Men's Ice Hockey Tournament at the Winter Olympic Games 2018

[Agger 1,700]

7 minutes ago, hckosice said:

 

It´s still hardly believable that Denmark never played the olympics..assuming your team strength in last decade.

 

Maybe this is the time but you have a very very hard group..I´m really looking forward for the matches I think we never had so much challenging olympic qualification tournaments in ice hockey than this

 

Well. In 2009 it was our eternal rivals who we've only just started beating the last couple of years, Norway, who was in the way. (I still remember that match all too well)

I believe we were seen as favourites in 2013, but we didn't play well from what I remember.

This is our big chance, espsecially thanks to the NHL participation, which gives us a big advantage.

 

I will sadly most likely miss one or two of the matches, but I'm really looking forward to it as well.

In general it's really an exciting period for our "secondary" team sports with both basketball, volleyball and ice hockey qualifications.

[hckošice 15,525]

yes ok so less than 24 hours to start, lets go with some predictions

 

The very favorable time schedulling allow many nations to enter the final qualification round with many great players and a bunch of biggest NHL stars..The biggest amount of them is in the Minsk (Belarus) tournament and especially in the Denmark team roster. The Danes made no secrets about their successive ambitions.

"We put together the best Danish team in history. Anything other than the qualification for the Olympics will be considered as a huge disappointment," said General Manager of the Danish selection Kim Pedersen. The Swede coach Janne Karlsson will have in his team one of the best current world goalie Frederik Andersen, defenseman Philip Larsen and forwards Frans Nielsen, Oliver Björkstrand, Mikkel Bødker, Jannik Hansen, Nikolaj Ehlers and Nicklas Jensen. Of the known names will the Dane missing only Lars Eller.

 

The home advantage will be Belarussian, which will want to recover after their unsuccesfull this years World championship journey in St. Petersburg. despite the very bad tourament on the bench remained the canadian coach Dave Lewis, this will be most likely his last cance to prove something with this team. Belarus will have in thier roster traditionally the 4 naturalized north americans the goalie Kevin Lalande and field players Charles Linglet, Nick Bailen but especially the very experienced striker Geoff Platt. Apparently some Health problems have hampered Mikhail Grabovski but it looks that BLR will be also at full strength. and with home advantage. I assume they will be the main opponent of the Danes.

 

BUT...WARNING !!!

 

don´t forget the Slovenians. Oh yes, Never ! never ! Never!  NEVER! I´ll never underestimate Slovenians in my life anymore since Sochi 2014 and the biggest shame and embarassing day of our hockey.

The increase of the crazy quality of this tournament will be enhanced by the Slovenians. The Leader of "Rysy - Lynxes" will be without any doubts be the megastar of the Los Angeles Kings Anže Kopitar, but the squad will have also some other highly mentionable members as the striker of Slovan Bratislava Žiga Jeglič, his former "Slovan partner" and now Yekaterinburg player Rok Tičar and former Nitra goalkeeper Robert Kristan the man I can´t forget from this Sochi 2014 nightmare.

 

The slightest chance of success will have in this group the Poles. but we must also count on them, They already made a upsent in the previous round eliminating strong Hungarian generation from this olympic qualification cycle.

 

so my predictions:

 

1. Denmark Q

2. Belarus

3. Slovenia

4. Poland

 

(really curious to see how it will develop )

 

 

In the Riga (Latvia) Group, at first view there 2 big favs. The hosts had to deal with the departure of their coach Leonids Beresnevs just few days before the tournament. The national federation promptly replaced him few days ago by Haralds Vasilievs. Let see what will this change just few days before the most important tournament of the 4 years cycle influence the latvian team. They will mainly count on their top NHL star Zemgus Girgensons but also on some other players playing in fact each year together in the some team Dinamo Riga. This may be a very notable strong advantage...

 

The biggest Latvians opponent will be certainly Germany. The Germans want definitely to return under the 5 rings after missing Sochi thanks a shocking defeat against Austria in the qualifiers tournament...the Same Austria they have again in this tournament. but the German actual team is more experienced, slightly rejuvenated and surely strongest than the one 4 years ago. Players like Dennis Seidenberg, Christian Ehrhoff, Leon Dreisaitl, Tobias Rieder, Korbinian Holzer or another this teams Stanley cup winner Tom Kuhnhackel are a sign of enormous quality.

 

Austria is entering the tournament with 2 NHL players Michael Raffl and Michael Grabner. Unfortunately they will miss their top player and the biggest Austrian hockey player of history Thomas Vanek this time. I think this factor will be decisive for the Austrian chances.

 

With all respect to Japan. any point for them will be a miracle IMO.

 

my predictions:

 

1. Germany Q

2. Latvia

3. Austria

4. Japan

 

 

 

The last tournament in Oslo (Norway) is pretty well balanced too. Maybe the top favs in current form are the domestics the very Offensive Norwegians "Vikings" that should be lead by their top star Mats Zuccarello Aasen of the NY Rangers behinde the Madison Square Garden star Norway will surely count on Andreas Martinsen and the inexhaustible Patrick Thoresen

 

At first view I thought the favs may be the french, unfortunately France can´t count here with their NHL players Antoine Roussell and the New Jersey new recrue Yohann Auvitu. France will have on their roster only 1 NHL man the extremely experienced Pierre Edouard Bellemare. The whole french hopes will remains on his shoulders also shared by another great french star the stricker Stephane Da Costa of the CSKA Moscow and Damien Fleury.

 

Italy and Kazakhstan are probably considered as underdogs in this group, but they have certainly some words to say in this battle too. Especially Italy is showing some very pleasant increasing performances and results last months. The team was rejuvenated and won the previous qualifyfing round in a very impressive way. Kazakhstan is a team you should never underestimate when you talk about hockey olympic qualification they showed it many times in the past. Nagano 1998 or more actual, in the last qualifiers for Sochi when they lost the ticket by only 1 single goal.

 

My predictions:

1. Norway Q

2. France

3. Italy

4. Kazakhstan

 

Keep in mind that I rarely reach some successes in our prediction contests so there some 99% chances that all my predictions are wrong here

Can´t wait the start of the tournaments...less than 24 hours to go..

 

Good luck to all 12 remaining teams and let the 3 best succeed..See you in pyeongchang

[Agger 1,700]

4 hours ago, hckosice said:

yes ok so less than 24 hours to start, lets go with some predictions

 

The very favorable time schedulling allow many nations to enter the final qualification round with many great players and a bunch of biggest NHL stars..The biggest amount of them is in the Minsk (Belarus) tournament and especially in the Denmark team roster. The Danes made no secrets about their successive ambitions.

"We put together the best Danish team in history. Anything other than the qualification for the Olympics will be considered as a huge disappointment," said General Manager of the Danish selection Kim Pedersen. The Swede coach Janne Karlsson will have in his team one of the best current world goalie Frederik Andersen, defenseman Philip Larsen and forwards Frans Nielsen, Oliver Björkstrand, Mikkel Bødker, Jannik Hansen, Nikolaj Ehlers and Nicklas Jensen. Of the known names will the Dane missing only Lars Eller.

 

The home advantage will be Belarussian, which will want to recover after their unsuccesfull this years World championship journey in St. Petersburg. despite the very bad tourament on the bench remained the canadian coach Dave Lewis, this will be most likely his last cance to prove something with this team. Belarus will have in thier roster traditionally the 4 naturalized north americans the goalie Kevin Lalande and field players Charles Linglet, Nick Bailen but especially the very experienced striker Geoff Platt. Apparently some Health problems have hampered Mikhail Grabovski but it looks that BLR will be also at full strength. and with home advantage. I assume they will be the main opponent of the Danes.

 

BUT...WARNING !!!

 

don´t forget the Slovenians. Oh yes, Never ! never ! Never!  NEVER! I´ll never underestimate Slovenians in my life anymore since Sochi 2014 and the biggest shame and embarassing day of our hockey.

The increase of the crazy quality of this tournament will be enhanced by the Slovenians. The Leader of "Rysy - Lynxes" will be without any doubts be the megastar of the Los Angeles Kings Anže Kopitar, but the squad will have also some other highly mentionable members as the striker of Slovan Bratislava Žiga Jeglič, his former "Slovan partner" and now Yekaterinburg player Rok Tičar and former Nitra goalkeeper Robert Kristan the man I can´t forget from this Sochi 2014 nightmare.

 

The slightest chance of success will have in this group the Poles. but we must also count on them, They already made a upsent in the previous round eliminating strong Hungarian generation from this olympic qualification cycle.

 

so my predictions:

 

1. Denmark Q

2. Belarus

3. Slovenia

4. Poland

 

Keep in mind that I rarely reach some successes in our prediction contests so there some 99% chances that all my predictions are wrong here

Can´t wait the start of the tournaments...less than 24 hours to go..

 

Good luck to all 12 remaining teams and let the 3 best succeed..See you in pyeongchang

 

IIf we don't qualify, I will blame you!

[hckošice 15,525]

3 minutes ago, Agger said:

 

IIf we don't qualify, I will blame you!

 

ouch

 

nooo this is not to jinx any team, just I am so excited that I did some funny predictions..but ofc everything can be totally diferent. Hope I didn´t jinx your or any other team.

 

Good luck

[dcro 10,210]

Non-expert like me will predict to qualify. Need more red flags in Olympic tournament

[hckošice 15,525]

3 minutes ago, dcro said:

Non-expert like me will predict to qualify. Need more red flags in Olympic tournament

 

 

actually there a ton of red flags already qualified

[Quasit 869]

After a bad summer games for them, I hope Latvia will qualify.

[hckošice 15,525]

btw all matches will be streamed live in the new Olympic Channel the first game start in few minutes

 

todays schedule times cest (GMT +2)

14:00 SLO -  POL

14:30 GER - JPN

16:00 FRA - ITA

18:00 DEN - BLR *** my todays top schedules highlight

18:30 AUT - LAT

20:00 KAZ - NOR

 

 

https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/tv/

[Dmitry 92]

My prediction is 

But only Norway look like a big favourite.

[hckošice 15,525]

I just love this slovenian goalsong