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World Cup

Habitants87 said:
Is personal entertainment for Canadian hockey fans( I doubt Americans are all that impressed) more important than growing the game of hockey globally?

If it is, then yes, incredibly petty of me.
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International sports are not life and death.... its entertainment, thats it.
 
You don't need to convince me. I'm just pointing out they're not all overjoyed about being pooled together all the time.
 
CH1 said:
That was my point earlier. I know Canada is the best. Even if they lost, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

It was more dramatic all those years ago when we were insecure and worried that we had lost our way with our national game.
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agreed
 
Aberdeen said:
You don't need to convince me. I'm just pointing out they're not all overjoyed about being pooled together all the time.
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Oh, I know that someone like you that has lived in the UK for many years knows. And for someone like me whose family comes from every single home nation at some point in my lineage, and who is only a third-generation Canadian, I am aware of the unique differences and identities between the people. Hell, you only need to go over the hill to the next village in many cases to find major differences.

But the British case is kind of unique in the world of international sports. The Basque Countries and Catalonia don't get to submit their own football teams independent from that of Spain, although in the case of the latter they could probably actually win the World Cup. :lol
 
BKerr said:
International sports are not life and death.... its entertainment, thats it.
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You're absolutely right: they're not life and death. But I also think you can be empathetic to people with quality national sides who feel excluded or offended that they were not able to participate in this tournament and were forced into a bizarre random amalgamation with other countries, some of whom they have historical enmity or rivalries with.
 
Habitants87 said:
Easy. 27 million Canadians watched some part of the final in 2010, and you can bet your last dollar they weren't watching curling or bobsleding before hockey came on.

Viewership is a perfect way to judge events. If people aren't watching they don't care. This is canada. If the olympics had hockey on in the middle of July at 3 in the morning half the country would still find a way to watch it.
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actually a ton of ppl were watching curling
I believe very exciting game - Canada choked
 
Well all of Team Europe agreed to play and have formed one of the best, most cohesive teams in the tournament. They aren't feeling bad for themselves, so I am not sure why we should feel bad for them.
 
JaysCyYoung said:
Are you talking about the women's team in 2010? Yeah, they choked. Should have had fifteen golds in Vancouver.
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yep
I think it was on right before the gold medal hockey game

if memory serves me Bernard had two chances to win that and they blew them both
 
leafman101 said:
Well all of Team Europe agreed to play and have formed one of the best, most cohesive teams in the tournament. They aren't feeling bad for themselves, so I am not sure why we should feel bad for them.
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Krueger is a really good coach who has them playing greater than the collective sum of their talent. He's succeeded at everything he's attempted in sports.

The Oilers management is unbelievably incompetent to have gotten rid of him when all of their young players showed improvement during his single season in charge.
 
JaysCyYoung said:
Because the British home nations were playing international matches four decades before internationals became a thing and they represent a unique and anachronistic component of international football.

England and Scotland played the first international match against one another in 1872 I think. You didn't start seeing international matches against other nations until the 1910s and British participation in the World Cup didn't even occur until the 1950 tournament because they didn't recognize FIFA's authority over internationals until that point.

The only other competition in which you see that arrangement is in the Commonwealth Games and the Rugby World Cup, for similar reasons. They compete as Great Britain in Olympic football and rugby competition, for instance. Football and rugby are really the only exception to the rule that exists, but they do so for historic reasons (inventors of the sport who played domestically far longer than other nations and wished to create inter-British competition).



When Rory McIlroy has to choose a country to represent at the Olympics for golf, he only gets to choose Ireland or Great Britain. He doesn't get to choose Northern Ireland as an option. George Best got to play for Northern Ireland in football because of the precedent.
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so the only answer is "well they've done it for a long time"?
 
zeke said:
so the only answer is "well they've done it for a long time"?
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They were doing it for decades literally before anyone else was even playing with national sides, yeah. The precedent was set a LONG time ago. They aren't going back now, nor would anyone accept it.
 
That was my point earlier. I know Canada is the best. Even if they lost, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
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yep. i still find it weird that people take much joy out of us thrashing clearly inferior teams at any level. no other team comes close to canada. it's every bit as big a gap as with US hoops.

the only difference is that it's easy for a crappy hockey team with a hot goalie to batten down the hatches and be "competitive".
 
JaysCyYoung said:
They were doing it for decades literally before anyone else was even playing with national sides, yeah. The precedent was set a LONG time ago. They aren't going back now, nor would anyone accept it.
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So nothing to do with any of these nationalistic/pride/etc fake arguments you guys have been spouting then?
 
zeke said:
So nothing to do with any of these nationalistic/pride/etc fake arguments you guys have been spouting then?
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What don't you understand? They are all British citizens that have clearly distinctive identities and, in the case of Scotland, were independent for hundreds of years in the historical record. They've always had family rivalries with one another.

I don't get what you're not getting here.
 
It's quite bizarre. There are very few stubborn enough to maintain this argument after seeing how successful and brilliant this tournament has been. I'm surprised there are any naysayers left to be honest.
 
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