Reply To: World Jr’s – Switzerland’s Improvement

[Henry Acres]

Hi , First I must say I am so glad I stumbled onto this site. Some great stuff here Tom-keep up to good work it is appreciated by many and I will spread the word about this site!

It doesn't surprise me that the Swiss are an improving hockey nation as we Canadians were shown that in the '06 Olympics.

I was in Helsinki in '04 for the Jrs. then mostly to see Crosby as I took in Canada-Swiss and even though Canada won 7-2, I was very impressed with the Swiss team, they scored both goals on odd-man rushes by hitting the trailer who promptly beat Marc-Andre Fluery high glove. They were pretty goals-but what really impressed me was the speed and strength of the Swiss skating. They where as fast-maybe faster than a very good Cdn. team. The Cdn's were generally bigger and stronger and I thought at the time a lock to take the gold. The most impressive player on Canada was Brent Burns-playing fwd. Crosby became the youngest player to score for Canada in that game. It was the 6th or 7th goal of the game he scored.

Interesting note: The gold medal match I watched on Finnish tv YLE- after 2 periods they broke away for the news before coming back to show the 3rd-30mins later. When I was asked the next day how did Canada lose- I replied, "If you had sit in the dressing room for an extended 2nd period intermission you would find it hard to 'reve it up again!" Can you imagine in Canada they stop showing the gold medal game and put the news on. The "Spinner" Spencer dad incident would be repeated all across the country! My finnish friends explained if the people don't get there 9-o'clock news there is the same type of reaction there. Cultural differences.

The same day as the Can-Swiss game the 2nd game was Swe-Rus. The Russian team had Ovie but the more impressive player was his current teammate in Washington-Alex Semin. He was lights out in a rather boring 5-3 Russia win. The most amazing part of that game was the warm-up. Russia had about 30 players dressed for warm-up and then while the Swede's are doing 3 on 2's the Russians where running PP in the o-zone with 20 guys just passing pucks around in the neutral zone! I have never seen a warm-up like it. I was sitting with a friend who had played in Russia and he said is just typical of Russia-he said that at some practices they would have 50+ players on the ice and this was in the old Super League.

I congratulated a Swiss friend of mine after the Swiss upset Russia in the semi's and he mentioned is a high time for Jr-sport in Swiss as they captured the U-17? in soccer recently. They certainly have the resources and work ethic to continue to develop talent and #22 can't think of his name off-hand-he is a player!