Quote:
Originally Posted by skins
I didn't know that was the reason it was being kept out. If that's the case, it's a little more understandable. But really, women's ice hockey started out like that and there's still a lack of competition, but other countries are catching up. It would be the same with women's ski jump.
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There's been talk of women's hockey being dropped due to lack of competition, I'm not sure how serious that talk has ever been but it's definitely been mentioned.
The argument for keeping it in has often been that doing so will allow competition to develop as other nations catch up. While I agree with that premise, I'm not sure it should be grounds for getting a sport into the Olympics. If there are 2 countries who are great at sport X and 10 who suck at it should that sport be allowed in simply because doing so would allow the sport to grow? I think saying yes to that opens a pretty wide door to any sport with any kind of following, no matter how small.
Rerun, no competition in men's hockey? Really? I'd say the fact that 6 different teams have played in the 3 Gold medal games shows a bit of competition. Not to mention the fact that the most recent games saw Switzerland beat Canada and Latvia tie the US, and previous tournaments have seen even bigger upsets. There are 6-7 teams capable of winning the mens tournament, I don't think there's a single Olympic sport with more than a half dozen potential medalists that could be expected to be there.