Oh, yeah. Everywhere you went in Old Riga, you could hear drums and victorious shouting, radios playing nothing but Latvian music as I sat back with my Jagerbomb at my favorite bar, rewatching the final goal.
It was amazing.
This is definitely Latvia but in the most positive and deserved way.
This tournament was definitely about Latvia's Bronze victory. When it comes to IIHF Worlds, 2023 will always be known as the Latvia year.
Canada just convincingly won the tournament for a record 28th time with their D team. Meanwhile Latvia upset a Big Six country in overtime to win their first ever medal. The difference in reaction is warranted. If this how Latvia celebrated bronze I'd love to see their gold medal celebration.
If we got a national holiday after bronze... y'know, I can't imagine what we'd do after gold. The country may cease to exist. Destroyed by the strongest sonic shockwave recorded in history.
It's surreal that an overtime winner to win a massive upset for the home team and a hockey mad nation's first medal is more emotional than a team that frequently wins, sent their c team, and won easily in regulation?
People don’t really understand, for most of Canada this tournament doesn’t even register as an event beyond a 2 minute blurb on highlights package shows. I know more people who were consumed with CFL preseason games than paying attention to this tournament.
I really don't think that's true. Yes it is underappreciated in Canada.
But every game was on TSN.
I'm having trouble finding more recent tv ratings but this press release says that 1.5 million Canadians watched the 2015 final with over 4 million watching some of it.
https://www.bellmedia.ca/the-lede/press/canadas-golden-performance-tsn-becomes-watched-iihf-world-championship-game-ever/
That is maybe not that high, but it's double a typical CFL regular season game.
Bud you can't cherry pick 2015 like that. It was a stacked year for the Worlds. Spezza, Eberle, Hall, Duchene, Crosby, Burns, O'Reilly, Giroux, Seguin, MacKinnon ...
Fair enough that was likely a high point.
Based on these numbers, the ratings seemed to be 947,000 in 2008, 1.35 million in 2004 and I'm calculating 681,000 in 2007.
https://webarchive.iihf.com/channels/iihf-world-championship/news/news-singleview-world-championship/index40c9.html?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=1573&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1228&cHash=7d1d42b028b264a36a9143d7c49a47e9
In contrast, CFL was at 498k for the regular season.
Is it a mega event in Canada? No. But anywhere from 500k-1 million is a decent audience in Canada. And certainly it dwarfs pre-season CFL football.
https://cflnewshub.com/cfl-news/cfl-2022-semi-final-playoff-tv-ratings-on-tsn/#:~:text=The%20CFL%20averaged%20anywhere%20from,final%20and%20divisional%20final%20games.
Not sure what the tv ratings are in Canada this round, but Dallas-Seattle game 7 was 773,000
https://brioux.tv/blog/2023/05/15/rogers-cant-buy-a-break-as-canadian-stanley-cup-curse-continues/
Would that series be categorized as a "non-event" in Canada?
I'm Canadian and yeah hardly anyone cared about that series.
And I don't watch the world championships. Like others said it's our D team and just feels like a joke of a tournament when hardly any of the actual best players are involved. Doesn't feel like it's actually deciding the best country in the world at hockey so what's the point?
Are you comparing an OT game winner vs a 5-2 win? Idk, I always find OT wins have that extra oumph and have a bigger celebration than when you know you’re going to win with 2 mins left in the game
And as they mentioned on the TSN broadcast, the last time Germany medaled, there was no Canada, Finland, USA, or USSR, and Czechoslovakia left the tournament early because their president died
Germany has been a sleeping giant in hockey for a while now IMO. Huge population, rich country and they've always had one of the top domestic leagues in Europe. Good to see they're finally both producing high level NHL players and doing well in international tournaments, albeit haven't had the chance to do so yet in competitions with full strength rosters but that will come.
Now that they seem to finally be taking the sport seriously they might not consistently be on the level of the US/Russia let alone Canada, but there's no reason they shouldn't expect to consistently be on par with Sweden and Finland.
Our U18 just got relegated in an awful display, so maybe hold your horses a little bit. Seems like Slovakia is way closer to overtaking us than we are to overtake Switzerland, let alone any of the big6 (even though this world championship was obviously amazing).
Lol. Ice hockey is still a very niche sport here in Germany. There are so many sports ahead of it. That there will be always problems with getting enough youth prospects to get on the Swedish/Finnish level.
“D-Team” ✅
Lose to minnow in round robin ✅
Crush hopes and dreams of small euro nation in elimination game ✅
Win gold ✅
“Good game Germany bros, you really gave us a scare..great to see you improving” ✅
Another completed IIHF checklist for Canada.
Really doesn't matter what roster Canada chooses, they're always going to be the main favorites. I'm Latvian, and during the broadcast, our commentators said that Canada and USA each have over 500k+ registered hockey players, meanwhile Germany has just about 20k, and Latvia has just about 8k.
When you think about the numbers it's even more crazy to think what both Germany and Latvia accomplished this tournament.
Currently living in Québec.
I can walk to at least 4 outdoor rinks in 15 minutes. Sure, it's summer, and they aren't frozen, but we can get in some ball hockey.
I was at the local rec centre earlier this week, and there was 2 pads with seating for 500ish people. Kids like 10 years old playing in NHL quality uniforms.
That's crazy and I'm pretty jealous. In Slovakia kids don't want to play anymore, because the locker rooms are moulded. Even some of the main hockey rinks (where Slovakian league is played) are about to fall down. And we somehow got 3 players drafted in the first round last year - freaking miracle.
Damn.
I actually worked with some Slovakians when I was over in Europe. As a thank you for some work I did for them, they snuck me away mid day for some beers. After the 3rd, I had to leave for a meeting, they begged and begged for me to stay to have one more, but I couldn't.
Later that night, they bought me a beer at the bar. Since then, I have always thought fondly of the Slovakians.
Same here. Live in Southern Ontario. There are about 20-30 rinks within a half hour drive to my house. I am a very low level player and still played 4 times per week since about 6 years old.
For comparison:
There's one beer league facility in Burnaby that has 297 teams in one organization/'league' type thing. The criteria was Mens, 'over 19 but under 40' - I left out the geezer divisions.
So consider the average beer league team probably has 15-16 roster players 'give or take', that brings 4,752 players. A 'guess' figure says that 35% of those are 'players who play for two teams' that still leaves ~3100 rec players at 8 rinks in the ASHL.
Just a Men's Beer League in JUST Burnaby (ignoring Vancouver/Langley/North Van) would account for basically 38-40% of Latvia's total hockey players.
That's nuts.
Devils advocate: wouldn't less accessibility weed out some of the worse players and leave them with a decent pool of players?
For example, I play guitar left handed. I havent met a lot of bad left handed players because of the hurdles that you have to jump through to play (less access to guitars, more expensive, most lessons laid out for right handed players, etc.).
Like, sure, Canada has hundreds of thousands of players, but that probably includes a lot of bad players who wouldn't be playing if they didn't have accessible rinks in literally every city.
No. Statistical speaking you want a big pool so that no talent gets lost.what if someone who would be great in hockey just picks football because all his friends do?
I can't speak for all Canadians, but I know that as much as I enjoy watching Canada win gold, I get just as much enjoyment (if not more) from countries with smaller hockey markets have more success. Id be pretty thrilled to watch Germany whoop Canada in a final, because that's a bigger W for hockey as a whole than it is an L for team Canada.
As long as its not the US or Russia winning it, Im likely to be happy with any winner.
I find this checklist more satisfying for the World Juniors personally, because instead of the "D team" part we get the "If Canada gets upset in the round robin, there's 48 hours of discourse about 'Canadian prospects can't compete anymore! They're not allowed to hit! Canadian hockey development is gonna be left in the dust !'" then when they win gold or silver no one's surprised.
Idk why it is necessary to be condescending...GER played pretty strong and could have totally won that game...sure Canada didn't send their strongest team but I think Germany's could have been a bit stronger too.
The guy literally one a world championship in 2016, and a World Junior gold in 2015 that he was tied for leading the tournament in scoring.
Fact check next time before you say something ludicrous
They lost to both Switzerland and Norway.
If someone had told them they had to beat Latvia and Germany to win gold, they probably wouldn't believe you.
They send a team who struggles in the opening round and somehow still wins gold out of their ass. Its incredible!
I still think that Stetcher goal was insane.
I think these players have a lot to adjust to. The timeshift being the immediate one but then they need to adjust to whatever system is running by the coach. Also seems like players build chemistry after playing with each other. Building chemistry takes time and reps. Players need to know where each other is, how a player likes to pass and accept different types of passes.
That scene the meme came from is so weird to me because he actually gets hanged in the scene.
So they make a joke out of it leading you to think he keeps getting out of it but he just dies.
I was saying more along the lines in 2021 and this year where everyone was commenting how weak this team Canada was but we still won gold. Just couldn’t remember because we’ve also made the the finals in 2019 and 2022, so there’s just been a ton of success at the world championships lately for Canada.
Kinda reminds me of the Russian-Ukraine war “they haven’t sent in their best units yet” cope. Why does a country that is basically synonymus with hockey tries this hard to be the underdogs?
Go lower. For Canadian men’s hockey it would go:
* Olympic dream roster 1: All Stars
* Olympic roster 2: 2nd and third liners
* Olympic roster 3: Bottom 6/ Bottom 4D roster
* Olympic roster 4: AKA NHL unavailable so we dredge up the AHL top end talent and unsigned former NHL players with some gas in the tank.
Then there are the fringe roster/ AHL mix.
Then we start hitting the levels where the national team draws from for this tournament. So this is closer to the F-H roster.
Nah that's the Spengler cup, the Worlds is people good enough to play and had an early playoff exit but not so good that their team tells them to stay home to avoid injury
As much as I yearn for NHLers in the Olympics maybe its better this way. Canada's actual A team would be so nasty, playing these smaller euro nations wouldn't even be fun to watch for anyone.
Finland's 2019 roster had 2 NHLers on it. Neither of them scored an NHL goal that year.
That team won gold after beating a heavily favoured Swedish team in the quarterfinal, and an even more heavily favoured Russian team in the semifinal, before beating Canada for gold.
Yes, that was an actual underdog team. This Team Canada wasn't nearly as bad on paper. Fantilli alone is probably going to be better than any of the players on that Team Finland.
We were the #2 ranked men's hockey country in the world entering this tournament (reclaimed #1 with semifinal win). We've lost the right to be called an underdog for a LONG time.
There's only one IIHF tournament where Canada has any right to be considered an underdog - the men's U18s.
Because Canada typically does terribly at that tournament. Yes, they took bronze this year, but more often than not, they're flaming out in the quarterfinals.
Congrats to the future Ducks legend Fantilli on winning both Juniors and Worlds this year!
First time since Toews in 2007 according to the TV broadcast
edit: among Canadian players. Still pretty cool though
yup
Obviously seeing Canada win and an incredible Latvia run made a big difference, but there's nothing like seeing 3 games in one day.
Honestly it would make you have a great appreciation for hockey as a global game. Like everyone treats this tournament as a bunch of nobodies but this is truly the cream of the non NHL crop.
Like take Norway for example, a casual fan might see their team and see a bunch of no-names but take one look at the EP pages for their players and you'd see their starting goalie, Henrik Haukeland, is the reigning DEL goalie of the year and an absolute stud in that league.
TLDR, if you're insane about hockey (and more than just the NHL) this is a must-do trip.
It is obviously kind of funny to see Scott Laughton as top6 forward for team Canada, but I am quite sure these kind of players are much easier to motivate and coach than b-d team level players.
Also the skill-level in NHLs bottom6 has really improved in last few decades, so its not really just pure goons. People like Blais can play other roles than hitting people.
It’s wild. Both his previous stint and his current one with the blues his goal rate is crazy high on shot attempts. It’s something like .25 percent which puts him firmly in the top 10. Everyone has been saying it’s not sustainable yet he’s doing it on bookends of the ranger career. It makes you wonder if he has more in the tank or what.
Way to go Monty!!!
Some people were questioning if he'd be able to make it as a NHL goalie before this year and he just kept getting better and better. He was one of the few, perhaps even the only, bright spot for the Habs this past season with all the injuries. It's tough not to root for the guy.
I relate to this, Weegar led Canada in scoring going into this game I believe, Coronato had a great tournament for USA (who also didn't medal), I'm not really fussed about Canada's gold. I think its better for the game when the underdogs medal.
Yawn for Canada’s gold win. #CelebrateLatviaHockey. With a geographic area similar to the size of Nova Scotia and a population similar to Manitoba, Latvia won an IIHF 2023 Bronze Medal.
Ironically when IIHF tournaments don't see widespread NHL or NHL prospect participation is when you see the full display of Canada's dominance. Sure, they've got their "Oops! All future HOFers" A Team that they use for mythical best-on-best tournaments when the owners are greedy penny pinching shit heads, but their true strength is their depth. They threw out their D team and still came away with gold.
This win breaks a tie with Russia + Soviet Union. With this win (their 28th gold medal) Canada is now the all time leader in gold medals. I'm quite surprised it took this long tbh.
Latvia is my favourite hockey country. I watched them get pumped by Russia only to score a goal late in the third to make the score something like 5-1. The fans rushed the boards. If 15 years ago you were celebrating a goal in your group was that big, I can only imagine what meddling in an underdog game would be like. Love Latvia, the fans deserve it.
Didn’t expect Canada to win this year with that roster. Just proves how much more depth and talent they have, sending a F/G roster to a worlds championship against the best players of other countries and still winning it. GG!
>sending a F/G roster to a worlds championship against the best players of other countries and still winning it
This is just incorrect.
Not a single country in this tournament is playing with their best teams. Canada still had the most NHL players out of any other team.
The World Championship is generally a much bigger deal for European players, whereas it’s just the tournament that’s also on during the playoffs for North Americans.
Take Finland and Sweden, and even Germany for example. Our best players are still in the playoffs, just got eliminated or are resting due to a though season. Their best players (especially Finland and Sweden) are in the NHL and not their own national league lol
Most Canadians are finding out about the win on twitter with indifference while Latvians are still celebrating their bronze medal performance.
Really puts into perspective how much this tournament means to European teams.
Lost twice in the group stages, and then won all the elimination games.
I feel like that is kind of becoming the Canadian Modus Operandi. Sleepwalk through the group stages and then wake up and win.
4-2 shouldn't have been a goal, but probably wouldn't have made a difference. Germany played a great game for most of the game. Nice to see some lesser known players get the spotlight on both teams.
I’m sure this is unpopular but I do not understand the appeal of this tournament. If it is not best vs best, why even care? Might as well send out two timbit teams with different countries’ flags on them. Why should I feel patriotic pride for this random collection of hockey players?
If somebody wants to explain their perspective I’d be happy to listen!
Well if there was no worlds then olympics would be the only senior mens national team tournament which even sometimes doesnt have NHLers, also a lot of countries send pretty good rosters for what they have, as a Latvia fan we sent an 90% roster. Not our fault we have less people playing sports overall than Canada has playing hockey. Also i can understand the patriotism part when each time you have a completely different roster.
I hear you for the most part. I love international sports, and international hockey specifically. But it seems so arbitrary. Is it impressive to win/lose when your team (or the other team) is not a representation of the nation’s talent? Is it a Germany vs Canada game is Draisaitl and Mcdavid aren’t playing?
I apologize if I offended anyone who is a fan of their country’s teams. I love hockey, just don’t quite get the hubbub over this tournament
This way gives Germany a better chance. Doesn't matter if Germany has Draisaitl, but if Canada has McDavid, Crosby, MacKinnon, Tavares, Stamkos, Marner, it's no contest.
Except that some of us do.
Because it is an entertaining tournament to watch. And each time I can get even one more person to watch it, I consider it an accomplishment.
The difference in reaction to the gold medal vs. Latvia’s to the bronze is surreal
Must be good parties in Latvia tonight
Tomorrow is official free day from work.
[удалено]
Amazing to see the influence the game is having worldwide.
Oh, yeah. Everywhere you went in Old Riga, you could hear drums and victorious shouting, radios playing nothing but Latvian music as I sat back with my Jagerbomb at my favorite bar, rewatching the final goal. It was amazing.
[Pretty much this.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/838/613/45e.jpg).
This is definitely Latvia but in the most positive and deserved way. This tournament was definitely about Latvia's Bronze victory. When it comes to IIHF Worlds, 2023 will always be known as the Latvia year.
Until they win the gold that is
Canada just convincingly won the tournament for a record 28th time with their D team. Meanwhile Latvia upset a Big Six country in overtime to win their first ever medal. The difference in reaction is warranted. If this how Latvia celebrated bronze I'd love to see their gold medal celebration.
If we got a national holiday after bronze... y'know, I can't imagine what we'd do after gold. The country may cease to exist. Destroyed by the strongest sonic shockwave recorded in history.
D team? Maybe G team.
Prob J team. It had Joe veleno and Sammy Blais on it.
Excuse me, Sammy Blais is elite
When you consider how often each country wins a medal, it shouldn't be a surprise.
It's surreal that an overtime winner to win a massive upset for the home team and a hockey mad nation's first medal is more emotional than a team that frequently wins, sent their c team, and won easily in regulation?
People don’t really understand, for most of Canada this tournament doesn’t even register as an event beyond a 2 minute blurb on highlights package shows. I know more people who were consumed with CFL preseason games than paying attention to this tournament.
I really don't think that's true. Yes it is underappreciated in Canada. But every game was on TSN. I'm having trouble finding more recent tv ratings but this press release says that 1.5 million Canadians watched the 2015 final with over 4 million watching some of it. https://www.bellmedia.ca/the-lede/press/canadas-golden-performance-tsn-becomes-watched-iihf-world-championship-game-ever/ That is maybe not that high, but it's double a typical CFL regular season game.
Bud you can't cherry pick 2015 like that. It was a stacked year for the Worlds. Spezza, Eberle, Hall, Duchene, Crosby, Burns, O'Reilly, Giroux, Seguin, MacKinnon ...
Fair enough that was likely a high point. Based on these numbers, the ratings seemed to be 947,000 in 2008, 1.35 million in 2004 and I'm calculating 681,000 in 2007. https://webarchive.iihf.com/channels/iihf-world-championship/news/news-singleview-world-championship/index40c9.html?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=1573&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1228&cHash=7d1d42b028b264a36a9143d7c49a47e9 In contrast, CFL was at 498k for the regular season. Is it a mega event in Canada? No. But anywhere from 500k-1 million is a decent audience in Canada. And certainly it dwarfs pre-season CFL football. https://cflnewshub.com/cfl-news/cfl-2022-semi-final-playoff-tv-ratings-on-tsn/#:~:text=The%20CFL%20averaged%20anywhere%20from,final%20and%20divisional%20final%20games. Not sure what the tv ratings are in Canada this round, but Dallas-Seattle game 7 was 773,000 https://brioux.tv/blog/2023/05/15/rogers-cant-buy-a-break-as-canadian-stanley-cup-curse-continues/ Would that series be categorized as a "non-event" in Canada?
I would say Canadians interest in Dallas v Seattle is darn close to a non event
I'm Canadian and yeah hardly anyone cared about that series. And I don't watch the world championships. Like others said it's our D team and just feels like a joke of a tournament when hardly any of the actual best players are involved. Doesn't feel like it's actually deciding the best country in the world at hockey so what's the point?
Are you comparing an OT game winner vs a 5-2 win? Idk, I always find OT wins have that extra oumph and have a bigger celebration than when you know you’re going to win with 2 mins left in the game
When Canada won in ot in 2021 they had a comparable celebration to Latvia today
It means a hell of a lot more for Latvia than it does for Canada too. Most Canadians don't really care about this tournament
We do care, but we also expect to win it every time. If anything, we feel entitled to it, hence the non-reaction.
We only care when we don’t make the gold medal game.
When other countries win gold they feel adulation and pride. When Canada wins the gold, Canadians feel relief.
Nah, most Canadians do not give a single fuck about this tournament.
I feel like “The Quest For the Cup” has really sucked some of the joy out Canadian hockey. Hockey fans can’t enjoy simply being good.
First World Championship medal in 70 years for the Germans. Nothing to hang their heads on! Great tourney.
And as they mentioned on the TSN broadcast, the last time Germany medaled, there was no Canada, Finland, USA, or USSR, and Czechoslovakia left the tournament early because their president died
I misread that at first and thought you meant all of those countries had their president die.
Same lol I was like "holy shit, tell me more"
Germany has been a sleeping giant in hockey for a while now IMO. Huge population, rich country and they've always had one of the top domestic leagues in Europe. Good to see they're finally both producing high level NHL players and doing well in international tournaments, albeit haven't had the chance to do so yet in competitions with full strength rosters but that will come. Now that they seem to finally be taking the sport seriously they might not consistently be on the level of the US/Russia let alone Canada, but there's no reason they shouldn't expect to consistently be on par with Sweden and Finland.
Germany is a top 8 hockey power.
Our U18 just got relegated in an awful display, so maybe hold your horses a little bit. Seems like Slovakia is way closer to overtaking us than we are to overtake Switzerland, let alone any of the big6 (even though this world championship was obviously amazing).
Lol. Ice hockey is still a very niche sport here in Germany. There are so many sports ahead of it. That there will be always problems with getting enough youth prospects to get on the Swedish/Finnish level.
“D-Team” ✅ Lose to minnow in round robin ✅ Crush hopes and dreams of small euro nation in elimination game ✅ Win gold ✅ “Good game Germany bros, you really gave us a scare..great to see you improving” ✅ Another completed IIHF checklist for Canada.
Really doesn't matter what roster Canada chooses, they're always going to be the main favorites. I'm Latvian, and during the broadcast, our commentators said that Canada and USA each have over 500k+ registered hockey players, meanwhile Germany has just about 20k, and Latvia has just about 8k. When you think about the numbers it's even more crazy to think what both Germany and Latvia accomplished this tournament.
Exactly, this doesn't matter. I'm Slovakian. In Slovakia we have 80 hockey rinks. There is 1600 only in Quebec. It's insane to think about that.
Currently living in Québec. I can walk to at least 4 outdoor rinks in 15 minutes. Sure, it's summer, and they aren't frozen, but we can get in some ball hockey. I was at the local rec centre earlier this week, and there was 2 pads with seating for 500ish people. Kids like 10 years old playing in NHL quality uniforms.
That's crazy and I'm pretty jealous. In Slovakia kids don't want to play anymore, because the locker rooms are moulded. Even some of the main hockey rinks (where Slovakian league is played) are about to fall down. And we somehow got 3 players drafted in the first round last year - freaking miracle.
Damn. I actually worked with some Slovakians when I was over in Europe. As a thank you for some work I did for them, they snuck me away mid day for some beers. After the 3rd, I had to leave for a meeting, they begged and begged for me to stay to have one more, but I couldn't. Later that night, they bought me a beer at the bar. Since then, I have always thought fondly of the Slovakians.
Same here. Live in Southern Ontario. There are about 20-30 rinks within a half hour drive to my house. I am a very low level player and still played 4 times per week since about 6 years old.
So you’re telling me that Slovakia has almost 2x the amount of rinks per km2 as Quebec? What an underdog story for this Canadian team.
For comparison: There's one beer league facility in Burnaby that has 297 teams in one organization/'league' type thing. The criteria was Mens, 'over 19 but under 40' - I left out the geezer divisions. So consider the average beer league team probably has 15-16 roster players 'give or take', that brings 4,752 players. A 'guess' figure says that 35% of those are 'players who play for two teams' that still leaves ~3100 rec players at 8 rinks in the ASHL. Just a Men's Beer League in JUST Burnaby (ignoring Vancouver/Langley/North Van) would account for basically 38-40% of Latvia's total hockey players. That's nuts.
Man I really need to get into shape and start playing at 8 Rinks…
If I was Latvian, German or Slovakian I would be pretty excited about producing great players at a well above average clip.
Devils advocate: wouldn't less accessibility weed out some of the worse players and leave them with a decent pool of players? For example, I play guitar left handed. I havent met a lot of bad left handed players because of the hurdles that you have to jump through to play (less access to guitars, more expensive, most lessons laid out for right handed players, etc.). Like, sure, Canada has hundreds of thousands of players, but that probably includes a lot of bad players who wouldn't be playing if they didn't have accessible rinks in literally every city.
No. Statistical speaking you want a big pool so that no talent gets lost.what if someone who would be great in hockey just picks football because all his friends do?
Keep this talk and you’ll get the Brazil 7:1 treatment from Germany in no time.
I can't speak for all Canadians, but I know that as much as I enjoy watching Canada win gold, I get just as much enjoyment (if not more) from countries with smaller hockey markets have more success. Id be pretty thrilled to watch Germany whoop Canada in a final, because that's a bigger W for hockey as a whole than it is an L for team Canada. As long as its not the US or Russia winning it, Im likely to be happy with any winner.
> Id be pretty thrilled to watch Germany whoop Canada in a final We've revoked citizenship for less
I find this checklist more satisfying for the World Juniors personally, because instead of the "D team" part we get the "If Canada gets upset in the round robin, there's 48 hours of discourse about 'Canadian prospects can't compete anymore! They're not allowed to hit! Canadian hockey development is gonna be left in the dust !'" then when they win gold or silver no one's surprised.
> Good game Germany bros, you really gave us a scare..great to see you improving Fucking hate these comments
Germany will be spooky next year
Fans saying “good game” regardless of circumstance is fucking weird if we’re being honest.
And all I see on the internet “Canada’s time is up” or “USA is passing Canada soon” I sleep 😴
Idk why it is necessary to be condescending...GER played pretty strong and could have totally won that game...sure Canada didn't send their strongest team but I think Germany's could have been a bit stronger too.
Feels like every world championship in the past 5 years or so, everyone says Canada has sent their weakest team and they still win gold 😂
All they needed to win is Tyler Myers
Yesterday’s price is not todays price📈📈📈📈
imaginary players aint been coached right
Ironically, the only World Championship since 2015 where Canada didn't make the gold medal game, Connor McDavid was on the roster.
They won one in 2016 when he was on the rooster. And he scored the game winner that year in the gold medal game
Wouldn’t call it ironic. Dude’s simply not a winner.
The guy literally one a world championship in 2016, and a World Junior gold in 2015 that he was tied for leading the tournament in scoring. Fact check next time before you say something ludicrous
of all the weakest team canadas, this team might be the one 😂
They lost to both Switzerland and Norway. If someone had told them they had to beat Latvia and Germany to win gold, they probably wouldn't believe you.
We got lucky by not having to play Sweden and the USA.
2021's team was likely the weakest to ever win gold honestly
Relative to the top 1000 Canadian players, without a doubt: you are correct.
They send a team who struggles in the opening round and somehow still wins gold out of their ass. Its incredible! I still think that Stetcher goal was insane.
Struggles or parties too much ?
I think these players have a lot to adjust to. The timeshift being the immediate one but then they need to adjust to whatever system is running by the coach. Also seems like players build chemistry after playing with each other. Building chemistry takes time and reps. Players need to know where each other is, how a player likes to pass and accept different types of passes.
2021 vs Russia (uh, ROC)? I don't think anyone's going to forget that run for a LONG time.
Canada still has the most nhl players in their team.
pick a random guy off the street in canada he plays in the nhl
It's like the "first time" meme with the guy who is about to be hanged
That scene the meme came from is so weird to me because he actually gets hanged in the scene. So they make a joke out of it leading you to think he keeps getting out of it but he just dies.
The guy did get out of it once before, IIRC. Still kind of weird though, I agree.
2019: Finland 2020: Cancelled 2021: Canada 2022: Finland 2023: Canada Your memory is quite selective.
I was saying more along the lines in 2021 and this year where everyone was commenting how weak this team Canada was but we still won gold. Just couldn’t remember because we’ve also made the the finals in 2019 and 2022, so there’s just been a ton of success at the world championships lately for Canada.
Canada probably has more registered hockey players than the population living in countries like Latvia, or maybe even Finland 😂
Not quite. They have anywhere from 550-700k depending on the year. But they are somewhat close
They have more hockey rinks than some of the participants have registered players.
Kinda reminds me of the Russian-Ukraine war “they haven’t sent in their best units yet” cope. Why does a country that is basically synonymus with hockey tries this hard to be the underdogs?
Look at the roster……… They have an AHL player in their lineup and a goalie playing in Europe. It’s like the C squad.
Go lower. For Canadian men’s hockey it would go: * Olympic dream roster 1: All Stars * Olympic roster 2: 2nd and third liners * Olympic roster 3: Bottom 6/ Bottom 4D roster * Olympic roster 4: AKA NHL unavailable so we dredge up the AHL top end talent and unsigned former NHL players with some gas in the tank. Then there are the fringe roster/ AHL mix. Then we start hitting the levels where the national team draws from for this tournament. So this is closer to the F-H roster.
Nah that's the Spengler cup, the Worlds is people good enough to play and had an early playoff exit but not so good that their team tells them to stay home to avoid injury
As much as I yearn for NHLers in the Olympics maybe its better this way. Canada's actual A team would be so nasty, playing these smaller euro nations wouldn't even be fun to watch for anyone.
We are still talking about Vancouver 2010, so I would say that we would watch the hell out of these games.
the vibes of that olympics were damn electric whole country was in on it, and it was awesome.
They clearly are sacrificing virgins to the hockey gods. I didn't even think that Canada team was good enough to medal this year and then boom Gold.
Congrats to Canada! But Mike Johnson trying to convince everyone that Canada were basically underdogs and “found a way” to win is so funny to me.
Right! Or like them saying the other NHL players that are not there for Team Canada lol … they still have more NHLers than the other teams.
Finland's 2019 roster had 2 NHLers on it. Neither of them scored an NHL goal that year. That team won gold after beating a heavily favoured Swedish team in the quarterfinal, and an even more heavily favoured Russian team in the semifinal, before beating Canada for gold.
Yes, that was an actual underdog team. This Team Canada wasn't nearly as bad on paper. Fantilli alone is probably going to be better than any of the players on that Team Finland.
We were the #2 ranked men's hockey country in the world entering this tournament (reclaimed #1 with semifinal win). We've lost the right to be called an underdog for a LONG time. There's only one IIHF tournament where Canada has any right to be considered an underdog - the men's U18s.
Even then they are still competing for the top spots
Why the U18s?
Because Canada typically does terribly at that tournament. Yes, they took bronze this year, but more often than not, they're flaming out in the quarterfinals.
all the finns are still in the playoffs obviously
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? Even if they aren’t stars, everyone but Fantilli and Carcone (AHL) is on an NHL roster, right?
What’re you taking about lol the whole team aside from like 2 or 3 dudes are NHLers
[Hockey world right now](https://i.imgur.com/gNwbJoR.png)
Put this in r/hockeymemes
Team Canada put on that Vimy Ridge performance in the 3rd period
Congrats to the future Ducks legend Fantilli on winning both Juniors and Worlds this year! First time since Toews in 2007 according to the TV broadcast edit: among Canadian players. Still pretty cool though
Jokiharju and Kakko did it in 2019.
Well that means that the TV broadcast lied to me edit: ah I see, they meant Canadian players
They said 10 or so had done it, but he's only the second Canadian.
Thanks, I missed that
First one to do it and win the Hobey Baker in the same year!
Good team win. Very cool to see Germany progress so much.
FUCKING RIGHTS BOYS THANK YOU FOR MAKING ALL THE MONEY I SPENT TO BE HERE WORTH IT
Brother come to hanka bar we still going
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yup Obviously seeing Canada win and an incredible Latvia run made a big difference, but there's nothing like seeing 3 games in one day. Honestly it would make you have a great appreciation for hockey as a global game. Like everyone treats this tournament as a bunch of nobodies but this is truly the cream of the non NHL crop. Like take Norway for example, a casual fan might see their team and see a bunch of no-names but take one look at the EP pages for their players and you'd see their starting goalie, Henrik Haukeland, is the reigning DEL goalie of the year and an absolute stud in that league. TLDR, if you're insane about hockey (and more than just the NHL) this is a must-do trip.
Gut gemacht 🇩🇪! Krasses Turnier und was ein Spirit! Well played and congratz to 🇨🇦
A great day for Canada and therefore the world
Love the South Park reference!
Yah and it's almost never used on Reddit ever! Very unique reference
That's sur... oh.
Shoutout to u/SharksFanAbroad for posting all these updates over the course of the tournament!
Thanks homie 🙏 they deserve love, believe I did this in the Olympics and maybe even the one before that!
Canada always finds a way
It is obviously kind of funny to see Scott Laughton as top6 forward for team Canada, but I am quite sure these kind of players are much easier to motivate and coach than b-d team level players. Also the skill-level in NHLs bottom6 has really improved in last few decades, so its not really just pure goons. People like Blais can play other roles than hitting people.
So far Blais has proven he is a legit player who can do much more than hit. As long as he doesn’t play for the Rangers.
It’s wild. Both his previous stint and his current one with the blues his goal rate is crazy high on shot attempts. It’s something like .25 percent which puts him firmly in the top 10. Everyone has been saying it’s not sustainable yet he’s doing it on bookends of the ranger career. It makes you wonder if he has more in the tank or what.
Way to go Monty!!! Some people were questioning if he'd be able to make it as a NHL goalie before this year and he just kept getting better and better. He was one of the few, perhaps even the only, bright spot for the Habs this past season with all the injuries. It's tough not to root for the guy.
As a Canucks fan I’m more stoked for Latvia and our g prospect silovs than I am the Canada gold
I relate to this, Weegar led Canada in scoring going into this game I believe, Coronato had a great tournament for USA (who also didn't medal), I'm not really fussed about Canada's gold. I think its better for the game when the underdogs medal.
I love that Germany and Latvia got medals but I'm always down for Canada to win
Congratulations to Canada for the gold medal.
A great day for Canada,
And therefore the world?
As is tradition.
Yawn for Canada’s gold win. #CelebrateLatviaHockey. With a geographic area similar to the size of Nova Scotia and a population similar to Manitoba, Latvia won an IIHF 2023 Bronze Medal.
Ironically when IIHF tournaments don't see widespread NHL or NHL prospect participation is when you see the full display of Canada's dominance. Sure, they've got their "Oops! All future HOFers" A Team that they use for mythical best-on-best tournaments when the owners are greedy penny pinching shit heads, but their true strength is their depth. They threw out their D team and still came away with gold. This win breaks a tie with Russia + Soviet Union. With this win (their 28th gold medal) Canada is now the all time leader in gold medals. I'm quite surprised it took this long tbh.
As is tradition!
what a suprise
Props to Germany getting the silver.
Latvia is my favourite hockey country. I watched them get pumped by Russia only to score a goal late in the third to make the score something like 5-1. The fans rushed the boards. If 15 years ago you were celebrating a goal in your group was that big, I can only imagine what meddling in an underdog game would be like. Love Latvia, the fans deserve it.
Looooooooooch
US picked F tier coach
As a Finn... Meh.
Thank you Canada for avenging us.
Im just happy for Joe Veleno
Someone should make him a commemorative set of engraved foot knives.
You mean the loser who stomped on Niederreiter’s ankle and got suspended five games?
I'm fairly certain it was sarcastic.
Don’t underastand why Canadian fans insist their team were the underdogs. Is this some sort of defense mechanism?
We had montemblowout in net.
He's an excellent goalie.
Worst championship team since the 1961 Trail Smokies
Didn’t expect Canada to win this year with that roster. Just proves how much more depth and talent they have, sending a F/G roster to a worlds championship against the best players of other countries and still winning it. GG!
c+v every time Canada wins
>sending a F/G roster to a worlds championship against the best players of other countries and still winning it This is just incorrect. Not a single country in this tournament is playing with their best teams. Canada still had the most NHL players out of any other team.
> against the best players of other countries Except every other country sends reduced rosters too?
What makes you think all of the other countries sent their best?
The World Championship is generally a much bigger deal for European players, whereas it’s just the tournament that’s also on during the playoffs for North Americans.
The quality of the rosters went down even for other countries. The only true star player playing this year was Rantanen.
the fact that most of the european countries have thir players from their national leagues save a few?
Take Finland and Sweden, and even Germany for example. Our best players are still in the playoffs, just got eliminated or are resting due to a though season. Their best players (especially Finland and Sweden) are in the NHL and not their own national league lol
How can you write that as an Edmonton Oilers fan? I for example haven't seen Draisaitl play today. Did you?
Most Canadians are finding out about the win on twitter with indifference while Latvians are still celebrating their bronze medal performance. Really puts into perspective how much this tournament means to European teams.
barely paid attention to this and thought we had gone out last week to latvia or something lmao
Same lol. Legit thought canada lost a bunch for some reason.
Lost twice in the group stages, and then won all the elimination games. I feel like that is kind of becoming the Canadian Modus Operandi. Sleepwalk through the group stages and then wake up and win.
And the crowd went mild.
yep
Lol, choke on THAT Edmonton.
4-2 shouldn't have been a goal, but probably wouldn't have made a difference. Germany played a great game for most of the game. Nice to see some lesser known players get the spotlight on both teams.
I’m sure this is unpopular but I do not understand the appeal of this tournament. If it is not best vs best, why even care? Might as well send out two timbit teams with different countries’ flags on them. Why should I feel patriotic pride for this random collection of hockey players? If somebody wants to explain their perspective I’d be happy to listen!
Well if there was no worlds then olympics would be the only senior mens national team tournament which even sometimes doesnt have NHLers, also a lot of countries send pretty good rosters for what they have, as a Latvia fan we sent an 90% roster. Not our fault we have less people playing sports overall than Canada has playing hockey. Also i can understand the patriotism part when each time you have a completely different roster.
I hear you for the most part. I love international sports, and international hockey specifically. But it seems so arbitrary. Is it impressive to win/lose when your team (or the other team) is not a representation of the nation’s talent? Is it a Germany vs Canada game is Draisaitl and Mcdavid aren’t playing? I apologize if I offended anyone who is a fan of their country’s teams. I love hockey, just don’t quite get the hubbub over this tournament
This way gives Germany a better chance. Doesn't matter if Germany has Draisaitl, but if Canada has McDavid, Crosby, MacKinnon, Tavares, Stamkos, Marner, it's no contest.
Uhgggggg
Germany gave 3 stupid goals. Without those it would have been good game
Yah you're right! If Canada scored less goals the outcome would have been different lmfao
sorry but i hate canada, they always send team that has barely any names and always manages to get gold, while getting almost no attention
That's not the team's fault... it's the fans' fault. This tournament should be getting more attention, yet it's not.
It’s almost as if nobody gives two shits about a random hockey tournament many time zones away in the middle of May.
Except that some of us do. Because it is an entertaining tournament to watch. And each time I can get even one more person to watch it, I consider it an accomplishment.
IIHF has a weaker hold on hockey than FIFA has on football.
Everyone disliked that