What big name players played for them...?
Think about it: The Detroit Red Wings have SEVEN Swedes playing for them, three of which have been great for Team Sweden...
Henrik Lundqvist was still in the playoffs with the NY Rangers, so he didn't play for Team Sweden...
Peter Forsberg declined to play because of his foot injury.
Daniel Alfredsson didn't go because the Senators are still amidst a playoff run.
Even though they lost in the semifinals to Canada, then lost in the bronze medal round to the Russians... The Swedes have been some tough contenders since they took gold in the World Champs AND the 2006 Olympics!
2007-05-17 19:47:22 · 3 answers · asked by Erica 6 in Sports ➔ Hockey
Though Sweden was the defending champ, their roster was pretty different... I guess I just don't know their better players that play in the Swedish elite league, I was wondering who were the guys pulling the most weight?
It's kind of funny, Canada had a pretty different roster than last year too. They had all those big names playing for them in the Olympics and didn't get gold. This year's roster pulls it off in the World Champs though. That screams "character win" to me.
2007-05-17 21:57:49 · update #1
Yeah, I know what you mean. We only had like 1 NHL-hockey player. Jörgen and Kenny Jönsson got to play in like all the matches. And we had like 1000 rookies. But, I think we made it because those other countries(except for Finland) are like easy to defeat. I mean Italy!!! Hello, can they even play hockey outside? In the newspapers it said Bengt-Åke Gustafsson was a genius so maybe that's another reason.
BTW, In the 2006 Olympics we had the dream team, so... yeah!
2007-05-18 06:46:47 · answer #1 · answered by sunny_marika 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Actually, as the returning champ (2 championship titles in 10 years) Sweden had a pretty bad tournament. Their record was 6-3. With wins over Italy, Latvia, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland and Slovakia. Hardly the power house teams in their wins. Finland was about the best team and they just edged them out 1-0. To make the final 8 (semifinals) all they did was knocked out Slovakia. They did kick but there, but Slovakia's goalie only plays in the Swedish Elite league.
It isn't that big of a stretch they made semifinals because the top 8 are easy to predict and includes Sweden. That's because the bottom 8 are that much worse.
Team Canada (3 championship titles in 5 years) had a perfect record in the tournament. They had no problem beating the Swedes, taking a quick 3-0 lead and just played out the rest of the game, winning 4-1.
Team Canada had the equivalent of a whole team turn down playing. And Crosby was injured, and Brodeur, Turco, Luongo, Thornton, Lecavalier, St. Louis, Sakic were still playing in the NHL.
2007-05-17 21:38:50 · answer #2 · answered by JuanB 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
lot of swedes stay over there to play in elite league also help they have lot of up and coming kids. think about the lock out where did a lot of the nhl stars go to play. if money was the same there as in n america hate to say it but our beloved nhl would be all ahl and echl player most like playing over there better just dollar lot higher here
2007-05-17 20:55:26 · answer #3 · answered by Jay Argentina 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋