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Swedish league stops playing national anthem


Doktor Kosmos

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I just read on the website of the local paper that the the league that Västerås IK plays in, Allsvenskan, the 2nd tier league in Sweden, is going to stop playing our national anthem before games in order to speed up the whole process. Personally I don't see the point of playing the national anthem before a regular game so I'm all for kicking that habit. It's one thing if you want to play if before a international game between two countries, but not a regular ol' league game. The teams aren't competing on the basis that they're from different countries, so why should the anthem be played? Makes no sense to me.

(I don't know if this is the right place to post this, we don't really have a general hockey subforum as far as I can tell... but anyway, that's not important. Move the thread to a different subforum if you think that's more appropriate.)

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I just read on the website of the local paper that the the league that Västerås IK plays in, Allsvenskan, the 2nd tier league in Sweden, is going to stop playing our national anthem before games in order to speed up the whole process. Personally I don't see the point of playing the national anthem before a regular game so I'm all for kicking that habit. It's one thing if you want to play if before a international game between two countries, but not a regular ol' league game. The teams aren't competing on the basis that they're from different countries, so why should the anthem be played? Makes no sense to me.

Playing the national anthems before games started during the 2nd world war. With a large number of people attending a public event (originally US baseball games) it was thought to promote national spirit to play the anthem. Of course this spread to other sports and other countries during the war.

However, I do agree that it is pointless now. Indeed, I think it is counter-productive as familiarity with the athems breeds contempt.

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In related news, sort of, I read in Wednesday's issue of Aftonbladet that refs will call a 2-minute misconduct penalty on any player that talks too much during a game. The refs organisation and the Hockey Federation want to get rid of all of that. A rule change that I definitely think is good.

First a player who complains too much to the referees will recieve a warning. If the player then continues to voice his negative opinions, he will get 2 minutes in the box. If it's a coach who talks too much the team will get a bench minor.

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In related news, sort of, I read in Wednesday's issue of Aftonbladet that refs will call a 2-minute misconduct penalty on any player that talks too much during a game. The refs organisation and the Hockey Federation want to get rid of all of that. A rule change that I definitely think is good.

First a player who complains too much to the referees will recieve a warning. If the player then continues to voice his negative opinions, he will get 2 minutes in the box. If it's a coach who talks too much the team will get a bench minor.

Can you imagine if the NHL adopted that? And you thought there were a lot of penalties last season? They'd have to rip out seats and make the penalty boxes bigger.

Edited by RobRock
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They have an online debate going on the website of the local paper. Some people are really foaming at the mouth, wondering where Sweden's coming to, saying that if they only start the pre-game ceremony (cheesy fireworks, national anthem, line-ups etc) ten minutes earlier there'd be no problem, why o why won't you let us keep our sacred traditions, the fact that it's a tradition that we borrowed from the NHL only ten years ago s'got nothing to do with it. Without the national anthem you might as well have the players play without sticks, 'cause whatever that is, it ain't hockey.

I don't know whether I should be surprised or not.

Edited by Doktor Kosmos
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National anthem always make me laugh. They're playing USA and Canada's ones and half of the 40 players come from other countries if it's not more than half... So useless...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Good for Allsvenskan, and maybe talk about dropping this jingo crap from the NHL as well. Whenever I am at a sporting event in an arena and they play a national anthem, I quietly dissent from standing in honor, usually by moving to the corridors or another area -- not because I want to disrespect people, actually for the opposite reason.

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  • 1 month later...

National Anthems has got to go! Seriously! Did anyone hear the anthems in the Oilers@Kings game? Worst ever!

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even though it's a north american league, a lot of players are from europe now, and it's like pledging blind allegiance to these countries, silly patriotism

sorry about that idiot drunk patriot that punched you when you sat down pierre

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sorry about that idiot drunk patriot that punched you when you sat down pierre

it's ok, pierre deserved it!! maybe was it one of us who did it :P

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I didn't stand after 9/11 because it was just stupid. got punched.

agree with you fella but i can see why you got punched- it was a sensitive time.was it a complete moron who punched you? a redneck?

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