Swedish and Finnish teams dominate the Champions Hockey League. As of the quarter-finals, only teams from these Nordic nations remained. But there are very good reasons for that: both countries are simply better developers of talent than their European competitors.
By Szymon Szemberg
When the Champions Hockey League had their quarter-final field identified on 11 November, all eight teams were from Sweden and Finland, four teams from each.
Yes, maybe there was a little luck involved when Swedish club Linköping HC scored a goal in the dying seconds in the second game of the eighth-final against Sparta Prague from the Czech Republic or when Luleå Hockey from Sweden defeated Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg in a thrilling penalty shootout after trailing 8–3(!) on aggregate late in the first period.
Also Finnish side SaiPa Lappeenranta were a little fortunate when they finally eliminated Genève-Servette, also in a penalty shootout. With a different bounce here and there, the composition of the quarter-finals maybe would have had a more international profile. And yes, both Sweden and Finland entered the Champions Hockey League group stage with eight teams each (the most of all nations), so the percentages worked for the Nordic nations right from the start. But if you continue to read, you’ll see that there are very good reasons why Sweden and Finland dominate.
And luck has – at the end of the day – very little to do with it.
To reach international success in team sports, you need the following components:
- A vision
- A recruitment and development program for kids
- Coaching education
- Facilities
Once you have all that, it becomes a great base for having strong clubs. And only if you have strong clubs with lots of talented and aspiring players, does this become a fundament for good national teams on all levels.
Finland and Sweden can put “check” in all four boxes above.
If we start with the current IIHF World Ranking, Sweden is number 1, followed by Finland. And these numbers don’t cheat. The World Ranking awards points for the men’s World Championships and Olympics, going back four years. So it allows a country to have a dip here and there, but over a course of a four-year cycle the ranking very well reflects the quality of your national team program. And despite the presence of powerhouses Canada, Russia and the USA, it’s still Sweden and Finland on top.
Where do we find the other Champions Hockey League rivals in the World Ranking? The Czech Republic is 5th, Switzerland 7th, Germany 13th and Austria 16th. So there is no reason to be surprised that Swedish and Finnish clubs dominate in a pan-European club competition.
But not only that – Finland and Sweden finished 1 and 2 in the last World Junior Championship in Malmö one year ago, after one of the best gold medal games in recent memory. And if you listen to NHL scouts, this is where they go to look for players when they travel around Europe searching for talent; Sweden and Finland. Yes, the Swiss development program is constantly improving and the Czechs show signs of bouncing back after some difficult years, but no countries – Russia included – produce talented players like the Nordics do currently.
There are many things to be said about the European migration to the NHL, but there is no question that the number of players that a country sends to the NHL pretty well reflects the quality of its development program.
Sweden had 119 players who took part in various NHL clubs’ training camps prior to this season. So, 119 Swedish players are currently under NHL contracts (Of these, 62 currently play in the NHL, around 40 in the AHL, some were returned to Canadian junior clubs and some were returned to Sweden to gain more experience). This is an unbelievable number for a country with 9.7 million people and 57,000 registered hockey players.
So you can say that Sweden has five or six teams playing in North America, which is roughly 50 percent of the Swedish Hockey League. Considering this, it’s astounding that the Swedish clubs still maintain such high quality with the exodus of players.
But this story doesn’t end here. Sweden has another 28 of its high-end talent in the KHL and 16 players of national-team quality in the Swiss NLA. So, altogether around 150 top Swedes do not play hockey at home and consequently cannot help their teams in the Champions Hockey League.
The number of players that the Finnish clubs is missing is almost equally telling. There are 45 Finns in the KHL, virtually the same number in North America, 25 Finns earn their living in the SHL and 10 divided between the NLA and the German DEL. That makes around 120 high-end talents who the Finnish clubs have developed, but who are not available to the Liiga clubs in the Champions Hockey League.
It speaks volumes about the development of players in Sweden and Finland that their clubs can maintain such high quality with this this above documented migration of players to other leagues.
So you can point at the fact that the SHL and the Liiga have eight clubs each in the Champions Hockey League, and you can argue about some luck here and there, but everything eventually boils down to the one fundamental truth in sport: you make your own luck. And only good programs and good teams make that.
It’s for the other countries and leagues to follow.