NorskiPaul

Nil d · Guru

NorskiPaul

norskipaul · Senior Member

The best Norwegian hockey player of all time? I'd have to go fpr Bjørn "Botta" Skaare, who played one game for The Red Wings bask in the '70s. The only others ytou might of heard of are Espen Knutsen who played for Anaheim and Columbus. A good playmaking center, possibly a litle too light weight for the NHL. (kind of like Ribs, you could say)Poor guy his game was never thse same after causing the death of a spectator with a deflected shot in Columbus. You might remember it...a thirteen year old girl. A terrible thing when you think about it. Another guy is Anders Myrvold who played for Boston and Colorado. There are a number of Norwegians playing in the the Swedish and German leagues. On May 7th Norway will be playing Canada in the world championships, hopefully our guys will do better than our kids against the US. Although11-2 was a tad too much nobody expects a Norwegian team to take a point from any of the big guns. Our next game against Switzerland is considered winable and thus more important. our goal is to avoid relegation.

Nil d · Guru

norskipaul wrote:

The best Norwegian hockey player of all time? I'd have to go fpr Bjørn "Botta" Skaare, who played one game for The Red Wings bask in the '70s. The only others ytou might of heard of are Espen Knutsen who played for Anaheim and Columbus. A good playmaking center, possibly a litle too light weight for the NHL. (kind of like Ribs, you could say)Poor guy his game was never thse same after causing the death of a spectator with a deflected shot in Columbus. You might remember it...a thirteen year old girl. A terrible thing when you think about it. Another guy is Anders Myrvold who played for Boston and Colorado. There are a number of Norwegians playing in the the Swedish and German leagues. On May 7th Norway will be playing Canada in the world championships, hopefully our guys will do better than our kids against the US. Although11-2 was a tad too much nobody expects a Norwegian team to take a point from any of the big guns. Our next game against Switzerland is considered winable and thus more important. our goal is to avoid relegation.

Thanks, Paul. I have heard of Knutsen and Myrvold, and remember the Columbus incident.

I know I've asked this before, but do you have any idea why Norway is not as good as Sweden and Finland? Is the sport simply not as big there?

-- Edited by Nil d at 21:16, 2005-12-27

barry33 · Guru

Nil d wrote:

While walking off some Christmas turkey on the treadmill, I was watching the US juniors pound the crap out of the poor Norwegians. That poor bugger in nets (with the very Norwegian name of "Smith") deserves a medal if he finishes this one. It got me to wondering: Paul, who would you consiider the best-ever Norwegian hockey player? In fact, name me a few, I can't seem to think of any that I know to be Norwegian for sure. (As an aside, the TSN boobs were showing some Phil Kessel highlights, including a goal where he almost completely whiffed on the shot. The biggest boob, McGuire, commented that it reminded him of Jean Beliveau's 500th NHL goal. He is wrong on that - Beliveau's 500th was a beautiful deke on Gillies Gilbert of the Minnesota North Stars. McGuire was obviously thinking of Frank Mahovalich's 500th - against Vancouver. He almost completely whiffed, and the puck slowly crawled in off the heel of his stick, with the goalie going the other way. I thought I would set the record straight, in case any of you heard that comment.)

One of the things I do not like about these tournaments is the goals for/against ratio for deciding team placements. It rewards teams like the USA and Canada for running up the score. The team I coach. had a similar situation in a tournament last week. We got up 9-0 against a very poor team and I took my dmen and put them up front and tols the guys they had to makes 3 passes before they take a shot. Sometimes there are more important things than winning a hockey tourney you know?

Nil d · Guru

barry33 wrote:

One of the things I do not like about these tournaments is the goals for/against ratio for deciding team placements. It rewards teams like the USA and Canada for running up the score. The team I coach. had a similar situation in a tournament last week. We got up 9-0 against a very poor team and I took my dmen and put them up front and tols the guys they had to makes 3 passes before they take a shot. Sometimes there are more important things than winning a hockey tourney you know?

Barry, you are a man among men!

norskipaul · Senior Member

Well, first of all there's twice as many of them (Swedes) than of us. Hockey is the national sport in Sweden and Finland. For some reason it never caught on in the same way here. I think it has a lot to with facilities. In the old days there were only rinks in the larger towns in southern Norway.I don't think anybody plays hockey north of Trondheim to this day.Not like in Sweden and how I picture Canada where every town, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant has a rink and a team. It's pretty amazing what the Swedes have done when a small town like Ornskjoldsvik (find it on the map) can produce players like Forsberg, Näslund, Sundström, etc. When it comes to popularity among the general public and it's meaning to the national identity I think hockey's even bigger in Finland. When they play Sweden the whole country shuts down because virtually everyone's watching it on tv.