Author: Gobbles
Word Count: 4340, not including the chart (Not sure how to quantify that).
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     Hello! In this article, I hope to break down the nationalities of those who play in the SHL and SMJHL in regards to international competition, and provide information for those interested in these sorts of demographics. Also discussed will be the possibility of a future IIHF expansion format, how long it could take to occur and what it may look like.I hope in the comments there can be a discussion on IIHF teams and nationalities, and whether such an implementation could be feasible. Featuring in this article is IIHF Commissioner Artermis, who kindly responded to a few questions I posed to them about the current state, and the future, of the IIHF!


In the table below, I have broken down the birthplaces of every player currently signed with a team in the SHL or SMJHL as of the trade deadline this year (SHL S44). This list does not include any upcoming S46 prospects not currently signed to an SMJHL team as a free agent, nor does it include any free agents unsigned by a team. Forgoing any SHL free agents was a choice made in order to avoid the majority of Inactive players (who are usually dropped from IIHF teams anyways unless very desperate times occur), with this chart only including those who are currently employed at either of the league levels. Also, in order to keep things easy to track and to explore the possibility of adding new IIHF teams, I have prioritized the players birthplace over their international transfer or declaration, so this chart does not directly compare to each international team’s existing roster (A lot of American and Canadian transfers to other teams!)

Links:
The updated and current rosters, transfers and all, as well as the eligible players lists, can be found at these links:


Austria: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=302
Canada: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=303
Czechoslovakia: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=482
Finland: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=305
Germany: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=306
Ireland: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=481
Latvia: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=460
Norway: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=480
Russia: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=308
Sweden: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=310
United Kingdom: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=312
United States: http://simulationhockey.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=311




Now, without further ado, the chart! Remember, this only accounts for birthplaces, not transferred eligibility.




Stats:



Country       C       LW       RW       D       G       Total Players

---

USA             6       25        23         31      14       99

---

Canada       17      24        13         20       7        81

---

Germany      3       1           5          12       0        21

---

Ireland          3       6          1           9        1        20

---

Russia          7       2          6           5        3        23

---

Hungary       0       0          0           3        0         3

---

Latvia           7       3          6           6        2         24

---

Wales          0       1           1           2        0         4

---

U.K.             5       7          3            8        1        14

---

Switzlnd.      1       0          2             0       1         4

---

Finland        2       2          7            6        2        19

---

Austria        1       3           2           9        1         16

---

Sweden      5       7           4           2         2        20

---

Norway      3        4           3           9         2        21

---

Cze.           5        5           3           6        1        20

---

Japan        1        2           1           2         0        6

---

Italy           0        3           2           0         0        5

---

France      1        0           0           1         1        3

---

OTHER    6        2           6           14        7       35




Hopefully, this can be something I update season to season, removing retired players/released inactive free agents from the list, and then adding those newly signed into the SHL/SMJHL. Then if there is anyone interested in their new player/re-create competing in international play and wants to have a good shot of joining a national team sooner rather than later, they can consult the list to see where spots are needed/easier to make. Even if adding new teams is unfeasible, this chart could be an at-a-glance referral to see which federations might be short on what roles.



Inferring and Stuff:

Some observations when breaking down the chart:

1. USA, by far and away, had the most total players and abundances in all roles… except center. Oddly enough, despite having over 20 at each wing, the Yanks seem to lack a depth of dedicated faceoff-takers, with only 6 US-born natural centremen between both leagues. Hope some of those wingers put TPE into faceoffs!
   
2. Canada also had a surplus of nationals, but in this case much more evenly spread out, including the most centres of any nation by a country mile, more than twice as much as the next highest nations. A lot less RW’s than LW’s, but still a potent cache of choices for the Canucks.
   
3. The Germans  are good at defense. Over half of their 21-person representatives in the league play defense (12/21). With 0 German-raised goaltenders, and a sparse forward group, this could mean that new recruits in those areas could be speeding down the IIHF Autobahn to early international play.
   
4. Ireland is only slightly more balanced in this factor that Germany with a few less defenders (although still a stout group), a couple more forwards, and exactly one Kilarney Keeper.
   
5. Latvia and Austria were the two nations that appeared to have the most imports, with players born in other countries declaring eligibility to fill the sparse home-grown talent. Latvia is not in bad shape for national forwards, but having only 6 defenseman and a pair of goalies between all of the SHL and SMJHL is not exactly screaming depth. Austria, like Ireland, has a solid defense and at least one goaltender, but lacks many forwards from home. Transfers definitely fill the gaps in order for these two to continue having solid-performing teams.
   
6. I counted Wales as separate from the UK for the shits and giggles.
   
7. Despite ruling the roost in the NHL this year, Finnish players are having a bad run of things in the SHL/SMJHL currently. Only a pair of centers, not exactly a dearth of forwards, and minimal numbers of defensemen and goalies? One thing I will say about Finland, despite lacking quantity, they certainly have quality. Most of the Finnish players I observed were in the SHL and with good or better than average TPE scores. No stats to back it up this time (Maybe in another piece!), just a personal observation.
   
8. Sweden has a decent stock of forwards, but only two Swedish meatballs on the back end! Almost opposite to the NHL, Sweden’s d-core really needs a few more guys like Hedman or Karlsson. Heck, they would improve with a 35-year-old Enstrom type or a Jonathan Ericsson even.
   
9. Norway , in a similar build to Ireland and Germany, have a solid pack of defenseman to choose from, fewer forwards, but at least Norway has two Norwegian-born goalies. A few transfers there have helped fill in the gaps.
   
10. Czechoslovakia , hunting for its 3rd IIHF gold in 5 years, has really benefited from imports to bolster their homegrown players, who are actually pretty decently spread out. The only things they are really missing out on is some Czech or Slovak-born goaltenders, with only one national currently around.
    

Future Expansion

Okay, and now, on to the other main point of this article. Looking at the chart, I showed every nation that had at least 3 players born there on the chart, whereas if you had 2 or less, they were lumped into the “Other” category. The “Other” category included some exotic places like Madagascar, Poland, Indonesia, Antarctica, Lithuania, Costa Rica, Australia, Greenland, Zimbabwe, Kanye West’s Heart, “IIHF Sucks”, Mexico, Icleand, Belgium, South Africa… et cetera. However, there were a couple of nations that actually had a few players from a non-IIHF nation, with some hockey growth occurring in Switzerland (4 players), Italy (5 players), and, surprisingly, Japan (6 players, the highest from any non-IIHF SHL member-nation. If these numbers continue to grow, perhaps there could be a push for an expansion for a couple new IIHF participants (just going by numbers here, let’s say Japan and Italy). Only if new recreates committed to either of these nations at an increased rate, and undoubtedly needing the support of existing players using their one international transfer, it would not be impossible, but would take time to set up. This definitely would not be a one-season overnight change - it would take a few seasons for enough players to amass enough talent to create a team - and that hinges on interest in two new countries for new players/recreates in the second place (Not necessarily Japan and Italy, but those two have the best head start).


So, if two new teams were somehow added to the IIHF competitions, how would that change the way the tournament is structured? To answer that, we’ll have to take a look at how the tournament is currently structured:


As it is now, the 12 participating teams are divided into two pools of 6. In each pool, teams play a “home-and-away” against each other team in their pool, for a total of 10 games each. The top four teams from each pool move on to the quarterfinals (the knockout stages), and the bottom two teams in each pool are eliminated. Looking for possible spitballs regarding an IIHF expansion, I approached current IIHF Commissioner Artermis with a couple of questions. Here is what they replied with!


Do you think an IIHF expansion be feasible over the next few seasons?


“Being the eligible list updater for the World Juniors has allowed me to observe the most popular birth places that are not currently allocated a federation in the IIHF. As it is now, Japan, Poland, Hungary, and France are the most popular unassigned nations, with Italy being a popular choice in the past. As the IIHF is managed currently, I don't think any unassigned nation has the numbers to warrant a new team so that's the first signal I'd use to create a new team. The second being a more establish and competitive 12 teams that we have currently. Sure, superpower dominance is nearly a thing of the past, but our smallest federations still struggle with small player pools; Czechoslovakia had only 23 in the early S30's but has made a significant comeback. Once small teams begin to perform well enough in recruitment and on the ice so as to be near equals with everyone else, that is a good sign that expansion should be sought.”


Do you believe the site has enough active members to sustain another two IIHF teams?


“As I stated previously, currently there are not enough players in unassigned nations to support them, but in a general sense, yes I do believe we have enough players in general: we have 14 SHL teams, not to mention 8 SMJHL teams, and we are looking at possible expansion to add more, yet we only have 12 IIHF teams, so in short, yes.”


If additional teams were ever expanded into the IIHF schedule, what possible changes could you foresee to the tournament format, if any?


“That'd be something we could toy around with, but reactions to changes in the IIHF have often been met with resistance, or at least major changes. We do have a system that works, but I like to think that you can improve anything. That being said, while I don't think a two team expansion would necessarily warrant a change to our format, some things could absolutely be looked at, such as: a revival of the IIHF long schedule (qualifiers throughout the entire season), the creations of divisions, or perhaps a general overhaul of the tournaments format.”


Wrapping it Up

Okay, so this one looks like could be much more straightforward than I was making it - don’t fix what ain’t broke. If two new teams were eventually added, at this point they could simply change the pool sizes to 7 each, and increase the number of teams eliminated from each pool in the round-robin to 3. This would increase competition, and increase the number of games per round-robin simmed to 12 total games played per team and 68 games between both pools before the knockout stages.


The final prospect of an IIHF expansion is unlikely to happen in the near future, but with the good amount of activity on the site and and some positive thinking, this basically boils down to an “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” kind of scenario. If enough users start to make players from certain countries, then the room is there to make a new team. But in a good showing of common sense, the higher ups won’t  just create a new team without at least a semi-established pool of players, as well as seeing signs of bolstering in the less stacked IIHF squads. Some potential candidates are the new areas of growth Artermis pointed out in places like Japan, Poland, Hungary, and France.


All in all, this was a fun little experiment/data collection for me that I hope is mildly entertaining or useful to you readers, and gives somewhat new information. And maybe, just maybe, this information can be useful to a new player/recreate interested in their player performing in International competitions. After picking a position, one could look to see where their player might be most needed, and round out the international playing field a little. Also, I’d love to hear all of your thoughts on this, the potential for new IIHF teams, and suggestions on how to better implement/present the data!

References: @artermis