#wjc25

[iamidentical]

i was trawling for world junior content, as you do, and saw this graphic on bardown. it's so interesting. take a careful look at the names:

if you're familiar with the players, you'll quickly notice that some of them have their diacritics included here, whereas some of them don't. i've made a little table to illustrate:

there seems to be no obvious pattern here. maybe notability? then explain why šalé is stripped and my dear 2nd pair D on the basement-dwelling kamloops blazers, matteo kočí, isn't. ročák of the kelowna rockets has his diacritics, while his teammate there, štancl, doesn't. two of the vojtěchs have theirs, while the other two don't. whether they play in europe or north america doesn't seem to matter either.

it'd be one thing if all of the names were naked, as i'd honestly expect from bardown, and a really unexpected and pleasant surprise if all the diacritics were present and correct. but they're not, and i think the inconsistency is maybe even more of an issue than if the person behind this graphic had never clicked on the special characters box at all. it kind of lulls you into a certain sense of security when you see some of them there (and if you're unfamilar enough with czech names to not know that tomas should be tomáš). you trust that this graphic is delivering accurate spelling. if the first name your eye lands on looks like vojtěch čihař, then hell, i guess matej mastalirsky must be fine, eh?

and diacritics are important. they're not just pretty decoration—they convey vital information about pronunciation. even if you don't know exactly what they mean, they help you twig to the fact that a particular name or word isn't said the way you might want to say it. and fundamentally, it's about respect. matěj maštalířský's name is just that, every stroke included.

if only bardown wouldn't confuse us this way!

by the way, here's slovakia:

have you ever seen such a sad bunch of denuded names in your life! except róbert fedor, he's special and they like him.

it's also worth noting that bardown did give the swedes and finns all of their applicable diacritics.

so who made these graphics and prepetrated these seemingly inexplicable inconsistencies? who's behind me staying up til 5 am making tables in microsoft word?

i need to know!

[tiger-balm]

barks cut from team canada again.. team management when I get you !!!!!

[tiger-balm]

since cbedard and mack aren't on the 4nations team they should let them play in this year's world juniors