Having played hockey for many years of my childhood, completely agree.
Each shift is absolute torture and playing 20 minutes instead of let’s say 25 makes a real difference to my level of freshness, whether it’s during the ongoing game or later games in a tournament. Same for NHL players.
I'm not quite sure why the IOC is so hung up on the athlete quotas for the winter Olympics, they never got as out of hand as the summer games did. But they are.
Not quite sure what the political machinations are, maybe NC is just the black sheep of FIS for some reason, but they've been on the chopping block for a long time now, and haven't seemed to take the warnings and act on them. Money wise, there is no reason to boot it, they make use of other required facilities and don't really crimp their scheduling.
Well, I think only 20 actually dress for games(12 forwards, 6 defense, and 2 goalies), the rest are really more alternates (and could probably get rid of the 4th line and shorten the benches to 17 if you really had to). There are reasons... but I do enjoy people hating on hockey in general, so please carry on
Yep, that was really unfortunate, but well, such things happens. Anyway this amount of lugers is really impressive.
Congrats and good luck at the Games
Yeah, Qualifying a team for the summer olympics is completely out of the question. Not going to happen for a long time. In Sydney 2000 we had 3 teams W Basketball, M Football & M Water Polo, it was already insane and this was even in a totally different era. Nowadays it is just Utopian. We have none to be at a high level in Europe to aspire for a qualification to the Olympics.
W Handball is really the most obvious chance in a long shot. The U17 girls showed last summer that it is possible, who knows maybe in Brisbane if the planets allign well.
Paris 2024 was a nightmare I do not want to remember. The worst games I experienced in my life. point.