THN Archive: Untapped Potential

The Hockey News has released its archive to all THN subscribers: 76 years of history, stories, and features.

Subscribe now to view the full THN Archives here

Visit catcross.biz for more information.

Also, go to thn.com/free to subscribe.

Untapped Potential—June 29, 2009 - John Grigg

Five nations have won 19 of the 20 Olympic gold medals in men’s hockey. Only Great Britain in 1936 – a team manned by Canadian military men – has broken the golden hold of Russia, Canada, the U.S., Sweden and the Czech Republic. But with hockey growing globally, there are a number of non-traditional countries pushing for inclusion among the world’s top 12.

Denmark

Denmark is the IIHF’s 12th-ranked team – ahead of Olympic participant Germany – but fell to Norway in a 2009 qualification final, the Danes’ final stab at the 2010 Games.

But Denmark is producing world-class players, including NHLers Frans Neilsen, Peter Regin, Jannik Hansen, Lars Eller and Mikkel Boedker.

“Denmark probably would have made the Olympics if they had all their guys,” said THN European correspondent Risto Pakarinen of the qualifying tourney, which took place during the NHL season. “It’s a shame they didn’t, they play really good hockey and have several good young players.”

Eller played in the tournament and was adamant Denmark would be an Olympic team if it had all of its players available.

“I definitely think so,” he said. “We lost to Norway and they qualified. It was close.”

France

Of the teams outside the IIHF’s top 12, France climbed the furthest in 2009, moving up four spots to No. 14 in the world.

“France has played two great worlds in a row and their current (group) still has a couple more in them,” Pakarinen said.

Baptiste Amar, Laurent Meunier and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare all play in the Swedish Elite League.

THN Archive: The KHLKontinental League comes out on top in many categories: experience, star power, production, even head-to-headUkraine

Ukraine also failed to qualify without its NHLers, Alexei Ponikarovsky and Ruslan Fedotenko. But at Salt Lake City in 2002, the NHLers were there to help Ukraine to a 10th place finish, ahead of current Olympic squads Switzerland and Slovakia.

With continued growth and a Games close to home in 2014, the Ukrainians are a group to watch.

Kazakhstan

The former Soviet Republic is ranked 20th in the world, but has more than 15 million hockey-loving inhabitants to draw on. Kazakhstan has past Olympic appearances, too, in 1998 and 2006.

“I always dreamed about it,” said Atlanta center Nik Antropov of his Olympic experience in ’06 with the ninth-place Kazakhs. “Just to experience it is unbelievable.”

Read at source