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2023 Womens Worlds and U18 Women’s Worlds
- Thread starter Lindsay
- Start date
TovarishchLisa
(Comrade Fox)
Czechs played well til they ran out of gas. The top of their lineup (esp up top) is really, really good and can hang with anyone; their depth is the issue.
Unrelated, but the fourth tier Worlds ended today; former Maine Black Bear Liga Miljone won best forward as Latvia pipped Spain for gold in Mexico. Miljone finished with seven goals (three two goal games, with only Taiwan able to hold her to one) and one assist.
Watched most of the USA's first two preliminary games which, as is the usual, saw them trounce Japan and then Switzerland by 7-1 and 9-1 scores respectfully. Not real exciting, due to the talent discrepancy in both games, but fun to watch nonetheless. Too early to draw any conclusions, but I very much liked what I saw in these two preliminary games.
https://teamusa.usahockey.com/2023womensworlds
https://teamusa.usahockey.com/2023womensworlds
It would be cool if Nhlnetwork showed one non Canada US game each day. That’s where the more compelling games are for sure, but I also like watching CAN and US because I’m familiar with the players.
US seems to be getting better each shift, that Janecke, Bilka, Heise line is fun to watch. Canada is a well oiled machine.
I think I heard Pounder say Abbey Murphy is facing a disciplinary hearing for her hit on the Swiss player (that hit is not even legal in men’s hockey) so we’ll see what comes of that.
Czechia did a great job hanging in there until they ran out of gas like Lisa said. Mlynkova from UVM standing out again.
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The separation of the US/Canada vrs rest-of-the-world looks to be getting even wider. This is starting to become a joke, and I am afraid if there can't be a way to find some kind of parity this will hurt the women's game going forward. Some serious changes need to be made. The US/Canada programs are so much more well funded and supported vrs what everyone else can do that it might not even make sense to have a worlds going forward in the current format. I think there was some hope at one time with Sweden once knocking off the US a while back and Finland making some noise a few years ago but now they both are not competitive they have been relegated to group B (?). No one else can be competitive with US/Canada. I'd be for allowing the US and Canada to field two teams (a US-East/West and Canada East/West or something) or dropping the residency requirements to play in-country or allow heritage players for the non-US/Canada teams or something. The rest-of-the-world needs some serious help to have this tournament be more than just a skills competition for the north american teams, a meaningless Canada-US game in round-robin and then only a single game of note with the inevitable US-Canada championship game. Just have them play a 7 game series and the rest of the world play for a bronze in their own format could work too.
Desbiens has a 20-0 record in Olympic and World Championship play. Clearly, she is the best goalie to ever play for the Canadian women's team. I am very concerned whether there is a succession plan in place for when she retires. Canada's number 2 backup goalie looks shaky and so it will remain to be seen who can fill the very large shoes (skates) of Desbiens when she retires. She is not going to play forever, and so the Canadian women's program would be best to develop a succession plan. ;
Canada's PP has been looking bad lately. Need to fix.
Canada's PP has been looking bad lately. Need to fix.
Timothy A
Let's go RED!
And to think the canadian's flunked her out of a camp prior to this run is really sad. They don't deserve her. I would think she has a lot of good years left in her yet.
In response to Cornholio, hopefully a pro league will fix some it at some point but valid points although I wouldn’t call the tourney a joke.
It’s been great to watch Czechia rise but they are not likely to upset the big 2.
it’s also been great to see the unmistakable change in coverage from TSN and more articles etc. with this being in Brampton I have no doubt it will fuel a boom in girls hockey in southern Ontario.
At the end of the day I think this tournament is supposed to grow hockey world wide and it does that even if the tourney itself is non competitive for 1 and 2. Another marketing option would be to air the games between the other countries. There’s great games there.
It’s been great to watch Czechia rise but they are not likely to upset the big 2.
it’s also been great to see the unmistakable change in coverage from TSN and more articles etc. with this being in Brampton I have no doubt it will fuel a boom in girls hockey in southern Ontario.
At the end of the day I think this tournament is supposed to grow hockey world wide and it does that even if the tourney itself is non competitive for 1 and 2. Another marketing option would be to air the games between the other countries. There’s great games there.
I think the Canadians are good at developing players too. Nurse, Clark, Stacey have all gotten so much better post grad (they were good to start with, but the improvement is impressive). I’m not worried about Canada’s goalie situation.
I should say the way I think a pro league would improve upon things is it would give us a chance to watch Players of Knigjt and Poulin caliber play more competitive games and it would give an elite player like Alina Muller a chance to actually win now and again, to show us what she could do if she had teammates and federation support like what Poulin and Knight have.
The above assumes their pro league actually exists at some point and has a tv contract.
Yes, Finland beat Canada and made the final in 2019. As for moving into group B, it looks as though Finland lost out to Japan in 2022 in their 5th-place game. Sweden is in group B, though, since about 2012. It does look like Finland is strong, however, and one of their players (Petra Nieminen) said they were trying to prove they should be in group A in some of their games.
Scott_TG
Well-known member
We're waiting on this supposed PWHPA league backed by Dodgers owner Mark Walter and Billie Jean King that is supposed to launch this year. Speculation is the announcement will come in Brampton timed at the end of the tournament but I remember hearing "tune in next week" during the PWPHA streams in March
Timothy A
Let's go RED!
Confucius says.....that's life sometimes.
https://scroll.in/field/1001169/spo...particular-disciplines-at-the-summer-olympics
I've read more or less the same post at different times over the last 25 years, and I don't see any sign of the competition more or less going away.
An accurate way to summarize the history is the gap between the winner and the 4th-5th best team has been consistently large and stable over time. You've had brief spells of Sweden being very good in 2006 and Finland being very good in 2019, and some fluctuation in US-Canada performance, like the US underachieving badly in 2006, but all of that is noise in the long-term trends. Meanwhile, you have more movement between 3rd-6th or so as Czechia or Japan fund more and Finland or Sweden fund less. And then Russia dopes massively in Sochi and still can't win bronze, LOL, and is now a pariah state, sigh.
So that is what it is, but you have other bigger-revenue competitions with such poor parity that people tolerate, like dominance of a single team or two in European domestic football leagues.
Interesting question what the impact of better pro hockey would be. I think growth of NCAA D-I hockey circa 2000 is a good comparison. Initially, it was a relative boost to Sweden and Finland, because I don't think Sweden wins silver in 2006 if Rooth and Holst hadn't had the chance to play at UMD. But longer-term, D-I opportunities for Europeans hasn't closed the US-Canada gap, as in the longer run a more attractive NCAA D-I hockey experience has boosted the player pool in US and Canada.
Timothy A
Let's go RED!
A quick lunchtime take: U18 Commits per school Canadian - US
WI 3-3
MN 2-3
Colgate 5-0
Muzzy U 2-2
Cornell 1-3
St. Thomas 0-3
NE - 1-2
Princeton 1-2
Clarkson 2-0
BC 0-2
BU 1-0
UMD 1-0
UConn 1-0
PSU 1-0
Thoughts....Frosty/Mr. Freeze going Canadian, interesting. Colgate must hate America (we already knew Clarkson did). At any rate they are positioning themselves for a long run in the 4 hole. It will be interesting to see if JJ can keep the pipeline heading towards St. Thomas the further his influence gets away from coaching that team. Looks like one team from Bawstin can recruit Canadians.
WI 3-3
MN 2-3
Colgate 5-0
Muzzy U 2-2
Cornell 1-3
St. Thomas 0-3
NE - 1-2
Princeton 1-2
Clarkson 2-0
BC 0-2
BU 1-0
UMD 1-0
UConn 1-0
PSU 1-0
Thoughts....Frosty/Mr. Freeze going Canadian, interesting. Colgate must hate America (we already knew Clarkson did). At any rate they are positioning themselves for a long run in the 4 hole. It will be interesting to see if JJ can keep the pipeline heading towards St. Thomas the further his influence gets away from coaching that team. Looks like one team from Bawstin can recruit Canadians.
TovarishchLisa
(Comrade Fox)
I feel like people complaining about lack of parity right now should keep in mind Russia. Russia has been extremely competitive at the youth levels (beat Canada in 2017 at the U18s, took Canada to OT in both the 2019 semi and 2020 groups, juuuust lost 1-0 to the US in the groups in 2020)...then obviously 2021 was cancelled and 2022 the fed got banned. Those players would hypothetically be breaking through now for a team that's been a Pool A staple for years. (And remember, they were badly crippled at the last Olympics due to COVID that, among others, cost them Olga Sosina, who is very, very good.) Makes me wonder if part of why the IIHF wants Russia back ASAP is to have another competitive team in the women's game, because at least with the men Russia has a couple countries in Belarus and Kazakhstan that don't hate them and are competitive teams. That's not the case with the women, whose main competition this year has been getting flattened by Belarusian, Kazakh, and Russian youth teams because the gap between them and Kazakhstan is so much wider on the women's side and Belarus flat doesn't have a team.
I think the Czechs are getting there...their top end can absolutely hang, they just don't have the depth (you can tell it in their TOI distribution). That's easier said than done though. Sweden has a promising generation coming through too if this year's U18s are to be believed though who knows how much home ice helped.
ARM
Fan of chipmunk-like mascots.
Great information in this post; thanks for sharing it!
Looking back quite a ways, it seems like the 3rd best program in the world at any level is often the team that has the most dominant goaltender. Sweden, Finland, Switzerland -- give them somebody in net who will be a Patty Kazmaier finalist at some point and the coaching staffs are savvy enough to figure out how to score a couple goals against the non-North American teams and win bronze.