Serious question for you hockey experts

[hifigator]

Over a few days of discussions of the US upset over Canada this past Sunday night, and in light of the 30th anniversary of the "upset of all upsets," some points were made. I openly admit that I was about as far from being a hockey "fan" as possible in 1980. Yet I will NEVER forget watching that game. I don't know how many years later it was that I found out that the game wasn't shown "live." More on that later.

In any case, that was clearly the monumental upset. Aside from the standard National Pride that we all have, there was the East vs. West political battle going on. Furthermore, there was the ideological battle that our guys were really "amateurs" in the truest since of the word, while being an "amateur" in a communist country meant something entirely different. All of that being said, someone made the statement that the Russian err... USSR National team of that generation was at an NHL Stanley CuP winning level. Conversely, the US team was comprised of "All Stars" from the collegiate ranks. I know that the general point is true, and I know we will never be able to definitively answer this question, but was the Soviet team in 1980 really that good? I know they were awesome, but were they really at the level of an NHL Stanley Cup winner? Like I said, I admittedly never followed hockey. Other than the olympics, my exposure was limited to the Atlanta Flames games that Ted Turner showed on the Superstation.


Secondly, what do you think led to the stellar performance of the US team thusfar this year? The play of Miller is the obvious answer, but beyond that, how would you explain a team that had "no chance" stringing together the wins that they have so far? The US is guaranteed no worse than a game for the bronze medal, and if we can win one more, we are guaranteed no worse than a silver. From what all of the talking heads as well as the "experts" on this board said going in, that too seems like a miracle.

I am not trying to draw a direct parallel, but I do think that both questions are valid.

[Boz]

The USSR smoked NHL teams on a regular basis.

[rosslynhoya]

I'm no hockey expert, but I can operate google better than your average chimp apparently:

www.russianhockey.net/USSRvsNHL.htm

Soviet clubs routinely beat NHL teams, and the best of the Soviet Union apparently held its own against All-NHL teams in '79 and '87.

[CTHoya08]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Challenge_Cup

[TBird41]

Feb 24, 2010 23:52:05 GMT -5 rosslynhoya said:

I'm no hockey expert, but I can operate google better than your average chimp apparently:

www.russianhockey.net/USSRvsNHL.htm

Soviet clubs routinely beat NHL teams, and the best of the Soviet Union apparently held its own against All-NHL teams in '79 and '87.

Please do not insult chimpanzees like that. They haven't done anything wrong.

[The Stig]

First question. The Soviet team in 1980 was probably the best hockey team in the world at that time, including professional teams. They had all the talent of an NHL all-star team. If you made a list of best hockey players to never play in the NHL, a lot of players from the 1980 Soviet team would be near the top. A few of the younger players on that team were able to go to the NHL later in their careers and immediately became stars over here. More importantly, they put that talent into a team-oriented system that made the whole better than the sum of its parts.

A few days before the 1980 Olympics, the Soviet team beat the Americans 10-3. Most accounts say that the score made the game look closer than it actually was. Nobody was surprised at the outcome, and pretty much everybody expected the game in the Olympics to go the same way.

However, the US team was better than it's often made out to be. Several of the players on that team went on to have long and successful NHL careers. They were also more than a college all-star team - they had trained and played together for months before the Olympics (today's Olympic teams had one practice together before the Games).

In the game itself, the Americans caught one huge break. Vladislav Tretiak - the invincible Soviet goalie - was sick and had an off game. The first American goal was a shot that Tretiak should have stopped, and the second came off a HUGE mistake by Tretiak. With a few seconds left in the 1st, an American player took a shot from about half ice. Instead of covering it or playing it to the corner, Tretiak let it bounce off him and rebound directly in front of the net. That caught the Soviet defense off guard, and Mark Johnson skated past them, grabbed the puck, and shot it in just before the buzzer. That tied the score at 2-2 and completely changed the game. The Soviet coach was so furious that the pulled Tretiak. Even the American players from that day admit that they probably don't win that game if Tretiak plays well.

Second question: The performance of the US team this year really isn't that stunning. For starters, the US has had the easiest schedule so far. They've only played one game against mostly-NHL opponents. Second, they've held serve against the weaker opponents, which other teams have failed to do. That's what put them in position to take the #1 seed. Third, Miller stood on his head against Canada, while Brodeur laid an egg. But besides that game, the US has simply beaten teams that everybody expected them to beat.

In international hockey there's a major divide between the top 7 teams and the rest. The top 7 (Canada, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, USA) are all NHL-quality teams. Some are better than others, but the gap isn't that huge.

Among NHL-quality teams, upsets are common. Hockey seems to be more upset-prone than other sports. The Caps have the best record in the NHL this year, but they've lost over 1/3 of their games. In the playoffs, it's not uncommon for an 8 seed to knock out a 1 seed, and that's over a seven game series. That tendency is magnified in a single-elimination tournament like the Olympics.

Take a look at the tournament so far. Latvia, Norway, and Switzerland have only a handful of NHL players between them, but they nearly knocked out the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the USA respectively. Now that it's just NHL quality teams, anything could happen. Predicting the Olympic hockey tournament is harder than predicting March Madness.

[The Stig]

Another example of how surprising Olympic hockey can be: Sweden becomes the 4th consecutive defending gold medal team to get knocked out in the quarterfinals.

[hifigator]

Good points all. I understand the nature of hockey being prone to upsets. Much like baseball, the better teams still lose higher percentage of games against "lesser" opponents, unlike basketball and football. I was just trying to put it in perspective and if the US team in '80 was "merely" a college all star team and if Soviets were remotely as good as advertised, then I just don't see how such an upset could occur. But of course, that is why it was the Miracle of Ice, and I will never forget the chills and goosebumps when the final horn sounded.

[The Stig]

As Brooks said in his pre-game speech (the Miracle version is mostly accurate, I think), the Soviets win that game 9 out of 10 times, and most of the time it isn't even close. This was that one other time.

[jgalt]

The other half of the equation is that college hockey in the US is not the same as college basketball in the US. If you are a lock for the NHL you play junior hockey and even if you are an American you go to Canada to do it. I am not saying that the guys on the 1980 team werent excellent players, they were as many of them went on to extremely successful careers in the NHL.

It would be like selecting a team of NCAA Bball players minus anyone who would have gone pro straight out of high school (meaning no john wall, no demarcus cousins) and then making them play an NBA team. Now the chance for an upset is much higher because of the nature of the scoring in hockey but the talent level disparity is similar.

[SFHoya99]

Jgalt, I could have sworn during the US-Canada game, they said that about 2/3 of the current US team and 1/4 of the Canadian team played college hockey (I'm estimating the numbers). Is it really the norm for Americans to go juniors over college?

[nodak89]

Feb 25, 2010 17:41:30 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Jgalt, I could have sworn during the US-Canada game, they said that about 2/3 of the current US team and 1/4 of the Canadian team played college hockey (I'm estimating the numbers). Is it really the norm for Americans to go juniors over college?

There are a lot of kids who play in the USHL before or instead of college.

[CTHoya08]

Feb 25, 2010 17:56:06 GMT -5 nodak89 said:

Feb 25, 2010 17:41:30 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Jgalt, I could have sworn during the US-Canada game, they said that about 2/3 of the current US team and 1/4 of the Canadian team played college hockey (I'm estimating the numbers). Is it really the norm for Americans to go juniors over college?

There are a lot of kids who play in the USHL before or instead of college.

I would imagine this percentage of players going through the juniors instead of college was even higher in 1979-80 than it is now, although I don't know how developed the American junior leagues were, or whether many Americans made it up to the Canadian junior leagues.

[The Stig]

Feb 25, 2010 17:41:30 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Jgalt, I could have sworn during the US-Canada game, they said that about 2/3 of the current US team and 1/4 of the Canadian team played college hockey (I'm estimating the numbers). Is it really the norm for Americans to go juniors over college?

A lot of players do both. It's pretty rare for a kid to go straight from high school to D1 college hockey. Most of them go play juniors for a few years, then go to college.

Most young top-level American players go to high school, often at a dedicated hockey school like Shattuck or USA Hockey's National Talent Development Program in Ann Arbor. These aren't diploma mills, but they are totally centered around hockey.

After that, it's usually off to juniors for a few years. Juniors is for ages 16-20. The USHL is probably the top American league, at least in the Midwest. Most junior leagues are amateur, but Canadian Major Junior is pro. Some kids go to juniors while they're still in high school.

After juniors is when you'd go to D1 college. Some of the kids are recruited out of juniors, others were recruited earlier. Players from Canadian Major Junior aren't eligible for NCAA hockey, but players from other junior leagues are. Interestingly, being drafted by an NHL team doesn't cost a player their amateur status, so they can still play NCAA hockey. Most of the top players in D1 have already been drafted.

A few players go directly from the NCAA to the NHL (some join their NHL team the day after their college team has been eliminated from the NCAA tournament), but most go to the minors for a few years. Since the top players get drafted as soon as they're eligible (age 18), it's extremely rare for a college hockey player to get drafted after their senior year, when you'd expect a college basketball or football player to be drafted.

[thornski]

Also, to give you an idea of how good that Soviet team was, the 1980 Olympic roster included Tretiak in goal (although as Stig rightly points out he got pulled after the first period), Kharlamov and Makarov on O, and Fetisov on D, who were 4 of the 6 members of the IIHF Centennial All-Star Team (the others members being Gretzky and Borje Salming).

One could certainly have some arguments over that list (some might argue Orr, Lemieux, or some others could've been on there)...but certainly those 4 are easily among the best hockey players of all time.

[hifigator]

thornski et al ... thanks. As a relative "outsider" to hockey, I think you have answered my question. The point all along was that in general, it would be almost unfathomable for a "college all-star" team to defeat a Stanley Cup Champion team. One could argue that they would have a better chance against an NHL all-star team, only because of the lack of cohesion and unity. But that only begs the question further. In 1980, in addition to the talent and experience differences between their "amateur" and ours, they had tremendous advantages with respect to familiarity and practice. Someone earlier explained that the US team actually had several months together as opposed to what we have now. I think that point is very well taken. Still, I just can't see such players compiled in a similar manner today having much of a chance against the Russian team of TODAY. And from what I have heard, and from what most have confirmed, the Soviets of 1980 were even better than the Russian team of today ... at least comparitively, if not outright. Again, I was just calling attention to the magnitude of the upset with my first question.

The second question really wasn't very clear. My point was that from what I had heard from all the talking heads -- seemingly experts -- and confirmed by the biggest, or at least the most vocal hockey fans here, this year's US team had "no chance." Granted, we haven't "won" anything yet, but still, I was just trying to put the dynamics of this year's showing thus far in proper perspective.


Ok, here's one more question (only for those of you "qualified" to answer):

If this year's Canada team played the Soviets from 1980 -- abstracting away from any improvements due to equipment, weightraining or the sort (and I know that is impossible, but try your best) -- who do you think would win a medal match? If they played 10 games, how many do you think they would win?

Now, if this year's US team played 1980, what would the record show? My guess is that you would think that this year's team would "dominate" the 1980 team, but I'm not sure what the thoughts are on the other hypothetical contest.

[jgalt]

Feb 25, 2010 22:53:27 GMT -5 hifigator said:

Ok, here's one more question (only for those of you "qualified" to answer):

If this year's Canada team played the Soviets from 1980 -- abstracting away from any improvements due to equipment, weightraining or the sort (and I know that is impossible, but try your best) -- who do you think would win a medal match? If they played 10 games, how many do you think they would win?

Now, if this year's US team played 1980, what would the record show? My guess is that you would think that this year's team would "dominate" the 1980 team, but I'm not sure what the thoughts are on the other hypothetical contest.

Dont know if im qualified to answer since i wasnt born in 1980, but i do watch a lot of hockey. as for an answer: It would be very interesting.

Totally different styles of play, different cultures, etc.

The differences in Goalie styles, training, and equipment would give the edge to the present teams in my mind. But if we did this video game style and base solely on talent i dont know, but the USSR-CAN game would be very entertaining. I think USSR would get the win (though in a best of 7 it would be like 3-4) only because they had played together much more and had tons of chemistry that this canada team doesnt have, out side of the sharks line.

I dont think the USA team would fair as well (though would compete) because i dont think there is enough scoring depth (though it has been very surprising thus far). Only if miller stands on his head would they be able to win big (where have we heard that before).

but i could be completely wrong, what does everyone else think?

[jgalt]

Feb 25, 2010 18:09:11 GMT -5 The Stig said:

Players from Canadian Major Junior aren't eligible for NCAA hockey, but players from other junior leagues are.

Interestingly they are eligible to play college hockey in Canada. And so are people convicted in murder for hire plots, but that is another story...

[thornski]

Hifi -

You pose some very great questions that are of course extremely tough to answer, and of course, that's the whole nature of sports debate.

I'll pose my own thoughts to some of your own responses, but obviously others should feel free to critique what I have to say, cause I'm by no means a huge expert of the 1970-2010 Cold War-esque hockey battles.

1) To start your point, to even add to your point about how miraculous the 1980 victory was, I don't think a lot of people realize how cohesive a unit the USSR national team was. This team was more than the equivalent of the Canadian or the US national team (all-star team) of today. The vast vast majority of the Soviet national team of that era played for CSKA Moscow (the "Red Army team"), so they were already used to playing with each other. Now for the longest time, I always thought that the Red Army Team and the Soviet National team were the same thing. For a lot of practical purposes they were the same thing, but they technically weren't. The Red Army Team (CSKA) was technically a Soviet club team - they were the ones that played a bunch of NHL teams in the 70s. This included the Flyers after the Flyers won 2 Stanley Cups - the Flyers beating the Red Army team is still one of the better moments in their history along with their back-to-back Cups...OK...it's obvious, I'm a huge Flyers fan. CSKA won literally every single club title in the USSR from 1960-1989 except for 5 years. So this was an extremely cohesive unit. It's sort of the equivalent of a hypothetical US sports dictator commanding all the best baseball players over a 30-year period to play for the Yankees - and we then trot that out as our national team (but for a few players). (OK, Now some might argue that in the current baseball structure, that's not that far off, but it's not THAT bad).

2) As how to this year's USA team and Canadian team would perform against the 1980 USSR team, it's obviously very tough to call.

It's very very difficult to call because other than Slava Fetisov, not that many of the star players from that 1980 USSR team ever played in the NHL. Fetisov, along with Orr, Harvey, Coffey, Bourque, etc., is generally regarded as one of the better D of all time. At the same time, although it's very difficult to compare players, many hockey experts place Kharlamov & Makarov in the same league as Gretzky, Howe, Lemieux, etc. as was noted in that IIHF ballot. And finally, Tretiak is extremely well regarded , and might be the best goalie of all time (on par or even ahead of Sawchuk, Roy, Brodeur, etc.).

Because they never played against each other in the NHL other than some of the Summit Series matchups, it's touch to tell how great that Soviet team was compared to the current teams.

3) But it may be easy to think about this way...let's just say Ovechkin, Malkin, Kovalchuk, Datsyuk, Nabokov (forget his game against Canada), etc. never played in the NHL and we had extremely little familiarity with them. We'd remark how absurd that whole team was.

And let's just say that all the players that were currently playing for the US & Canadian national teams were ineligible cause they played professionally. We'd be left with college & junior players. And bear in mind that the US team has advanced SO much in terms of their presence among NHL skaters since 30 years ago.

Don't get me wrong - it's possible that some of the members from all of these teams (Ovechkin/Crosby/Brodeur) may go down as some of the better players of all time - but really those are the only three players I can think of on the current Olympic rosters as being put into that category (in the Tretiak/Gretzky/Kharlamov category). And none are American. And just think that even more of those high-quality players are playing for the other team, and that other team being very unfamiliar to most hockey experts, and you have an idea.

4) As another quote similar to Brooks was reported, as Mark Johnson said - if the US played the USSR 100 times, they'd win 99. The US just won the 1 out of 100 that counted.

[The Stig]

Feb 25, 2010 23:38:00 GMT -5 jgalt said:

Feb 25, 2010 22:53:27 GMT -5 hifigator said:

Ok, here's one more question (only for those of you "qualified" to answer):

If this year's Canada team played the Soviets from 1980 -- abstracting away from any improvements due to equipment, weightraining or the sort (and I know that is impossible, but try your best) -- who do you think would win a medal match? If they played 10 games, how many do you think they would win?

Now, if this year's US team played 1980, what would the record show? My guess is that you would think that this year's team would "dominate" the 1980 team, but I'm not sure what the thoughts are on the other hypothetical contest.

Dont know if im qualified to answer since i wasnt born in 1980, but i do watch a lot of hockey. as for an answer: It would be very interesting.

Totally different styles of play, different cultures, etc.

The differences in Goalie styles, training, and equipment would give the edge to the present teams in my mind. But if we did this video game style and base solely on talent i dont know, but the USSR-CAN game would be very entertaining. I think USSR would get the win (though in a best of 7 it would be like 3-4) only because they had played together much more and had tons of chemistry that this canada team doesnt have, out side of the sharks line.

I dont think the USA team would fair as well (though would compete) because i dont think there is enough scoring depth (though it has been very surprising thus far). Only if miller stands on his head would they be able to win big (where have we heard that before).

but i could be completely wrong, what does everyone else think?

I think that's pretty accurate, given your caveats about how the game has changed.

Hifi - the best thing to look at for your question would be the 1972 Summit Series. It was an 8 game series between the Soviet team and the Canadian national team, with the Canadians using their best NHL players. The Canadians won the series 4-3-1 on a last-minute goal in the final game. That Soviet team probably wasn't as good as the 1980 team.

Funny story about the 1972 series: Before the series, the Canadians tried to get a scout to see the Soviet goalie in action, since nobody knew anything about the youngster. A scout finally managed to see the goalie in one game, and confidently reported back that the Canadians would have no trouble with him, since he had let in 8 goals in the game.

Needless to say, the Canadians were a bit surprised when the young goalie, named Vladislav Tretiak, saved virtually everything they shot at him. It turns out that Mr Tretiak had been drunk off his rocker when the scouts saw him because it was the day after his wedding! After the series, a Canadian political party proposed replacing the Canadian military with clones of Tretiak.