The Importance of Alphonso Davies

[RS]

6 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

That's the point

Is it? Messier isn't as good as Crosby or Ovechkin (or McDavid) in any era. The latter three all have a higher career PPG than Messier in a time where scoring is way down from the 80s heyday when guys like John Ogrodnick had 50-goal season.

I generally agree that you shouldn't compare eras, but I'm not sure if using Messier is the way to make that point.

(This is what it's come to on here, arguing about hockey lol) 

[SpursFlu]

Ok pick someone else from that era. I guess the 4th highest scorer of all time and top 10 player in history wasn't good enough for you lol

[RS]

10 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

Ok pick someone else from that era. I guess the 4th highest scorer of all time and top 10 player in history wasn't good enough for you lol

I named three players from the current era off the top of my head who are better than Messier.

That's my point.

[Shway]

 

2 hours ago, SpursFlu said:

... You also have to consider what was available to them as resources. Diet, equipment, training, knowledge etc etc. They used to say Mario Lemieux's pre season training redgement consisted of stop ordering fries with his cheeseburger. It's just all different 

Proving my point as to why the greatest athlete tag can't be given for guys in those eras, especially in hockey. A time where you can eat fries with a cheeseburger and score a hatrick, or when guys used to drink a pint before a game, or when guys played with tobacco in their mouth, or a time when guys were on peds beacuse there wasn't any drug testing. 

I refuse to be believe the greatest athlete was birthed 50 years ago. 

Best athlete of that era...... Okay that's a convo. 

[SpursFlu]

33 minutes ago, Shway said:

 

Proving my point as to why the greatest athlete tag can't be given for guys in those eras, especially in hockey. A time where you can eat fries with a cheeseburger and score a hatrick, or when guys used to drink a pint before a game, or when guys played with tobacco in their mouth, or a time when guys were on peds beacuse there wasn't any drug testing. 

I refuse to be believe the greatest athlete was birthed 50 years ago. 

Best athlete of that era...... Okay that's a convo. 

But if the same guy from this era lived then he would be crushing cheeseburgers and playing hungover 2. People being the most dedicated crossfit participant and having 5 personal chefs is only worth so much in my opinion

I also dont like the description as athlete because I think what we're really saying. Who was the best at their sport. The guy who wins the Reebok crossfit or decathelon is a better "athelete" then Tom Brady, Floyd Mayweather or Lionel Messi. But is that what we're talking about?

Edited March 21, 2020 by SpursFlu

[dyslexic nam]

What the hell are we talking about again? 

[SpursFlu]

10 minutes ago, dyslexic nam said:

What the hell are we talking about again? 

Best Canadian "Athlete" of all time. Could it be Alphonso Davies? 

C'mon bro, keep up

[Snowcrash]

Steve Nash won the equivalent of 2 Ballon d'Ors.

Number 2 would be Ben Johnson winning the World's and then following up with Olympic gold.

With all due respect, hockey is not a world sport and the talent pool Nash had to compete against is exponentially larger.

Regarding Ben, we now know that every single finalist who line up against him was also on PED's so in my books, he won fair and square.

 

 

[RS]

7 minutes ago, Snowcrash said:

Number 2 would be Ben Johnson winning the World's and then following up with Olympic gold.

Donovan Bailey did the same thing, with ton more scrutiny on him. He deserves at least a 2A.

[Bison44]

3 minutes ago, Snowcrash said:

Steve Nash won the equivalent of 2 Ballon d'Ors.

Number 2 would be Ben Johnson winning the World's and then following up with Olympic gold.

With all due respect, hockey is not a world sport and the talent pool Nash had to compete against is exponentially larger.

Regarding Ben, we now know that every single finalist who line up against him was also on PED's so in my books, he won fair and square.

 

 

Johnson?? Donavon Bailey won the worlds before and after winning a gold medal in Atlanta..

How about Clara Hughes, multiple medal winner in summer and winter games?    

[SkuseisLoose]

Alphonso Davies no matter how good he becomes will never be considered the greatest canadian athlete except if there's a massive change in the popularity of soccer in the next 10 years. Gretkzy will always be considered first, rightfully so, as the greatest hockey player to ever live. Could he ever become Number 2 in the eyes of Canadians, definitely a possibility to me.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

Great respect for Steve Nash but there are swathes of cultures in the world where basketball does not really register either.  I could ask but I would guess no one has heard of him here for instance.  Jordan, Magic, Kobe, LeBron maybe now Curry but knowledge gets thin beyond that. Reaction to basketball tends to be "netball, like what the girls play in school".  Probably my favourite sport as a teenager and easy get a game in any place with ties to States but hard to find a hoop here. 

It would similar to cricket, where the places the British colonized have a decent chance of being mad for it but elsewhere very lukewarm to not existent feelings.  Some of those places have huge populations but still not really a world sport.  

In the end, I am biased I can remember going to Oilers games during their first Stanley cup run as a little kid (I hated those Islanders).  But even without that I would still go with Gretzky for both being the Pele (being considered the greatest across generations) of his game (however much smaller) and being one of the most positively known Canadian sportsman.  Really transcends the lack of "ice" hockey knowledge in a lot of Europe.

(And yes I know physically, and technologically even, the game has changed drastically but Pele or even our man Bobby Moore put through the regiments of today 's training etc would still be the best players, in my opinion.  I choose to believe the same about Gretzky.) 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

4 minutes ago, SkuseisLoose said:

Alphonso Davies no matter how good he becomes will never be considered the greatest canadian athlete except if there's a massive change in the popularity of soccer in the next 10 years. Gretkzy will always be considered first, rightfully so, as the greatest hockey player to ever live. Could he ever become Number 2 in the eyes of Canadians, definitely a possibility to me.

He could become the greatest Canadian athlete in the view of the world.  Long, long way to go but has a better chance and seems okay with the task so far. 

[Snowcrash]

42 minutes ago, RS said:

Donovan Bailey did the same thing, with ton more scrutiny on him. He deserves at least a 2A.

Ben beat Carl Lewis.  That counts extra.

Also, I don't remember Bailey's race in detail but even now, I can picture Ben flying out of the blocks so hard he appears to stumble and maybe 40 metres in, he's ahead but that's when you expect Lewis to make his move but Ben just pulls away and 5 metres from the finish line, he raises his hand, easing up and still smashes the world record with a 9.79.

Edited March 21, 2020 by Snowcrash

[SpursFlu]

I would say next to soccer I think basketball is the most widely played sport in the world.

I disagree about the statement about soccer not being popular enough. The data suggest its likely already the most popular sport in Canada. Mainstream sport media just being dragged along kicking and screaming. A step behind as per usual 

Edited March 21, 2020 by SpursFlu

[N1ckbr0wn]

1 hour ago, Snowcrash said:

 

 

With all due respect, hockey is not a world sport and the talent pool Nash had to compete against is exponentially larger.

 

 

Respectfully disagree, i wouldn't say Basketball is much more of a "world sport" then hockey. Both have relatively large followings outside of North America.

[SpursFlu]

11 minutes ago, N1ckbr0wn said:

Respectfully disagree, i wouldn't say Basketball is much more of a "world sport" then hockey. Both have relatively large followings outside of North America.

Dude have you ever been to Asia? Hugely popular in China and Philippines. Theres a billion people right there. The sports in USA, not even close. All of Southern Europe. Eastern Europe its huge. Very popular in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina. Australia and New Zealand. It goes on and on. Hockey v Basketball isn't even close. 

Edited March 22, 2020 by SpursFlu

[An Observer]

10 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

Dude have you ever been to Asia? Hugely popular in China and Philippines. Theres a billion people right there. The sports in USA, not even close. All of Southern Europe. Eastern Europe its huge. Very popular in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina. Australia and New Zealand. It goes on and on. Hockey v Basketball isn't even close. 

I would completely agree with this.  Basketball is way more popular around the world than hockey.  I would say that Rugby is more popular than hockey as well. 

The one thing hockey has going for it is that in 3 or 4 of its 6 or 7 markets where it’s popular, it might be the dominant sport which makes the National following more intense and akin to soccer at World Cup time.  Basketball is no where near the most popular sport in its dominant markets including its home the US.

[SpursFlu]

Climate in 80% of the world works against hockey. As Canadians we shouldn't feel offended 

[Kent]

12 hours ago, SpursFlu said:

I love Gretzky. From a pure analytical standpoint he's probably the greatest athlete ever anywhere. The numbers were so staggering. It would have been like Jordan avg 50 pts a game or something.

The player you are looking for is Wilt Chamberlain, who actually did average 50 points in a season once. He is the only player from any sport whose numbers are in the ballpark of dominance as Gretzky’s. James Harden recently went on a long streak of averaging 40 points per game. I believe it was close to half a season. I can’t remember if he passed Elgin Baylor’s 33 game streak which was the second longest such streak. The longest streak was Wilt’s 515 games.

But I agree with your point. I am on team Gretzky for best Canadian athlete easily. He may not be the most known globally, but that is a different conversation.

[Kent]

9 hours ago, Shway said:

Good ole Gretzky debate (wrong thread... I know). 

Its hard for me to say that he's the greatest athlete ever, and even greatest hockey player ever when the game has changed drastically from the years he dominated it. The goalies in particular were smaller, didn't wear masks, had smaller pads/less protection, and the standup butterfly was famous. All this to say that if Ovechkin, or Crosby played in times like that they would have scored a lot more then they do now. 

Hockey is one of a few sports where you can look back at the times and say the game was a lot easier then. Yes tougher, more brute and fearless... But skill wise it has evolved drastically! 

So that greatest athlete everywhere talk is biased to Canadian opinion. 

This is a popular argument but it is incredibly flawed and I hate it to be honest.

Ovechkin 3 Hart, 1 Art Ross

Crosby 2 Hart, 2 Art Ross

McDavid  1 Hart, 2 Art Ross

Evgenyi Malkin 1 Hart, 2 Art Ross

Those 4 players combined for 7 Hart trophies (NHL MVP) and 7 Art Ross (NHL scoring leader, goals plus assists). Wayne Gretzky won 9 Hart trophies and 10 Art Ross trophies (and lost one on a tie breaker in his rookie year).

You can’t just explain it away saying it was higher scoring back then and disregard what he accomplished.The average margin of victory in the scoring race in NHL history is 13% (so the scoring leader has 13% more points than the guy in second place). If you exclude the years Gretzky was the scoring champ that number drops down to 10%. He skews 100 years of stats! His average margin of victory was 41%, and the largest win by anyone who isn’t Gretzky was Bill Cowley during WWII when he won by 36%.

Just look at the 1986-87 season where the second leading scorer had 108 points. That total wouldn’t look out of place in recent times. But that year Gretzky scored 183 points, which definitely would stand out.

P.S. The goalies did where masks in Gretzky’s time. There were some players that didn’t where helmets for a decent portion of his career though, but only a handful (my memory only goes back as far as Brad Marsh).

[An Observer]

3 hours ago, T.I.O.R. said:

I suspect, if you asked that question right now to anyone in Europe, or any other continent for that matter, you would more than likely hear Davies' name more often than Gretzky, and as long as he's with Bayern, the more you'd get to hear his name. I don't think there's many outside of Canada and the United States who have ever heard of Messier, Crosby, Ovechkin or McDavid.

I am married to a Belgian. She knows one hockey player (Gretzky); one basketball player (Jordan; I had to explain for about the 5th time the other day who Lebron is); and as for soccer (foot ball), she knows in this order:

1. Beckham (for obvious reasons)

2. Ronaldo (as like number 1 he sneaks into the fashion mags)

3. Kevin De Bruyne (as her mother loves him)

4. Jonathan de Guzman (as I spent the many years getting her to translate the Dutch articles on him; she thinks he is a superstar and still to this day asks me how he is doing)  😂😂😂

 

[Fresh Prince of MTL]

Hi I agree that Gretzky is the greatest Canadian athlete relative to the competition like others have said, but a lot of people are forgetting another important name. GSP is probably one of our most well known athletes worldwide due to UFC’s success in South America and Asia. Plus other than Gretzky I’d say he is the only Canadian who can be argued to be the greatest all time in his sport. 

Edited March 22, 2020 by Fresh Prince of MTL

[SpursFlu]

9 hours ago, Kent said:

The player you are looking for is Wilt Chamberlain, who actually did average 50 points in a season once. He is the only player from any sport whose numbers are in the ballpark of dominance as Gretzky’s. James Harden recently went on a long streak of averaging 40 points per game. I believe it was close to half a season. I can’t remember if he passed Elgin Baylor’s 33 game streak which was the second longest such streak. The longest streak was Wilt’s 515 games.

But I agree with your point. I am on team Gretzky for best Canadian athlete easily. He may not be the most known globally, but that is a different conversation.

Thanks for the backup on that. I'm definitely not mad at anyone for picking Gretzky but for the record I was team Steve Nash with a side of Alphonso Davies maybe someday. 

As far as what of the world thinks. I know people who had no idea who Kobe Bryant was when he died so I really am not interested in who people from Lithuania or Madagascar know or don't know. The amount of of people competitively competing is definitely relevant 

[archer21]

12 hours ago, SpursFlu said:

Dude have you ever been to Asia? Hugely popular in China and Philippines. Theres a billion people right there. The sports in USA, not even close. All of Southern Europe. Eastern Europe its huge. Very popular in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina. Australia and New Zealand. It goes on and on. Hockey v Basketball isn't even close. 

Basketball is definitely more popular than hockey worldwide, but I don’t buy the argument that Nash is better than Gretzky because of it. The gap isn’t that large.
 

Just look at the makeup of the NBA, it’s 75% Americans. The NHL is less than 50% Canadian and about 25% American. So at the highest level, it’s more diverse than basketball really. 

Now obviously, that doesn’t mean that hockey is more popular but I don’t think the difference is that big. There are more people in the states than Canada which helps explain how they dominate the sport so much compared to Canadians dominating hockey.