If Latvia is the 9th or 10th best country in the world in this age group, then this game is exhibit A (yet again) for why this should go back to being an 8 country tournament like it was for years. Bottom line is that the Latvian team does not belong at this level if that's their best effort. Their goaltender couldn't even make all the routine saves and he certainly got no help from the inept defence. There probably aren't more than one or two players on the entire team who are good enough to play more than benchwarmer roles on any team in the CHL.
Everybody knew before the puck dropped that Canada was going to win this game, but nobody should beat anybody else by 16 goals at the highest level of any hockey competition. I doubt any of the 44 kids on the ice was having fun by the end of the game and the fans had long stopped cheering for goals....so lets not play games like this any more.
2 comments:
Alan, your last comment hits it for me. There is not enough talent in some of these countries that make it to the tournament.eI watched the first period and that is it, I took my son to a movie instead, I was bored watching it. I think 8 teams is more than enough but IIHF feels other wise because of the might buck it can make and does make. I heard somewhere that they are considering opening up for 2 more teams.
where are teams like Japan? do they not belong in the IIHF? in the national friendship tournament in australia years ago when I was a lot younger, they had(japan), hands down! the best team there.
we are talking bantam aged hockey here to, so the young talent is there. is it not? there has to be a team from somewhere that is better than Latvia.
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