Holland, Romania, Czech Republic, Ukraine...

[leafer01]

Russia has nobody other than Kovalchuk? Oh please.

Fedorov, Bure, V. Bure, Yashin, Kovalev, Kovalchuk, Samsonov, Zhamnov, Yushkevich, Markov, Kasparaitis, Khabibulin, Gonchar and the list goes on and on.

Czech Republic? Are you talking about the same Czech Republic that got knocked out by Russia in the Olympics?

And for the Canadian dude, the game will be sold in Canada whether or not team Canada is in it. The biggest market here are the immigrants who come from other countries to live in Canada, and they don't really care about team Canada (no offense).

Face it, Canada doesn't have too many soccer supporters, and never will for as long as all the idiots on TV make fun of this sport. How many times have you heard Don Cherry or any other sports analyst compare soccer to ballet or some other ****?

Or how many soccer games can you catch on TV? TSN used to show the Champions League, and now they are showing CURLING instead of it!!

 

[strobe_z]

I guess I'm Canadian Dude..

I didn't say Russia wasn't good.. I just said they weren't the best!.

As for the WC game selling mainly to recent immigrants.. I dunno about that. You're right about the media's apathy towards soccer (even though TSN does still show Champions League matches). In general they don't care. You're also right about general support for the Canadian National team. If you ever go to a game you'll see a lot of support from the local communities for whatever visiting team is here.

I don't think that's evident of the support of the game here though. A LOT of kids play soccer (more than play hockey actually) and kids are the main ones buying the games.

Maybe you're a 1st generation Canadian.. so maybe you have a different view of it than I do.. but I was born here and I'm 100% Canadian. To me I won't really be happy unless Canada is in the game, it's really as simple as that.

 

[Ralf]

Ok, you are right leafer.

In Poland i can't watch any NHL game in TV, couse it is in a encoded channels... The same problem in Poland is a world cup (in football of course). One channel of Polish TV decoded all games in world cup 2002, without games where play Poland team! It is awful! If I would like to watch world cup, I must buy special decoder...

 

[leafer01]

I'm not a Canadian at all, but I live in Toronto, and the soccer coverage here is pathetic. I'm crossing my fingers CBC chooses to show the World Cup over some stupid 22 minutes or red green show. Last time TSN showed a CL game was before the winter break, since then all you see is some bull**** sport nobody cares about.

I'm not saying there are no Canadian soccer fans out there at all, what I am saying is that a large part of people who do buy soccer games here, and people who actually play soccer, are foreigners. And since most people who buy the games in Canada aren't Canadian, they most likely will buy the game whether team Canada is in the game or not.

As for hockey, in it's Olympic history, Russia didn't get any hockey medals only ONCE and that was in 94. They are the best.

 

[strobe_z]

I'm not sure of your situation leafer01 but as a non-Canadian who lives in Toronto I think you might have a different perspective than I do. I have lots of friends who are both Canadian and love soccer (I'm a little older than a lot of the people here, so most of my friends aren't into video games as much).

Perhaps if you're not a Canadian but just living here you might not know how many Canadians are out there who have an interest in soccer. Like I said, I don't know your situation at all, but I know that I'm Canadian.. and that I care about the Canadian team.. and I care if it's in the game or not.. and I know I'm not alone. I do wonder how those people buying the games would feel about your blanket statement that they're not Canadian, but I'm guessing you mean more recent immigrants and not 'foreigners'.

I'm not really arguing with you here though.. there's lots of people in Canada who are interested in different teams and leagues from around the world... a lot of them are immigrants to Canada, but that's the nature of the country. Heck, I was born here, but as I said I'm half Polish. Maybe that makes me a 'foreigner' by your description, but I know I'm 100% Canadian.

By the way.. I don't know what's wrong with TSN in Toronto, but I watched both the Barcelona/Galataseray and Arsenal/Juventus games a couple days ago. You should check it out - the Barca game was really good!