Kommt österreich unter die ersten 8?

Super Bericht eines SCHWEIZERS !!

IBM Chairman Thomas Watson said in 1943: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

This might sound strange to us now, but it is good to know. It can be cited by a hockey expert as an excuse if he turns out to be totally wrong about something.

I remember so-called NHL experts explaining why European hockey could not develop goaltenders for the NHL: "The kids do not play baseball in Europe, so therefore they cannot learn how to catch a ball, or a puck, with a glove."

Now, even goalies from France, Austria and Switzerland are getting jobs in the NHL. And David Aebischer, Martin Gerber, Cristobal Huet and Reinhard Divis never played baseball.

Sometimes you cannot explain why things happen in hockey or in the world economy (ask Mr. Watson).

In the Preliminary Round, Team Austria was better than it's ever been since winning a bronze medal at the first post-war IIHF World Championships in 1947 in Prague--and no expert can tell us why.

So we have to try to analyze it: What do you need to get a strong national team for the World Championships?

Experts will say that you need a good national championship format, a long-term development program for young players, and brand new arenas to draw in the spectators and make money to run the hockey business .

But the Austrians do not have a better championship than the Swiss or Germans. They do not have a better development program and they haven't invested big bucks in hockey.

Coach Herbert Pöck has an answer. He thinks Austrian hockey profited from the disastrous collapse of the Austrian League. In 1999, after the collapse of Feldkirch, only two teams were left: Villach and Klagenfurt.

The Austrians, smart as they are, found a solution: They declared the second league to be their new first league, and added Villach and Klagenfurt to this new league. All of a sudden, a lot of young players had to play on the highest national level. And Pöck says that made them stronger.

And because hockey is not a big business in Austria, the best players are leaving and playing in better foreign leagues in the EU--in the German DEL, in Sweden, in Finland or in North America. Thomas Vanek left Austria at the age of 14 to play in North America and has become a first-round NHL draft pick.

Nine players on the Austrian team make their money abroad, and goaltender Reinhard Divis is earning his bucks in the NHL. Despite the controversal opinion Mr. Watson had about the computer business years ago, we have seen that even for Austrian goalies there is a market in the NHL. Experts can always be wrong.

So an expert like Mr. Watson would advise you to destroy your national championship and to make sure your stars cannot make big money in your own league--and then you will get a strong national team.

Is it as simple as that?

Maybe there is an additional reason why the Austrians have got a stronger team. I see Herbert Hohenberger is missing from their roster. The best defenseman in Austrian hockey last season, Hohenberger turned down the invitation to play for his country at these 68th IIHF World Championships. He is one of the last true rock and rollers in European hockey. I think that the lack of his ready-to-party attitude has certainly changed the chemistry of the team.

Team Austria is a perfect example of how sometimes little things can provoke big changes and create another Cinderella story at the IIHF World Championships.

Just as the movement of the wings of a butterfly can sometimes start a hurricane.

schweiz - lettland 1:1 ... das beste was passieren konnte. jetzt genügt uns heute ein sieg gegen die deutschen um ins 1/4 zu kommen...