Putin gives players from Russia's winning World Championship team Mercedes Benzs

[jesters91]

Months ago, after he'd finished downing champagne with the team, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that the players from Russia's gold medal winning team at the 2014 IIHF World Hockey Championships will receive a Mercedes Benz vehicle for their winning performance in Minsk, Belarus in May.

Those vehicles have begun to appear in earnest on the web, suggests Sovsports.ru, with an Instagram photo posted by former Winnipeg Jets forward Alexander Burmistrov being the first example:

http://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/538141

[FlamesAddiction]

Thank goodness it wasn't a Lada.

[nik-]

Unfortunately for them, he'll subsequently crush them all as a result of their embarrassing Olympics

[Brannigans Law]

god. it isnt the olympics no matter how much they want to celebrate. jesus christ lol

[Table 5]

Great use of public funds as usual by the Russian government.

[codynw]

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by Brannigans Law

god. it isnt the olympics no matter how much they want to celebrate. jesus christ lol

We Hold the Olympic hockey in higher Status. Europeans/Russians do not see it that way. The World Championship is like them winning the Stanley cup.

[codynw]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

We Hold the Olympic hockey in higher Status. Europeans/Russians do not see it that way. The World Championship is like them winning the Stanley cup.

That's ridiculous to me, because it's on a much smaller stage and the best players don't even participate.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

We Hold the Olympic hockey in higher Status. Europeans/Russians do not see it that way. The World Championship is like them winning the Stanley cup.

That's embarrassing for them.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

We Hold the Olympic hockey in higher Status. Europeans/Russians do not see it that way. The World Championship is like them winning the Stanley cup.

How they perceive it and what it is are different.

Celebrating a win in a tournament where the only team that actually brought it's top players was Russia. Was there even any Canadian Olympians on the WC team? They can be excited all they want, but when it's the third best award handed out during the year for the sport of hockey, in a tournament where very few of the best players actually compete, accepting that Benz should come with a very nice slice of humble pie.

And guaranteed if the Russians had won the Olympics, they would certainly be celebrating it as the top prize and rubbing everyones noses in it.

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

We Hold the Olympic hockey in higher Status. Europeans/Russians do not see it that way. The World Championship is like them winning the Stanley cup.

So it's like the Oilers winning the draft lottery?

[neo45]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

We Hold the Olympic hockey in higher Status. Europeans/Russians do not see it that way. The World Championship is like them winning the Stanley cup.

Olympics is bigger than WCs in every Euro country, even Russia


This is Putin saving face from their Sochii embarassment

[nixon45]

Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15

So it's like the Oilers winning the draft lottery?

Spoiler!

[Tyler]

"Hmmm.. Why do these all have Ukrainian license plates?"

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by neo45

Olympics is bigger than WCs in every Euro country, even Russia


This is Putin saving face from their Sochii embarassment

I cant rember the documentary name but It was centred about european hockey. How it was explained That's just how it is in Europe. Its a lot of players they know from local leagues from their Countries. The majority of players from around the World will not get a chance to play in the Olympics or Even in the NHL. This may be the 3rd best you can hand out but It is the best chance on a world scale that people can celebrate to win some hardware on behalf of their country. I guess its more so form the players perceptive but a lot of people overseas don't follow the NHL or if they do not as closely. They follow their own leugues. People they know well have a better chance at The World Championship.

[Looch City]

I bet they're fully loaded with dashcams as well.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

I cant rember the documentary name but It was centred about european hockey. How it was explained That's just how it is in Europe. Its a lot of players they know from local leagues from their Countries. The majority of players from around the World will not get a chance to play in the Olympics or Even in the NHL. This may be the 3rd best you can hand out but It is the best chance on a world scale that people can celebrate to win some hardware on behalf of their country.

Then they should be excited.... If they were Denmark.

This is like saying Ryan Gosling should be happy hooking up with a whale because it's the best chance that everyone else has. It may be his best chance, but when you have a chance at the top prize, anything less should be a dissapointment. If you're competitive at all.

[CaptainCrunch]

Putin the great leader . . . CRUSH!

[troutman]

Russia, вам нечего

[Read Only]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

We Hold the Olympic hockey in higher Status. Europeans/Russians do not see it that way. The World Championship is like them winning the Stanley cup.

This gets trotted out a lot by supporters of the WHC but has there ever been a Euro who has said this?

During the Olympics many Europeans from different countries said this was the biggest tournament to them. Every year there are exactly 0 Europeans who leave the NHL and a shot at the Cup to go play in this tournament.

I think Europeans definitely care more about it than NA's but there is 0 chance that Europeans or Russians see this as a big deal than the Olympics or Stanley Cup.

As someone said a transparent ploy by Putin to try and put the Olympic failure behind them and act as though winning this nothing tournament is a big deal.