I "took it wrong" because you are posting garbage, you obviously have no idea about which sports are popular in Sweden and what kind of activities/sports that kids play either.
Just because a certain sport isn't big in NA/Canada doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, please look up handball and floorball for example. You're just making yourself look like a fool with your ignorant posts.
In Sweden we don't care about many of your sports, like baseball and american football (NFL), instead we got other sports.
Its not ignorant garbage, in no way is a Swedish handball or floorball league anywhere near the NFL or MLB when it comes to popularity and value ($). Canada feeds just as many of these minor sports as Sweden (like curling and lacrosse), but feeds into much more major sports. That's what I am trying to say. Its not an insult to call Floorball or Handball as minor league sport in comparison to MLB, NFL, or NBA.
So typical. I love Canada, but man some of you guys are arrogant when it comes to hockey.
OP here - I agree with this. I'm Canadian, and in no way did I mean this to be a comparison to Canada.
Canada is the de facto. Everyone's familiar with the Canadian development system. Was hoping to learn more about Sweden and their system. But there's a lot of great stuff in here.
EDIT: I re-read the original post, and realized that I referred to Sweden's population in terms of Canada. I meant it to illustrate the population sizes of the countries - didn't want to assume most posters knew the populations of both countries - apologies for the confusion. Could definitely have used a different construct.
well i wanna say that on a neutral side( American) Both are great hockey countries but i think that Sweden's youth ( 17-20 year olds) right now are some of the best in the world as the poster listed to start the thread but id say that after they won the olympics hockey took a spike in the country. I would agree that for population the swedes have they produce the most amount of talent while Canada, Russia, Finland and America all do as well so dont take my head off. I dont think the soccer being the number one sport is a fair excuse, they might lose athletes to it but ur not seeing hundreds of talented athletes take the soccer world by storm aside from maybe Zlatan. you might lose talent but hockey isnt even close to the #1 sport in america but we still manage to produce a fair amount of talent.
It's not a big shock to me at all. I don't wanna get into the Canada/Sweden argument but over time obviously Canada has produced considerably more high end players than Sweden, so the real comparison has to be within Europe.
And in Europe most of the big countries don't support hockey and in Eastern Europe you have to look at the financial problems both of the grassroots structure and the potential hockey parents. So that basically leaves Scandinavia, a wealthy area where hockey is popular, and Sweden is the biggest country with the biggest hockey tradition there.
I think in hockey you have similar phenomena that you get in sports like rugby or even field hockey, where the overall numbers of serious participants are so low because of the lack of overall global popularity and high barriers of entry, be it the price tag for equipment, the high physical toll extracted or the social exclusivity of the sport. The low number of overall participants reduces the importance of a really well-developed grassroots and increases the importance of well-structured and professional development programs.
As a casual observer, I wonder if it's because each junior team in SuperElit is affiliated with a professional team and that the junior program acts as a feeder for the pro ranks. Players in Sweden and the rest of Europe can also start playing professionally at age 16.
In terms of MAJOR leagues, that attract MAJOR money and MAJOR fans, I would say its just soccer and hockey in Sweden. All those other amateur sports you mentioned (and I say amateur as in most of the athletes don't get paid, not as an insult) exist in every country, but do not count as major national team games. I would assume you probably don't have Swedish newspapers, radios and TV shows talking about handlball or floorball.
In Canada meanwhile, sure the NHL is #1, but the MLB, NBA, NFL, MLS, and CFL all are major leagues (especially the MLB, NBA, NFL) that attract millions of fans, billions of dollars, and huge amounts of conversation of TV, radio, newspapers, magazines. Canada still has those smaller sports too, which also take up smaller pieces of the pie. But there are large pieces taken up by players who commit to soccer, football, hockey, baseball, and basketball. Whereas I don't think that happens in Sweden.
You would assume wrong. Handball alone probably gets more tv time in Sweden than the NBA, MLB, MLS and CFL combined (I'm not entirely sure about the NFL - it has become quite a big deal here in Denmark, but I don't think the same holds true for Sweden).
Quote:
Originally Posted by syc
Very true so how come Sweden doesn't produce many great soccer players? Denmark for example has half the population of Sweden and is light years ahead of them.
Whomever is in charge for Swedish hockey should be hired by Swedish soccer.
As a Dane, I love this post. I'd also love it to be true.
Having said that the Danish developmental system in football seems to have picked up after a major overhaul, and I think Denmark is on the rise.
The same could be said of Swedish hockey which does look like it has a promising future right now. I'm sure some of it is merely cyclical, but maybe (as some people have hinted) it does also reflect changes in the approach to youth hockey. In any case, the players born 1985-1991 seem to have more potential than the Swedish generation of players born 1975-1984 (with a few key exceptions like Lundqvist, Zetterberg and the Sedins).
the only way i can possibly reason in my head why someone would think enstrom is better is if they were a jets fan.
First, you two need to get a room. Then you need to sit down and realize that right now there's not a whole lot of room between Enström and Edler, certainly not enough to start making bold, blanket statements about who the better player is.
As for the Jets fan quip, I personally prefer Enström, despite having a major bias for Edler.
You would assume wrong. Handball alone probably gets more tv time in Sweden than the NBA, MLB, MLS and CFL combined (I'm not entirely sure about the NFL - it has become quite a big deal here in Denmark, but I don't think the same holds true for Sweden).
Yeah, it's really laughable to call handball a "minor sport" and baseball a major one.
Baseball is a popular sport in the USA, which is a huge country hence a big league, but that says absolutely nothing about the popularity of the sport in Canada, let alone the popularity of handball in Sweden.
Its not ignorant garbage, in no way is a Swedish handball or floorball league anywhere near the NFL or MLB when it comes to popularity and value ($). Canada feeds just as many of these minor sports as Sweden (like curling and lacrosse), but feeds into much more major sports. That's what I am trying to say. Its not an insult to call Floorball or Handball as minor league sport in comparison to MLB, NFL, or NBA.
Except it actually is ignorant garbage.
You have absolutely no idea of what sports get or do not get coverage on Swedish television, attract crowds or generate income, you are just making **** up in an attempt to look slightly less like an idiot.
Fortunately, there are plenty of knowledgeable people here who can call you out for it.
For long Swedish hockey development was mostly about to create good overall players who could defend effectively and fit in to a defensive minded system. The same goes for football/soccer development. But later on the attitude towards individual skill have changed and we now see more individually skilled players in both football and hockey coming from Sweden. They do however still have that overall skill-set and a tendency to be seen as more of a team player. That goes for both football and hockey, the two major sports here in Sweden.
When Swedish sports where a thing for amateurs a lot of individual talent blossomed. But then when it become more serious and the leagues in both hockey and football became more professionalized in the late 70´s early 80´s the defensive systems who focused only on not losing became the standard. And it have been like that since then even do it start to change a little now. There was how ever a big shift in how to produce individual talent in both the major sports. First in football when a training program called "Vän med bollen" introduced by former nation coach in football Laban Arnesson in the 80´s who focused on technical skills with the football rather then just being good tactically.
Similar initiatives have been taken during the 90´s in ice hockey to be able to produce more skilled hockey players. And we start to see the results of it now.
Handball is also quite big and have a lot of followers and the national team have been very successful in the past and hopefully will bounce back to the top once again.
Floorball was created as a cheap alternative to hockey and bandy have grown in popularity since it was created, but I guess it have reached it´s limit. A lot of people play it but few follow it as fans and national team members are far from being famous.
But the key to Swedish success in team sports have always been having a strong organization mixed with a couple elite talented individuals who break the pattern. That the average height in Sweden (as with the rest of Scandinavia) is top of the world also help a lot for producing good athletes. Don't now how reliable or controversial IQ-tests are but Scandinavia, to my knowledge, use to be high on those lists as well. So if the natural elements are there then a good organization with a good system will create good players or at least a kind of players who can be effective in a lot different ways.
Last edited by johnny_rudeboy: 05-01-2012 at 05:59 AM.
So, after reading the first 2 pages I think I get the point. Sweden is putting out a better number of players per capita. However, some Canadians on here don't like that too much and resort with putting up actual numbers of players. The whole point was being about the population. Sweden is doing awesome with the amount of people they have. I have no idea why the Canadians on here are getting all arrogant and uptight.
Sidenote, since OP was asking about Norway not developing players.
Hardly enough rinks here, the sport has previously been branded as "tacky/hick" and is sometimes regarded as overly violent.
In addition, near the major cities we also have a direct rival to hockey in Bandy.
Soccer and handball reign supreme here.
We have Zuccarello though! Has to count for something..
Seriously though, Zuccarello has ben a positive boost for the sport and hopefully more teams in the national league (GET) will follow one teams decision to build an NHL sized arena. I think turning the game to emulate NA is the right way to go if we want more norwegian NHLers.
About Denmark not developing proper players, i think it has something to do with the danish language. It sounds like swedish but like they have a hot potato in their mouth when they talk. Maybe this is why the playors dont understand each other on the ice and the playors dont understand what da hell the coach is saying
