NHL Players in the Olympics?

[NRH]

I don't like your concept of training outweighing talent, Nadal and Federer winning Olmypic golds has less to do with the money their country spent on them. If you're good at your sport you go train where other people are good at it too.

If a Canadian was really good at swimming he would still end up in America at some college in Ohio training year round.

$46 million on tennis players didnt help us win any golds in tennis the Williams sister wouldn't have already won with their father training them in their back yard.

No amount of money would grant you the talents stamkos has, I refuse to believe you can "buy" world class talent. The only thing money does is bring more people to the sport not magically create athletes.

The reason you and stamkos are worlds apart in the sport is because he is naturally better and born into hockey?

Do you really believe $46 million in training resoruces is going to make a Haitian tennis program world class? If anything the good players from poor counties move to locations where good players are at to compete and train.

Olympics is about personal desire and national pride, not for living in dirt poor conditions because some other country lives that way.

[ruxpin]

@ruxpin

Hey rux, I'm not really clear on this......do you like the Olympics?

Of course I like the Olympics. Show me where I said I didn't. Sheesh.

[flyercanuck]

I don't like your concept of training outweighing talent, Nadal and Federer winning Olmypic golds has less to do with the money their country spent on them. If you're good at your sport you go train where other people are good at it too.

Read this again..." But if you're a top athlete and you have the resources to train properly, you've got a huge advantage over an equal athlete who doesn't. And I don't know how you could possibly argue that." Thats what I said last post. If you're good at lets say basketball in the US or China, do you not have an advantage due to training facilities than some guy in Liberia or Cuba? And the average person there can't just hop on a plane to Louisville.

If a Canadian was really good at swimming he would still end up in America at some college in Ohio training year round.

Sure. What about a kid from India or Somolia?

$46 million on tennis players didnt help us win any golds in tennis the Williams sister wouldn't have already won with their father training them in their back yard.

No but it likely made the tennis team a heck of a lot better than it would have been with $46 thousand.

No amount of money would grant you the talents stamkos has, I refuse to believe you can "buy" world class talent. The only thing money does is bring more people to the sport not magically create athletes.

The reason you and stamkos are worlds apart in the sport is because he is naturally better and born into hockey?

Again, if you take people with similiar talent and one has a ton more resources to fall on... Would Stamkos be as good a player if he played his entire developing years in an Aussie league?

Do you really believe $46 million in training resoruces is going to make a Haitian tennis program world class? If anything the good players from poor counties move to locations where good players are at to compete and train.

If someone happened to give the Haitian tennis team $46 million to train, it would disappear into an offshore account faster than you can say "Baby Doc". And sadly you could say the same thing about half the countries in the world. I agree some athletes from other countries benefit from being able to go somewhere else to train. Many can't though.

Olympics is about personal desire and national pride, not for living in dirt poor conditions because some other country lives that way.

Easy to say when we live in North America. It's a whole different reality when one person with God-given talent has all the world class resources at his fingertips, and the other is wondering if he'll eat today. That's obviously a best/worst case scenario.

[JR Ewing]

If you and others enjoy it, I'm glad someone does. It's specifically the hockey tournament I won't be watching. It just doesn't get anymore boring for me than Olympic hockey.

Missed this the other day...

Anyway, I'd never try to convince you to like the tourney. I find it perfectly acceptable that, to the extent that I enjoy the Olympic hockey tournament, others don't.

JR

[flyercanuck]

@JR Ewing

Rux prefers to hang out with the Amish during this time.

[JR Ewing]

This has nothing to do with the point you're attempting to make, but it did remind me of one other thing: My utter distaste for Mary Lou Retten, none of which was really due to her personally.

The whole Olympic boycott thing in 1980 an the retaliation in 1984 went a long way to souring my view of the Olympics altogether. But MLR, the blowing her accomplishment way out of proportion, and the knowledge that it was done primarily because her top competition wasn't even there made me really dislike both MLR and the Olympics.

Look, there is a lot in the MLR story to like (the injury just prior to the Olympics, in particular), but seeing her EVERYWHERE and having the feeling that her sweeping victory was because her main competition didn't show up just really soured the whole thing for me.

I've always had the exact same thought about '84 Olympics and the astounding amount of self-congratulatory media worship which came from it. Fine, they won gold medals and all, but most of the best competition were in their home countries, watching on TV.

JR

[ruxpin]

@JR Ewing

Rux prefers to hang out with the Amish during this time.

Dude, trust me. If you are going to hang out with the Amish, late February is the time to do it.

[flyercanuck]

@ruxpin

Oh I know....you're forever going on and on about your little clique.

[NRH]

Money would not have created a better athlete than phelps, the fact that you believe this is strange.

Money didnt help anyone beat Federer or Nadal in the Olympics.

Money didnt stop Jamaican bolt from crushing the entire world in the Olympics.

Money hasn't stopped hundreds of poor athletes compete in sports.

America has way more money than a lot of countries and yet we barely dominate sports we spend millions on.

Top athletes have come from poverty to beat rich kids more often than rich kids crawl to the top.

[ruxpin]

Money would not have created a better athlete than phelps, the fact that you believe this is strange.

Money didnt help anyone beat Federer or Nadal in the Olympics.

Money didnt stop Jamaican bolt from crushing the entire world in the Olympics.

Money hasn't stopped hundreds of poor athletes compete in sports.

America has way more money than a lot of countries and yet we barely dominate sports we spend millions on.

Top athletes have come from poverty to beat rich kids more often than rich kids crawl to the top.

I think you're missing the point a little bit. I also think it's a bit of a simplistic view of the world.

The point isn't that money didn't beat Federer or Nadal. The point is that money helped enable Federer and Nadal to win. Same with Phelps, etc.

Look, money doesn't always win out. If it did, it wouldn't be 38 years since the Flyers won a damn thing. And few, if any, would have World Series rings other than the Yankees and the Red Sox.

The point is that money does enable. Figure skating, for example, is a fairly expensive enterprise in the States. Not so much in Canada where you can just go find a pond..but even there you probably do need an indoor rink at some point. It's not typically the sons or daughters of minimum wage earners that go on to become National Championship figure skaters, much less Olympic champions.

"America has way more money than a lot of countries and yet we barely dominate sports we spend millions on." Which ones would that be? Moreover, it's not really the point. America does typically lead in the medal counts, particularly at the summer olympics. If not, it's considered a really bad showing. But even when it's not, it's in the top 3 or so. Of all the countries there. It gives the United States a STARTING point that is higher than other countries. It also typically makes them have a larger team to begin with. It doesn't guarantee an overall win in any specific sport. It guarantees a better starting point and better results over time on a macro level.

The belief in this isn't strange. The belief in this is, frankly, reality.

[flyercanuck]

Money would not have created a better athlete than phelps, the fact that you believe this is strange.

As jammer mentioned, Phelps wouldn't have been near the athlete living off $15,000 a year as a Canadian Olympic swimmer. Heck he may have taken a job for a better life, you never know.

Money didnt help anyone beat Federer or Nadal in the Olympics.

The fact that tennis is a game for people with money to start with ends this arguement. Federer is from Switzerland. I take it he came right out of the barrio? Nadal started training with his uncle, a professional tennis player, when he was 3. He turned pro at 15. How many professional athletes come out of Africa at 15? How many child soldiers come out of Switzerland?

Money didnt stop Jamaican bolt from crushing the entire world in the Olympics.

Yes and like I said, there's always exceptions

Money hasn't stopped hundreds of poor athletes compete in sports.

Poor people play sports every day. I've seen kids play ball in Cuba using a stick as a bat and a crushed pop can as a ball. And that is the norm, not the exception. Soccer is the worlds most popular sport cause all you need is a ball and a field. You don't even need the field. But that kid playing with a stick in Cuba would likely become a better player if he was in an organized little league with an actual ball and bat, don't you think?

America has way more money than a lot of countries and yet we barely dominate sports we spend millions on.

The Olympics say otherwise. The countries who spend the most, medal the most.

Top athletes have come from poverty to beat rich kids more often than rich kids crawl to the top.

Yet again, it's about resources. I'm not saying the richest kids are the best athletes. I'm saying athletes with the best training available to them have an upper hand over those that don't. And yet again, there are some exceptions.

[jammer2]

@ Some where down the line, when Stamkos was a young boy, his parents had to shell out thousands of dollars for equipment, league fees, etc....if they didn't have that money, no one would have magically stepped in and said, this kid is good, he needs to play. The only reason you know who Stamkos is today, is because his parents had the financial means to allow him to compete. In other words, if his parents were dirt poor, he would not exist on our radar today. So, the almighty buck does play a role.

[flyercanuck]

@jammer2

Lets face it, there are a lot of kids who may have become great hockey players (or tennis stars, or polo?) who never got the chance cause the money just wasn't available.

[NRH]

If you're going to use the "starting point" an argument then your money argument is irrelevant.

You wouldn't be interested in hockey had someone not pointed it out to you. Phelps family introduce him to swimming so it's likely he'd have still went to an American college to become the swimmer he was in 2000,2004,2008.

Nadals father, federers family, not their "county funding them"

Africans aren't good at hockey because nobody plays it over there, not because it's "expensive"

Americans aren't good at soccer because they like American football and baseball, not because it's "expensive"

Americans funding of Olympic athletes once every four years isn't even close to a factor of them winning. America is at the top of medal counts because we accept all citizens onto our Olympic team. Asian Americans, African born runners, Jamaicans.

Money doesn't seem to be your argument, location and culture seem to be your focus and mistaking it for money. No amount of money made Roddick or anyone else an Olympian from American. Didn't make the already rich Frenchmen fast enough to beat phelps in the 2008 Olympics.

[jammer2]

@ "Americans funding of Olympic athletes once every four years isn't even close to a factor of them winning. America is at the top of medal counts because we accept all citizens onto our Olympic team. Asian Americans, African born runners, Jamaicans."

and the fact they are desperate enough to win to change immigration laws.

[NRH]

@jammer2

Lets face it, there are a lot of kids who may have become great hockey players (or tennis stars, or polo?) who never got the chance cause the money just wasn't available.

To be completely honest I don't think the best players in hockey are the best in the world, somewhere along the line a naturally gifted player was introduced into to a different sport and never had the notion early enough in his life be steered toward hockey.

As for parents shelling out huge amounts of money to introduce kids to sports? I'm quite sure most football kids don't have to shell out huge amounts of money to introduce those kids, in fact I believes many places in northern America an Canada have places where you may pay a few to rent equipment for the games and practices similar to our Rec leagues for children in America in sports like soccer and basketball.

Many sports like soccer have farm systems that sign kids to contracts for club soccer at young ages but then it's the club that Fronts the money.

However many of these kids are dirt poor and miserably fight their way into the system.

Money didnt help the Asians education system, competition did, if you force children to compete to even get to attend high-school then you've made damn sure you get the best in your education system and the worst in your workforce. This is often the same for the Olympics overcome adversity or succumb to the excuse.

[NRH]

@ "Americans funding of Olympic athletes once every four years isn't even close to a factor of them winning. America is at the top of medal counts because we accept all citizens onto our Olympic team. Asian Americans, African born runners, Jamaicans."

and the fact they are desperate enough to win to change immigration laws.

There are many exceptions in every Country in the worlds emigration laws. The fact that ours are so strict is the thing that is broken. There is no reason I should have to make someone do all the pointless tests and red tape just to call themselves an American. Many business men and refugees have been waived to instantly become citizens, many military members bypass the system you mentioned as well to become a citizen.

[ruxpin]

If you're going to use the "starting point" an argument then your money argument is irrelevant.

You wouldn't be interested in hockey had someone not pointed it out to you. Phelps family introduce him to swimming so it's likely he'd have still went to an American college to become the swimmer he was in 2000,2004,2008.

I'm growing bored with this now. I'm the one used the "starting point" argument. It is wholly relevant if you learn the language well enough to understand your response isn't even close to addressing what was said regarding "starting point."

The bold faced above is a good of example of something being completely irrelevant to the discussion.

Edited July 24, 2013 by hf101
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[NRH]

I liked bryz but I don't see where you're going with him. He is a glaring point of money can foster talent.

He also wouldn't have played hockey had someone in Russia not had cheap youth hockey or the inclination to push him towards a rink.

You can grow bored of it, but you've failed to prove that the rich are the clearly dominate and most advantageous in the Olympics. All you guys have done is said that a nation of a billion in china and a nation of 300 million in America have more money invested in a population. You're telling me that Haiti a country with significantly less people an landmass needs $46 million dollars or even that of Somalia a nation that's fielded 7 athletes in all their Olympic appearances?

Both of those countries wouldn't need $46 million in travel expenses and multiple training locations.

You have still not proven that Leborn or Michael Jordan were rich kids, as I remember it many football players both American and European versions of the name grow up poor and use rented equipment or old beat up equipment. This whole notion that you need top of the line things to try is so obviously preconceived and wrong it's annoying. Next you'll tell me if my parents were rich I'd have been a world class runner. You're taking a lot of credit that is all due to these athletes and given it to a piece of paper and that's far more asinine an argument than me "misunderstanding" your "point".

Don't accuse me of being some old man behind a desk from 5 years ago that used to go at it with you in constant flame wars.

Hell if its a rich kid sport why do so many goons still existing? Why did scoring fall off so greatly since Mario and Wayne? Why is it that Schenn laid more hits in a shortened season than any of the BSB?

Why is it that the US can "fund" their way to a World Cup victory?

Why has it been so long since a Olympic gold in hockey?

You're mistaking American funding their Olympians for parents funding their kids or local clubs with reusable equipment.

This whole America is rich the Olympics are unfair isn't even an debate. Plenty of countries with less money have shown this argument isn't true.

[ruxpin]

you have still not proven that Leborn or Michael Jordan were rich kids

Nor was it a premise! Why would I or jammer or flyercanuck attempt to prove something that we didn't even propose?

You are so horribly missing the point and your posts are increasingly idiotic. You have yet to once respond to what was ACTUALLY said and keep coming back with what can only be described as sheer idiocy.

Welcome to ignore. If you're not toughfighter, you're his retarded step-sister.

[ruxpin]

By the way, Einstein, unless you're referring to a sandwich, "HeroEs" is pluralized with an ES.

[NRH]

He said it was highly unfair that one nation uses more money to fund Olympians.

I said it has nothing to do with it.

He pointed out tennis and a tiny country like Haiti.

I pointed out African and there dominace in running.

He blew it off like you have been and pointed out other sports that were also not hockey.

I pointed out that Canda and the European leagues have been far more successful with a national budget significantly smaller than what America could find.

This continues with you still believing money promotes better athletes as that this obstacle has been something that is unfair because another country can't do the same.

You're the one that try's to branch the debate elsewhere in an effort to make me look stupid. Good ignore me, I can't stand when someone ignores a portion of the Debate goes off on a tangent then blames someone for staying on topic for being stupid.

[NRH]

By the way, Einstein, unless you're referring to a sandwich, "HeroEs" is pluralized with an ES.

>has no argument

>>brings up more irrelevant information

[flyercanuck]

To be completely honest I don't think the best players in hockey are the best in the world, somewhere along the line a naturally gifted player was introduced into to a different sport and never had the notion early enough in his life be steered toward hockey.

Or just never had the resources to play it at all. It used to be kids played on a pond. The ones who were talented and worked hard, became NHLers. Now there are plenty of people who just can't afford hockey. Or there are those who can afford to have their kid play "houseleague" but once the travel thing comes into the equation, that's it for junior. And I've heard that story many, many times.

As for parents shelling out huge amounts of money to introduce kids to sports? I'm quite sure most football kids don't have to shell out huge amounts of money to introduce those kids, in fact I believes many places in northern America an Canada have places where you may pay a few to rent equipment for the games and practices similar to our Rec leagues for children in America in sports like soccer and basketball.

A lot of Canadian high schools have taken football programs right out of the school.

Many sports like soccer have farm systems that sign kids to contracts for club soccer at young ages but then it's the club that Fronts the money.

Soccer, as previously mentioned, is a game you can play with a ball and nothing else. Like running.

However many of these kids are dirt poor and miserably fight their way into the system.

Sure. And many don't. It's a tough road for a kid to grow up poor in the tough part of town in North America and stay out of trouble. if he has talent, he might turn some heads. Someone might come along and notice him and take him under his wing. Then a school notices and gives him a free ride with all the help he wants. Or he could be born in a country where not starving to death is more important.

Money didnt help the Asians education system, competition did, if you force children to compete to even get to attend high-school then you've made damn sure you get the best in your education system and the worst in your workforce. This is often the same for the Olympics overcome adversity or succumb to the excuse.

Right. What if your school got blown up? Or you're not allowed to go? Or there just never was one?

[flyercanuck]

If you're going to use the "starting point" an argument then your money argument is irrelevant.

You wouldn't be interested in hockey had someone not pointed it out to you. Phelps family introduce him to swimming so it's likely he'd have still went to an American college to become the swimmer he was in 2000,2004,2008.

With Phelps, he had the talent, but also was given all the help in the world to nurture it. Not everyone gets that. Is a kid in Guatemalas parents going to let him spend 4-6 hours a day swimming, even if there was a pool to do it in?

Nadals father, federers family, not their "county funding them"

The point being they had someone or something helping them to achieve their goals. I mean come on, tennis stars don't come from the poor, whether its families or countries.

Africans aren't good at hockey because nobody plays it over there, not because it's "expensive"

Right. Not to mention they have more important things to think of....like staying alive.

Americans aren't good at soccer because they like American football and baseball, not because it's "expensive"

Americans are becoming better at soccer though, because if they want it theres programs, training, facilities.

Americans funding of Olympic athletes once every four years isn't even close to a factor of them winning. America is at the top of medal counts because we accept all citizens onto our Olympic team. Asian Americans, African born runners, Jamaicans.

Money doesn't seem to be your argument, location and culture seem to be your focus and mistaking it for money. No amount of money made Roddick or anyone else an Olympian from American. Didn't make the already rich Frenchmen fast enough to beat phelps in the 2008 Olympics.

Location and culture can have a huge effect on money. Is it just a coincidence then, that the countries that spend the most on the Olympics just happen to have the best athletes....until some other country decides to spend a ton on the Olympics and then magically they do?