Who ever wins "gold" for ice hockey in this Olympics deserves a big fat asterisk next to it since the best Canadian and...

Who ever wins "gold" for ice hockey in this Olympics deserves a big fat asterisk next to it since the best Canadian and American athletes were kept from competing. European teams are litterally playing American and Canadian weekend warriors

first olympics?

Best europeans are also missing due to the NHL ban. Ur point? Slovenia has only 900 active hockey players and u cant find 20 guys from 400,000 players pool to beat them?

Stop trying to play hockey burger

>implying the best US team would be a challenger for gold
lmao

they'd be better off than the team they're fielding now

Reminder that we Europeans are suffering too because our best players are stuck in NHL. Stop making excuses, you are shit.

do you reckon players would rather finish last in their conference or win gold at the olympics

bit of the shit decision by the nhl imo

Stop cryin, they just bannd all our favorites, so winter games is meme games now

LITERALLY S E E T H I N G

so would every other top-6 nation. what's your point?

All our players are stuck in the NHL

I have bad news for you. You're not in the tournament.

Our best players in the NHL and NHL development programs are 10x better than yours

>I have bad news for you. You're not in the tournament.
GODDAMMIT

...

our best players are in the NHL too. what's your point?

the absolute state of US hockey

Pretty sure the other teams are in the same situation.

They are. He's just looking for excuses.

and whos fault is that?

>best players are locked in contracts with their clubs
>only some NHL rejects or players playing in irrelevant shit leagues compete
what's the fucking point?
At least World Cup in Football happens in summer so only people who are injured don't compete, other than that it's an all star cast for all teams.

Insecure bitches make excuses. It's a battle of nations, pussy.

World Baseball Classic unironically has surpassed olympic hockey in the international competitions rankings

shall be ending it all lads

Somewhat different speech from the one Murrica held after Canada's loss, I wonder what changed?

-

I hope everyone boycotts the NHL til the end of times tbqh. Hockey is THE sport I care about but these olympics are shit because of Bettman. Our top 400 players aren't on our team, what a fucking joke.
If the top 400 curling players weren't in the olympics I could probably get a spot desu.

Sadly it's unlikely anything will fucking happen, people will just whine about it and go back to watch the NHL.
I know I won't, and hope some more joins, but I wouldn't bet on even 1% of the fans dropping the NHL so they won't even feel it.
What a fucking disgrace.

based NHL working canacuck marks who will still remain loyal customers

So there's no World Cup equivalent in Hockey?

Are you implying Europeons have been effected nearly as much as North Americans? OAR is like 75% of the team it would field anyway. Sweden and Finland are a lot of their regulars too. Noone on USA or Canada would be there

there's the IIHF but it has the same problem - all the World Class players are locked in NHL Play-Off's

The IOC is as much to blame as NHL

from 1998 to 2014 , Olympics WAS the World Cup equivalent. now there is nothing. we can't have nice things anymore, because the owners of the NHL teams would rather focus on their own shortsighted gain instead of actually growing the game of ice hockey.

Bettman Cup is that now

>Sweden and Finland are a lot of their regulars too

Seems legit
In vancouver we had 99% nhl players, this year we have 0%

there is literally a World Cup of Hockey, but it's a meme tournament with teams like North America U23 and Team Europe for European players who are not from Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic or Russia. so much for national pride
the World Championship features all countries and has a proper qualification system, but it's in May so not all NHLers can compete, the playoff are still on. about half the players are free though, and some teams get kicked out of the Sranley Cup playoffs during the tournament and can join their NT for the final stretch. it's not the best facing off against the best, but it's a solid-level tournament and comfy as fuck to watch

Bullshit. Sweden would have zero and Finland maybe 1-2 players from European leagues.

>all the World Class players are locked in NHL Play-Off's

not all, half the teams are elimiated before skoda cup even begins. sure many of the best players are in the best teams but for example mcdavid would be avaliable

Us euros plus nz/aussies would rip any mutt apart in field hockey tho

Don't let the facts get in the way of their gloating. We're supposed to be mad our z teams lost to their b teams.

>tfw team USA captain is from my hometown and has been playing on my local AHL team

G-Go Brian

Canada's team has a handful of NHL legends playing for them. People who were in Stanley cup finals.

Don't let the facts get in the way of their gloating.

more like your Z teams against their D teams. you're still right though, this tournament is a joke. impeach bettman nao

>Canada has literally 1 million registered hockey players
>their best what 300-400(??) players can't play
>now they are studdenly fucked and can't find a matching team from the rest 999500 players

If Canada is so good and superpower in hockey, NHL ban shouldn't be a problem.

Good job missing the entire point. Theres a big difference between losing access to 90/38 players and over 400 players. Whos to say some of those Swedes wouldnt make the team? Or finns? Its 100% certain none of Canada would have made the team

>impeach bettman nao
Bettman is just the guy that takes all the blame. he's the spokesman. that's literally his job. this wasn't his decision.

the real villains are his bosses, the NHL Board of Governors, AKA the NHL team owners.

The NHL is fun to watch but I don't care who wins unlike if they were representing a country.

@81696666
>field hockey

How many of those 1,000,000 are under 18? How many are over 40?

Still means we have more to choose from.

>Whos to say some of those Swedes wouldnt make the team?

Are you even interested in hockey?
No, these literally whos wouldn't make our team of nhl players

I think the real point to be made is that obviously most of our players are locked up in our domestic league. You all have your own top flight leagues in your respective countries that are unaffected. It's disingenuous to say you lost NHL players too as, while true, it doesn't hurt you as much as it does us.

>I wouldn't bet on even 1% of the fans dropping the NHL
I don't know but on the long term it's not a smart move, the olympic tournament is the main international event, whoever wins gold is certain to see a significant increase of kids enrollment. That's what happened with biathlon in France for example.

>Whos to say some of those Swedes wouldnt make the team? Or finns?
Everyone with a basic understanding of the sport.

>Amerifats unable to handle getting BTFO
It's another Viet Nam.

I will not listen to the opinion of a country that has zero (0) olympic gold medals in ice hockey

>You all have your own top flight leagues in your respective countries that are unaffected

Only those who play there are players not good enough for the NHL. You have access to as good (bad)players to send as us

I was trying to be respectful to your domestic lads. Agreed though, fuck Bettman hope this all blows up in his face.

Canada has so many golds in olympic hockey that it would be nice to see other countries get a chance.

Can Euros not understand math?

We have access to 400th ranked Canadian player and beyond

Euros have access to 90th and beyond.

>b-but you have lots to choose from!
Shit arguement. We still will win gold.

Only way to make things fair.

Inb4 muh per capita

If your country isn't above the red line, can you stop with the "It affects all teams equally"? (Hopefully I won't have to explain why the line is at this exact place).

I mean, even if it's above the red line they still aren't affected equally tho you wouldn't understand why if god himself explained it to you, but if we could at least stop implying stupid shit like "Well Slovenia's team lost 1 player due to the NHL so it affects them as much as Canada!", that'd be a good start.

Why is Russia there? Russia is missing like 6 players.

You guys always brag about your depth. Now it's the time it actually should become useful.

Ahh yes, beating Germany and Norway shows lots of depth

Tbh Russia is the main country to benefit from this

All countries outside of Sweden USA and Canada benefit greatly from the NHL pulling out

>the best Canadian and American athletes were kept from competing

why?

That's what I meant with the
>I mean, even if it's above the red line they still aren't affected equally tho you wouldn't understand why if god himself explained it to you
part. To understand why Russia isn't affected equally either would require 5th grade logic, so that's too much for 80% of Sup Forums. But I think there's at least SOME HOPE to get them to understand that if there isn't enough players of your country in the NHL to make your olympic team, you aren't affected equally; You would have lots of non-NHL'ers anyway.

Jewish greed. Google it, its a hilarious read

kek who's the australian?

????

Best swedes are in NHL too

>You guys always brag about your depth
Yes. We could probably field like 5 olympic teams that would be strong contenders for the gold. But these players are all in the NHL. So are the next 5 olympic teams we could field. And the 5 after that.
Having depth doesn't mean we have infinite elite players.

If you took the 400th best finnish player and beyond it would probably be /hoc/ posters. The fact we are 1-0-0-1 with that shows lots of depth.

>USA won it's only olympic hockey gold in 1980
>NHL players participated since 1998

So you are basically bashing your own only hockey gold medal.

>only

some nathan walker. might have moved out of australia tho, that's weird.

It'd be a professional player in the domestic most likely.

my bad they won also in 1960, and best player weren't playing back then either. So USA has two worthless olympic golds in hockey.

So yeah, /hoc/ posters

yeah. see I fully expect these 3 countries mostly (usa canada sweden) to do fucking terrible in this olympics.
It's just sad.

In a time when europeons stayed in their own leagues. Noone would even look at Russians until the mid 90s, so no, not quiet the same thing.

>20 random guys from slovenia beat the best USA can offer
>"this tournament doesn't m-mean anything!"

>litterally playing American and Canadian weekend warriors

how about you learn to put things in perspective?

Are you also saying that if you took 400th best slovenian player and beyond it's the same thing? Never expected canada to be so bad at using brain

I know you're memeing but I imagine the game has grown significantly in Europe since the 80s. All of our growth is in the NHL.

maybe if the nhl wasnt a shitshow, you wouldnt have this problem? do you not have player unions or something to stop shit like this happening?

Yes because finland losing access to 38 players is the exact same thing as Canada losing access to 400 players. Can you literally not fathom how different that is? Finland cant even ice 2 seperate teams with 38 players.

>W-we don't care gais, really

Literally every top-6 nation suffers from it. Stop making excuses.

KHL has plenty of NHL calibre players. Not all best are in the NHL

Canada has a 10x bigger player pool to select from so yeah, that's actually pretty even if you ask me.

Youre literally playing mental gymnastics at this point. 400 is enough for ~17 teams. No Canadian chooses to play in the KHL if an NHL spot is open. That means we are using our 18th best team. Finland is using their what? 3rd best team?

>Our best players in the NHL and NHL development programs are 10x better than yours

And you still can't win gold

Yes because a player pool is a liniear line of talent. God finns are stupid.

But we've got a lot less players to begin with so I'd say it's pretty fair

>its fair that we get to field our 3rd best team and you get to field your 17th!

This is literally the only way they can win a gold.

if we put things in perspective, that means Finland has better depth in hockey players.

you could just accept that, Finland is overall better hockey country per capita.