FeedSI Players’ Poll Shows 4% Think The Finns Are The Best
May 13, 2009 in International Hockey Tags: Canada, Finland, hockey poll, NHL, Russia, Sports Illustrated, Sweden, United States
Sports Illustrated emailed me this little NHL poll that is published in their current edition. The question was; Which Country Produces The Best Players?
324 players voted, and players couldn’t vote for their own country. Here’s the results:
Canada 30%
Sweden 28%
Russia 27%
US 7%
Finland 4%
Are you surprised by this? For me, I suppose it looks about right, but I’m really not sure why Finland would get any votes.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
How can this be an accurate poll. Say 108 of the 324 players are canadian, that means that automatically, canadians cannot score over 67%. Meanwhile, there are only 54 are swedish so it means that their max score is 83%. It wouldn’t be fair. This poll should only be considered legitimate if there are an equal number of players from each country on the ballot. Please tell me thats what they did.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
DK; What about our Captain Saku ??
May 13th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
You gotta love this group of finns.
-the Ruutu’s
-Jere Lehtinen
-Teemu Selanne
-Joni Pitkanen
-Kimmo Timonen
-Pekka Rinne
-the Jokinen’s
-the Koivu’s
-Esa Tikkanen
-Miika Kiprusoff
-Niklas Backstrom (the goalie) (the player is spelt “Nicklas”)
-Kari Lehtonen
-Aki Berg
-Jari Kurri
-Jussi Markkanen (think Edmonton)
-Janne Niinimaa (you gotta love him)
-Antero Niittymaki
-Teppo Numminen
-Sami Salo
-Vesa Toskala (my personal fave… not)
-Valteri Filpula (sounds like a utensil)
-Sami Kapanen
-Lumme
-Christian Lumme
Obviously this doesn’t compare to Canada, sweden or Russia’s hockey players. I guess canadians only pay attention to the teams, not the individuals, so they took a wild guess and 7% of them chose Finland.
May 13th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Yeah, I dunno. It’s A Sports Illustrated poll. Obviously you’re good in math class.
May 13th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
No, but Gillis, I think you’re making this more complex than it needs to be. Of 324 NHL players polled, 4% say the Finns produce the best players. To me, that’s pretty clear-cut. And the Finns you list are neither here nor there. All you’re doing is listing Finnish players, not listing players who could be considered the best in the league. These are just Finnish players you’ve typed down. Most are not in the elite category. I think the poll isn’t out of whack.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I don’t expect to be impressed by that list of names (although finnish goalies aren’t that bad).
Unless that 4% is focusing on finnish goalies (which still aren’t the clear favorite in that section anyway), those playerss must be crazy to pick the Finns as best hockey player makers.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
EDIT: “I don’t expect people to be impressed”
May 13th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
DK; I think you spent too much time in the sun in Vegas !
May 13th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
As Gillis pointed out the poll is inherently unfair. Any need for SI to prohibit voting for a country would result in a need for respondents to compensate. They may subconsciously select a country of similar style or background to their own. Similarly they may not select their country’s primary rival. Finally they may simply have ignored the no home country condition or voted in pairs.