originally Posted by Ritchie

The USA-Canada game that ended the preliminary rounds was one of the best hockey games I have ever watched.

As good as it was, I think it was topped by the Canada-Russia semifinal. The back-and-forth nature of that game, to see Canada fall behind late and then tie it with 5 seconds left...whoa. The only black mark was that it had to be decided in a shootout. In any case, those two games were as thrilling as any I can recall in recent memory. They almost had to be seen to be believed.

[PGVan]

The trouble with this tournament is that the only good games to watch are when Canada, USA, Russia or Sweden play each other (and even this year, Sweden stomped Russia 5-0 in their game). This year, Slovakia provided a bit of an exception, but even they didn't provide any excitement until they snuck into the medal round with a shootout win over Finland.

The U20 tournament shows year after year how non-global this sport really is. There are really only 3-5 countries who compete every year (Canada, Russia and Sweden for sure... USA and Finland in most years while the Czechs and Slovaks are unpredictable).

In the U20 tournament's history, here is the medal history...

GOLD
Canada - 15
Russia/CIS/CCCP - 12
Finland - 2
Czech Republic - 2
Sweden - 1
USA - 1

SILVER
Russia/CIS/CCCP - 9
Sweden - 8
Canada - 6
Czechoslovakia - 5
Finland - 4
USA - 1

BRONZE
Russia/CIS/CCCP - 7
Finland - 6
Czechoslovakia - 6
Sweden - 4
Canada - 4
USA - 3
Czech Republic - 1
Slovakia - 1
Switzerland - 1

The ONLY teams outside the "Big 6" (Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, USA, Czech Republic) to ever medal at the U20 level are Switzerland and Slovakia earning Bronze Medals in 1998 and 1999 respectively. At that time, it appeared that perhaps the "lower nations" in hockey were starting to develop. Well that was 10 years ago, and nothing has changed. No other "new nations" have stepped up and made a splash, nor have any even come close.

I shouldn't even be using the term "Big 6" for the U20 level. When it comes to actually winning this tournament, Canada and Russia/CIS/CCCP have won 27 of 33 tournaments. That's not competitive enough. Sweden has only won 13 medals, Finland has won 10 medals, Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia has 13 medals and the USA only has 5 medals in a 33-year history of this tournament.


At the professional level (IE: IIHF World Championships that are held every year), it's not much different. Canada, Russia and Sweden are usually semi-final guarantees. The Finns, USA, Czechs and Slovaks have pretty good professional national teams. Outside of those 7 countries, there is simply nothing promising in terms of developing into a "hockey power".

Yes we see countries like Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, France, Norway, Latvia and a few others make odd appearances at the top level tournaments, but they will never develop into something that will make hockey any more global than it is now.

[Ritchie]

Originally Posted by PGVan

The World U20 tournament has a long way to go to be significant anywhere but Canada. Hell, there is no television coverage in the USA. The IIHF runs a bad format and now they're hosting 2 of every 3 tournaments in Canada because it's the only place they can make a profit with the U20 tournament.

I really do wonder why Canada sees this as a "do or die" tournament as maybe 20% of the players who represent Canada at the U20 event every year will go on to have significant NHL careers.

For me, this U20 tournament is more about watching the prospects and finding out who I would and wouldn't like my favourite NHL team (Canucks) to go after in the draft.

Its more about great hockey then anything for me. Although I cheer for the leafs, nhl hockey just doesn't compare for excitment, and I don't really care if a business wins a hockey game or not.

[2Talkative]

Very true, I love watching the Juniors. I watched all the Canadian games this year.

I prefer to watch WHL over NHL.

[Micronian]

It's true. the world jrs is usually a showcase of Canadian and Russian talent. But there really isn't much the IIHF can do about that. You can't create a handicap or anything.

[PGVan]

Originally Posted by Micronian

It's true. the world jrs is usually a showcase of Canadian and Russian talent. But there really isn't much the IIHF can do about that. You can't create a handicap or anything.

No, but you can go back to an 8-team format. The whole purpose of increasing to 10 teams was to supposedly give developing hockey countries a chance to become better by playing better competition at the top level tournament. That hasn't worked after a decade.

All Kazakhstan and Germany (the two relegated teams this year) provided were goal-fodder for opposing teams... and even Germany scored a 9-0 win over Kazakhstan. What was the point of even having them there?

I support a promotion/relegation system, but not two teams at a time. Go back to the 8-team format, create a schedule that has 28-31 games so the IIHF doesn't lose money (whether you care about money or not, money is necessary for this tournament's survival), and promote/relegate one team a year.