What Team Europe Says About Hockey on the Continent
Team Europe is a group of players with no country to call their own this September. The team consists of players mainly from Slovakia, Denmark, Germany, and Finland. That says a lot about Europe’s hockey scene.
I want to move to Europe. Desperately. I love their cities which are more pedestrian friendly than those here in the states. An EU Passport enables me to go anywhere in Europe and makes my traveling life easier. But there’s a problem.
The hockey there is bad. And Team Europe is just proving that idea. It’s not that Europe has bad players, but their development is not there. For a continent centered around soccer, the development for hockey players is not in place.
And that’s why Team Europe can be so beneficial this year. To get started, let’s look at Team Europe’s lineup, courtesy of ESPN.
Notice anything? Anything at all? If you haven’t noticed it yet, it’s that West Europe dominates the team. Central Europe has a decent representation, and practically no one from the east.
Europe is All About Football (and it’s not our kind)
Hockey in Europe isn’t a big thing. Soccer is dominant and that’s because they have youth systems built throughout the continent that will find any talent at any time in their youth careers. Hockey in Europe is like soccer in the United States, the talent just isn’t being cultivated.
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The United States has made strides in their soccer endeavors, but the same cannot be said about Europe’s hockey ventures. And a major issue with that is because hockey isn’t necessarily cheap for the families who have kids playing it. The travel team I played for up in New Hampshire cost nearly $1200 a season just to play, and the cost only went up.
And here’s another issue:
When I moved to Pennsylvania, I was recruited by a local AAA club who needed a center. We told them to lower the cost so I could play. They never budged. If they won’t budge here, they certainly won’t budge in European countries.
But Team Europe has an opportunity to popularize hockey in Europe, and to spark the excitement of millions of children sitting and watching on their televisions at home. Maybe, just maybe, Europe may look to create more top programs to benefit kids who may not be able to afford the sport. It may increase the visibility of their respective hockey leagues as well.