Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
The English thing is interesting. Swedes almost all come over fluent in English (common in Europe everywhere I've been). But Finns don't seem to push that as much as other Euro countries. Development must be a btch with that impediment, and it should be addressed asap by any drafting team.
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A lot of the time there's kind of an assumption here in Finland that kids just learn English through osmosis. It's also mandatory in school (in practice), but a lot of English teachers that aren't very good. Tons of kids learn English just fine here, but we have for example a very local music culture which is almost completely in our own language, while Swedish pop music is mostly sung in English. Finnish is also from a completely different language group than... well anyone else except Estonian. The language barrier is much, much higher for Finn who speaks poor English than for a Swede.
Puljujärvi really makes me sad, I've rarely seen kid who looked like he loved to play hockey as much as he did, and he had all the tools to be good, great even. You don't score 17 points in the U20 tournament as a 17 year-old without having some very serious talent. He clearly needed more help, mentoring and time to grow than most, he was mentally very much a kid. Combine with skyhigh expectations and the Oilers "development" system, and it was a recipe for disappointment. A disappointment which always seemed very likely to me.
As for a lot of Finnish prospects being disappointments... Honestly, most Finnish hockey organizations, from teams to upper level, are lead by dinosaurs who were never good at their job to begin with. (Not all, but most.)
Probably as significant, or more so, is the culture issue. While the reputation of being a country of "introverts" is mostly a myth, Finland is very different from Sweden (for example) in some important ways. It's a culture where you're not necessarily required or expected to develop a lot of social skills, especially if you're good at something else (like playing hockey) and there isn't much in the way of a star/celebrity culture here... And we just have a very
different social culture here. I think a lot of Finnish prospects just aren't mentally ready for the culture shock.
As for that 2016 WJC Team Finland in particular, it was also coached by Jukka Jalonen, who is just an absolute legend as a tournament coach, and regularly gets incredible performances out of non-elite players. (Plus that team was generally pretty stacked for a Team Finland. Mikko Rantanen and Roope Hintz are the two most notable players beyond that first line.)