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World Cup

I don't think it's softness. It's just history. We're a relatively new country and have never been invaded.

Our biggest hostility with a neighbouring country is the softwood lumber dispute with the US
Well as "Canada" we have not been invaded by a foreign country but we were invaded by the Fenians after Confederation. Before Confederation the US Colonist invaded Quebec and of course in the War of 1812 we were invaded by the yanks.
 
Well as "Canada" we have not been invaded by a foreign country but we were invaded by the Fenians after Confederation. Before Confederation the US Colonist invaded Quebec and of course in the War of 1812 we were invaded by the yanks.

200 years is a long time though.

Europe is only a few generations removed from a complete apocalypse and have centuries of bad blood built up.

Which makes it stupider to tell them to forget about that, join forces try to beat team Canada and team CanaMerica junior.
 
The games have been exciting, competitive and compelling though. It's been a pretty successful tournament so far IMO and I didn't have much excitement at all going in.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just selfish for wanting to see good hockey. How dare I?

Wanting to see good hockey over allowing people from other nations worthy of playing such as the Swiss or Slovaks or Danes see their teams compete?

Ya, nothing selfish there. Enjoy your amazing hockey. Who cares about europeans and their national teams anyways?

I'm off to go hunt some elephants in Africa because their ivory gives me joy.
 
200 years is a long time though.

Europe is only a few generations removed from a complete apocalypse and have centuries of bad blood built up.

Which makes it stupider to tell them to forget about that, join forces try to beat team Canada and team CanaMerica junior.

silliness.

they played and cheered as hard for czechoslocavia as they do for czech or slovak.

they played and cheered as hard for cccp as they do for khazakstan or belarus.

it really doesn't matter.
 
btw why does great britain get to cheat at the olympics and have a shitload of countries competing as one team?
 
Wanting to see good hockey over allowing people from other nations worthy of playing such as the Swiss or Slovaks or Danes see their teams compete?

Ya, nothing selfish there. Enjoy your amazing hockey. Who cares about europeans and their national teams anyways?

I'm off to go hunt some elephants in Africa because their ivory gives me joy.

You got me, I'm just a terrible person.
 
hockey is all about 16-0 games?

wat.
The ideal solution is for the nhl to continue to do this tournament so you can enjoy this format since you like it so much and continue to send nhl players to the Olympics which helps grow the game, and give millions of people a format they enjoy better than the world cup.

See? Everybody wins.

Unfortunately I have a feeling Bettman is seeing all the loonies he can make every 4 years from holding this in toronto and thinking about squashing the olympics as a alternative.

The ideal solution is there though. It shouldn't be a either or thing, this should be a tournament that adds to the international hockey experience, not subtracts from it.
 
I don't hear people around the water cooler talking short track. But ask any Canadian who scored the game winner of the Canada USA gold medal final and I'm betting you 75 percent of Canadians can name Crosby and where they were that day.

I doubt any 99 percent of Canadians can even name someone on the curling team, bobsled team, short track team, figure skating(individual or team) or even the skiers who won the first golds for Canada on home soil.

But people will recall the golden goal. Because people watched that.

Or they saw a million replays of it.

My only point is that this tournament has been excellent hockey, and if someone isn't watching it, for whatever reason, they're missing out.
 
btw why does great britain get to cheat at the olympics and have a shitload of countries competing as one team?

They don't. They are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Whether you are born in Belfast, Glasgow, Inverness, Londonderry, Cardiff, Newcastle, London, or Manchester you carry the same passport as other British people.

It's one country.
 
They don't. They are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Whether you are born in Belfast, Glasgow, Inverness, Londonderry, Cardiff, Newcastle, London, or Manchester you carry the same passport as other British people.

It's one country.

And if you were born in Londonderry, you would never call it that.
 
They don't. They are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Whether you are born in Belfast, Glasgow, Inverness, Londonderry, Cardiff, Newcastle, London, or Manchester you carry the same passport as other British people.

It's one country.

so then why do they create gimmick Welsh Irish and Scottish teams for the world cup?

how can fans of countries with such antagonistic histories possibly cheer for both?
 
Jesus...is anyone else reading the stuff coming out of Team USA this morning?

The more they speak, the more baffled you are that Lombardi & Tortorella managed to get their names engraved on the Stanley Cup.
 
so then why do they create gimmick Welsh Irish and Scottish teams for the world cup?

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).

how can fans of countries with such antagonistic histories possibly cheer for both?

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.
 
In Scotland they have a saying when asked who they want to win, answer "anyone but England". Many are also annoyed when Andy Murray is introduced as British.
 
In Scotland they have a saying when asked who they want to win, answer "anyone but England". Many are also annoyed when Andy Murray is introduced as British.

To which I always respond, Andy Murray is both Scottish and British. It's like many Quebecers (thankfully my girlfriend was never like this) saying that they are only Quebecois(e). Well no, you are Quebecois(e) and Canadian.

Just as I am an Ontarian and a Canadian. You can be proud of the region or the country that you come from (or in this case, British home nation), but you are still Canadian/British. Which passport do you have to use at the airport?

Scotland hasn't been an independent nation since 1707 and they've shared a monarch with England/the UK since 1603. I love Scotland, it's distinct from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, they have their own identity in many respects, like most people of UK descent, I have Scottish blood in my family lineage, but they're still British.

And I kind of get a laugh that a place like Glasgow is so vehemently anti-British compared to most of the rest of Scotland, and identify as Scottish so much, when the truth is that many of them are actually ethnically Irish.
 
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