Foreign born players

[jaxvid]

It kinda bugs me that there are so many foreign players in the NHL. I was looking at the rosters of the teams and it listed their birth places and there are a whole lot of non North Americans playing in the NHL. Might be over 50% freakin percent!

I'm not heart broken because they are my white brothers but it's not like in the NBA where they are taking a job away from a thug. In the NHL they are taking jobs away from white guys here in the US/Canada. I'm not real partial to that.

The Red Wings have 14 of the 25 spots held by foreigners, the most in the league I believe. On the Maple Leafs about 20 spots are held by north americans (Don Cherry would be proud) around 8 of them are kids from Ontario and most from near Toronto, that might be the best hometown player ratio in sports. They also have kids from nearly every Canadian province, Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Illinois. How cool is that?

I think I'm gonna be a Leafs fan.

 

[Solomon Kane]

Well, that was one good thing about the cold war and the iron curtain--it ensured that Hockey was 100% North American.

Personally, I enjoyed Hockey the most in the 80's--during the era of islander and oilers dominance. I was a Caps fan. We had some good teams, but we never got past the Islanders. Then came the collapse of communism and the flood of players from the Warsaw pact.

However, as Homer Simpson would put it: "yeah, but what are ya gonna do?" Hockey players are going to go where the money is, and teams are going to search for any player who can give them an edge--Jagr, Bure, or some guy from Lower Slobbovia.

Maybe we have can a limit on those born elsewhere, like the Japanese have in their baseball league.

But look on the bright side, all these Eastern Europeans (many of whose sons will be born here) will ensure that Hockey will be a white man's game until the end of time.

 

[Don Wassall]

After all these years of the NHL, the reality is that the U.S. still isn't very good at hockey. The "North American" contingent in the league continues to be dominated by Canada, a country with about 10 percent of the population of the U.S.


Sports Illustrated this week has a four-page article on Mike Modano (it's a real rarity when SI gives more than a single page to a hockey story) called "The Best We've Ever Had." Modano isclosing in onJoey Mullen's 502 goals, the most ever by an American, and defenseman Phil Housley's U.S. standard of 1,232 points.


I watched Mullen play a lot with Pittsburgh, and while he was a fine player he haddefinite limitations and willnever be considered an all-time great. Modanois a very good player withgreat speedwho developed a nice two-way game, but when he passes Mullen he'll still rank 36th on the all-time goals list, which includes 16 players with over 600 goals, including Czech-born Jaromir Jagr, who is still going strong.


Internationally, the U.S. rarely fields strong teams, and no turnaround is in sight. Given that hockey will remain a white man's sport for as long as it's played, it's too bad so few white Americans become great at it.

 

[Realgeorge]

If only we could import millions of Slavs, not just dozens, into the USofA to replace the various Third World varmints that stink up our beatiful country

I'm happy to see torrents of White Europeans pour into the NHL. It's a small but real addition to the dwindling stocks of Europeans in North America

 

[white is right]

After all these years of the NHL, the reality is that the U.S. still isn't very good at hockey. The "North American" contingent in the league continues to be dominated by Canada, a country with about 10 percent of the population of the U.S.


Sports Illustrated this week has a four-page article on Mike Modano (it's a real rarity when SI gives more than a single page to a hockey story) called "The Best We've Ever Had." Modano is closing in on Joey Mullen's 502 goals, the most ever by an American, and defenseman Phil Housley's U.S. standard of 1,232 points.


I watched Mullen play a lot with Pittsburgh, and while he was a fine player he had definite limitations and will never be considered an all-time great. Modano is a very good player with great speed who developed a nice two-way game, but when he passes Mullen he'll still rank 36th on the all-time goals list, which includes 16 players with over 600 goals, including Czech-born Jaromir Jagr, who is still going strong.


Internationally, the U.S. rarely fields strong teams, and no turnaround is in sight. Given that hockey will remain a white man's sport for as long as it's played, it's too bad so few white Americans become great at it.

The problem with hockey in the States it's a bit of an elitist sport. Working class and lower middle class Americans won't take up the sport because of the high costs. So kids from that background don't play hockey. Those people tend to make up the bulk of top athletes due to hunger and desire.

 

[Don Wassall]

The problem with hockey in the States it's a bit of an elitist sport. Working class and lower middle class Americans won't take up the sport because of the high costs. So kids from that background don't play hockey. Those people tend to make up the bulk of top athletes due to hunger and desire.

That's also true of golf but it never stopped the U.S. from producing many great golfers. Also, white American pro athletes in all sports tend to come from middle and upper class backgrounds. The near disappearance of white working class athletes is an ongoing phenomenon in the U.S.

 

[Ground Fighter]

It kinda bugs me that there are so many foreign players in the NHL.

Why should it? If they come from Europe, it shouldn't bother anyone. I learned that years ago, the Canadians felt the same way about us crossing their border to come up to Canada to play Juniors and eventually the pros. But, its not like that anymore. Even the All-Star games are different now. Instead of conference against conference, its North America versus the World players, with the North American team consisting of U.S. and Canadian born players.

European players offer a style of hockey that most North Americans don't practice. In Europe, skating is an art form, and it is the first thing taught to young hockey plyers there, before they ever see a stick and puck. Unfortunately, on this continent, we teach the game of hockey first, which is wrong. Parents in this country just give their kids a stick and say, "Go play". European players have stronger edges and better strides than we do, because many of them were trained by figure skaters when they were young.

Everyone thinks that might be a bit fruity, but my mother was a figure skater, who taught me everything I know about skating. Because of her instruction, I have more style and fluidity than most players I compete against. My back-skating is just as strong as my forward movement is, because in figure skating everything is done from a back-egde. I wouldn't have developed into the hockey player I did with out her instruction.

Thanks mom.