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Promises of Action Highlight Women's Hockey Session at World Hockey Summit
by Bruce Peter on Aug 27, 2010 10:34 AM EDT
2 comments
Throughout the week, confrontation has been the method most commonly used to initiate serious discussion about issues surrounding the game. On Thursday morning, no such confrontation was necessary, as plans of action were proposed, and some of those plans were tentatively put into action. The reason there was no confrontation on the issue of the future of women's hockey is that the hockey world had already had that moment six months earlier. When International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge threatened to pull women's hockey from future Olympics if the tournament didn't become more competitive, all sorts of alarm bells were sounded. Nevermind the fact that the idea of pulling women's hockey simply because the same four nations win all the medals is ridiculous, since it's happened in other Olympic events for decades. But as a hockey community, we're always looking at ways to improve, and clearly the women's game is one in which several federations need a leg up, or failing that, a swift kick in the crotch.
Growing the women's game is really about growing the game, period. Sure, there are legitimate societal barriers to having women play the sport throughout the world, but the easiest way to fix that is to simply not give any time of day to the people who subscribe to those viewpoints. A strong push from above, from the IIHF and it's member nations (meaning the national federations), can start to overcome some of those barriers. There will be countries that won't follow along (although one day hopefully we will see a women's Emirati hockey team), but surely there is no excuse for long standing European nations to accept staggeringly low participation rates from women. So, what must be done to grow the game amongst women? In some cases, it's not as simple as shortening some men's practice times to provide for women's teams.
SBN Hockey does Mock NHL Expansion
Vote for which cities you think should get new NHL teams. I have a feeling the two Canadian choices will win in the end, but we'll see. No European cities, shockingly. :)
Different Cultures
by Bruce Peter on Aug 26, 2010 8:00 AM EDT
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It's a terminology Canadians are pretty used to dealing with, but if IIHF President Rene Fasel is to be believed, what we're seeing being aired out at the World Hockey Summit is a difference of hockey cultures.
"My message is to North America: you’re not alone in the world. Europe exists on the other side of the ocean. We need to work together: the NHL, the leagues, the clubs, the federations. It’s not money that runs us [at the IIHF]. It’s passion."
"There are 500 million people in the European community, different languages, different cultures, different view of sport. It's different," said Fasel. "Let us do the job in Europe and in the end let us come together. Keep our identity in Europe, you keep your identity here." - Courtesy of Yahoo UK
While the IIHF is trying to play up the purity of their pursuit, it's important to keep in mind the thought process that brings these kinds of statements to the forefront. The IIHF runs a lot of hockey tournaments that don't make any money. In fact, they're money sinkholes. How much money is the IIHF losing by hosting 4 different world championship tournaments devoted to women's hockey at the senior level next year? They have to pay for use of the facilities, the referees, various event staff, all to generate interest in the sport and try and give an avenue for competition that wouldn't otherwise see it. So when Brian Burke spouts off on the little money the top players get for participating in the men's World Championships, you get an idea as to why that is:
"I think they got $1,000 for 22 days of work last year. They got one business-class ticket to bring over their wife, or a parent, or a brother – they didn't bring their families over unless they reached into their own pockets and paid for it. These guys are volunteers. Everyone makes money off of these tournaments except the players."
The World Championships subsidize a lot of events that wouldn't otherwise occur. The hosts get the money, distribute half the profits to the various national federations, and the IIHF uses the money to help fund the next year of tournament hockey, and there's a heck of a lot of those out there.
We don't know exactly what the IIHF's books are like. That investigation hasn't yet happened. We aren't even sure what kind of salary "The Dentist", Rene Fasel, draws. Clearly, there is a mandate by the IIHF to grow the game. We're just unsure how well of a job they're doing, and if there current strategy is the best method for doing so.
European hockey leagues are built to climax with international competitions. Top players are expected to participate in these events, as they draw more attention than the domestic leagues do. The NHL is on a different model, and North American hockey can largely survive without seeing best on best international competition every year. But there's certainly a balance out there that can be found, both in club play and international tournaments, to ensure hockey can gain a prominent place in the global sports scene.
European Power Play
by Bruce Peter on Aug 25, 2010 12:20 AM EDT
1 comment
Mid-way through the first full day of sessions at the World Hockey Summit, the IIHF and European national federations got their first shots in. With IIHF President Rene Fasel getting a chance to address the summit, and a panel on Junior Development in the World heavy on European representation following up, the opportunity to air long standing grievances on Canadian soil was there for the taking, and the other side of the Atlantic didn't hesitate to do so. After a very candid question and answer period with Fasel, a series of presentations by Slava Lener of the Czech Ice Hockey Association and Murray Costello (a Canadian) of the IIHF painted a dark picture of European development going forward if things don't change in Canadian junior hockey. It was a lot for people to take in, but it's not an unfamiliar refrain.
Czech hockey is on the decline, of that there is no doubt. James Mirtle of The Globe & Mail was able to get some great quotes from Lener on the issue:
"We’ve lost a lot of players," Lener said. "Ten years ago, we had 80,000 [junior] players, now we’ve got only 30,000."
I don't have the full numbers to map the decline at this point, but the numbers appear reflective of what has been reported in the IIHF Survey of Players as of 2009, which points to the Czech Republic having the 3rd highest amount of registered hockey players in the world, but of their 97,000+ players, 62,000 are listed as senior males. The Czech Republic are today producing fewer new players than Russia, Sweden, and Finland. You wouldn't know it at the CHL Import Draft however, as Czechs continue to lead the charge in players being selected to come and play for Canadian and American major junior teams, with 167 players being selected over the past 7 years, double that of Russia who placed second. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic has slipped to a distant sixth in terms of junior hockey success at IIHF tournaments, narrowly ahead of the much smaller Slovakia and Switzerland.
The Czechs cause was backed up by Costello, who argued largely in favour of keeping national identity strong in international hockey. Costello's presentation isn't being well quoted, but from a series of tweets @wldhockeysummit, it could be gathered that he believed that the differing styles of player produced by different nations is one of the reasons that makes international competition so compelling. In his estimation, the CHL tries to teach these imports to play a Canadian style of game, and dilutes the overall appeal of international competition in the process. It was a more an appeal to the romantic side of the game, while Lener and his fellow national federation heads (Tommy Boustedt for Sweden and Jan Filc of Slovakia) went with a more brutal approach.
WHS Panels put spotlight on Youth and Junior Hockey
by Bruce Peter on Aug 24, 2010 8:16 AM EDT
0 comments
After some spirited discussion last night at the Hockey Hall of Fame Hot Stove sessions, the World Hockey Summit will switch their focus to half-day long panel discussions on Skill Development at the Youth Hockey level and then to the Junior ranks today. When Hockey Canada had their big public review back in 1999, developing skill at the youth hockey level was considered the prime focus of the event, and judging by the current panel, they will focus on those accomplishments made in North America. Not a single European representative will be present at the first panel, which is quite curious, since there are definitely some countries that are struggling in this regard. Uwe Krupp, speaking last night at the Hot Stove Session on "The State of the Game", was the first panelist that addressed the financial drawbacks of getting more players to take up the sport. That won't likely be brought up tomorrow, as the issue of purely growing participation has it's own half-day session scheduled for Thrusday. How exactly this panel will play out with the non-Canadian and American representatives at the WHS will be interesting.
It hasn't been revealed what specifically will be addressed in this panel, but amongst the hot button issues in youth hockey in Canada is the age at which body contact is introduced. To that end, there are two doctors who will be speaking at the panel, one of whom is the IIHF's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Mark Aubry. Dr. Aubry has studied extensively on the issues of concussion in sport, and it's hard to imagine his opinion on the proper way to teach body contact won't be sought. When Damien Cox ripped the summit in an article for the Toronto Star yesterday, he specifically cited player safety issues as one of the topics that wouldn't be addressed.
Head shots, we’d all agree, were the No. 1 topic of discussion in hockey at many levels all of last season. Yet no mention of them will darken the doors of this summit, or the issue of concussions, although both could conceivably come up during a general discussion on player safety.
Safe to say that Cox didn't have much expectations for this panel, or else didn't bother reading up on the issues up for discussion. I suppose he covered his ass a bit with that last statement.
Hockey is emerging in the country. The number of players has grown to almost 600, who bring the three busy rinks to their limit even if other ice sports are almost inexistent. It’s maybe not a huge number, but more than China, Croatia, and South Africa. And consider the small population. For each 512 inhabitants you have one registered hockey player in Iceland. The "hockey density" is not as good as in Canada (67) or Finland (85), but still better than in Slovakia (630), the U.S. (659), Norway (730) and many other top-division countries. Iceland is the seventh-most hockey-crazy country in the world if you want to go according to players-per-capita figures. And the enthusiastic hockey family in Iceland gets more and more a feeling of growth.
The IIHF takes a look at hockey's rapid growth in the small country of Iceland. Of course, I always think of the ludicrous plotline that saw Team Iceland take on the Mighty Ducks in D2 when I think of Icelandic hockey. I always thought it was funny, but I never even realized that there actually was no national teams in Iceland when that movie came out.
I also picture those players singing the national anthem in the article as singing some post-modern, hauntingly epic Sigur Ros type song.
Hot Stove Topics kick off World Hockey Summit
by Bruce Peter on Aug 23, 2010 8:01 AM EDT
2 comments
Well, it's upon us. The World Hockey Summit at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Ontario starts tonight and runs through Wednesday. They've brought in many of the leaders of the hockey world (and snubbed guys like Paul Kelly of College Hockey Inc.) to try and map out a future for the game over the next four years and beyond. The real meat of the discussion will begin tomorrow and continue Wednesday with sessions on each of the following topics:
- Player Skill Development Initiatives
- Junior Development in the World
- Vancouver 2010 Evaluation
- Establishing a Long-Term Global Event Agenda
- Women's Hockey after Vancouver 2010
- Growing Participation in Hockey
I'll touch on these topics in a post later tonight, but first off there will be a hot stove session at the HHOF tonight, with four half-hour sessions devoted to some more specific issues. I'm going to give some space for those discussion topics here.
1. Contracts and Transfers
Moderator: Bob McKenzie, TSN Panelists: Rene Fasel, IIHF President; Bill Daly, NHL Vice-President; Vyacheslav Fetisov, KHL Chairman; Roman Stoykewych, NHLPA Sr. Legal Counsel
Contract and transfer disputes, mainly between the National Hockey League and the Kontinental Hockey League, have made main headlines since the Radulov -case. This prompted the IIHF to rewrite its transfer regulations in 2009 to prevent such cases. The absence of a collective transfer agreement between the NHL and the IIHF affiliated leagues creates many challenges for the player movement process at the senior levels of the game. - World Hockey Summit Webpage
This is the star issue of the night for sure. There has been progress made on the transfer front this year... Sweden and Finland each signed transfer agreements with the NHL for their leagues. But there hasn't been any substantial discussion between the KHL and NHL for a while, just a kind of truce established to not poach each other's players while under contract. KHL teams currently get no compensation for developing players for the NHL, and they honestly don't seem to mind the current situation. However, this is clearly an issue for the players themselves. We're seeing more and more Russian junior players try their hands in the Canadian Hockey League to escape their KHL teams in order to facilitate a NHL career. For the players that decide not to leave Russia at age 16 or 17, they have limited options, as often their KHL contracts aren't up for re-negotiation until they hit their 20s. Stoykewych's presence is probably the key one here... while Daly and Fetisov might play nice, Stoykewych's constituency is the one with the most to lose from the current situation. I don't expect Fasel to pick a side in this debate, though this would turn interesting if he did.
Mannheim fans embrace European Trophy, others not so much
by Bruce Peter on Aug 19, 2010 2:36 PM EDT
0 comments
As hockey fans, we all know that while we enjoy seeing the game, there's always restraint for embracing the pre-season. The European Trophy may be an unique concept, something tangible to play for before the regular season starts, but it's still pre-season hockey. But don't tell that to the fans that came out Wednesday night to see Alder Mannheim host HIFK Helsinki. All 10,157 of them.
German fans really seem to be embracing the conept. Attendance has been pretty mediocre in Finland and Sweden, though some of that is due to the size of the arenas they're playing in. Still, 3000 fans per game was considered very good in the opening week. Turku, who drew audiences of over 10,000 for their title run last spring, has been hovering around 2000 fans per game after completing their home schedule last night. So it's not a matter of whether the teams are any good, or whether there is a market there, it's how fans view this tournament.
In Bern, the club is not using the massive PostFinance Arena, but the smaller Schoren Arena outside the city, which seats less than a thousand (though has standing room to bring capacity over 4000). They drew just 520 for last night's game against Malmo. This is from the fanbase that draws over 16,000 on average during the NLA season, leading Europe. Surely the alternate site idea will be looked at more closely in the future... by holding the event there, they are essentially telling their fans the tournament is second rate. Meanwhile, Tesla Arena in Prague must have been a quiet place for Sparta Praha's 5-1 win over Farjestads BK, as only 1423 people filed through the gates of the over 14,000 seat arena.
It's the first run of the tournament, and so the negative has to be taken with a grain of salt. It's possible this event can generate more interest once they've done a once-through and figure out what works and what doesn't. But clearly, German fans continue to show a strong affinity for their teams. For European hockey to become big business, Germany will have to become one of the prime focus areas. Hopefully for this tournament's sake, both Mannheim and Berlin make the Salute Invitational playoffs in Salzburg. They can guarantee a lot of fan support that way.
Attendance stats can be looked at here.
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