An international sports data group has predicted that Canada won’t come close to winning a medal in men’s hockey at the Sochi Winter Olympics.

In fact, Netherlands-based Infostrada Sports projects that Canada’s men’s hockey team will finish seventh, just ahead of Slovakia.

Of course, the projection should be taken with a grain of salt. Infostrada’s statistical model is based on results in Olympic Games and world championships. More weight is given for recent events and the Canadian teams at the world championships were made up of players whose teams were eliminated from the NHL playoffs.

In the past four world championships, Canadian teams have been seventh followed by three fifth-place finishes — performances that have downgraded this country’s points tally.

Sweden (2013 world champion) is projected to win the Olympic men’s hockey gold in Sochi.

The other top-ranked countries, in order, were Russia (2012 world champion), Finland, Switerzerland, the Czech Republic, the United States, Canada and Slovakia.

Maybe this will serve as extra motivation for Sidney Crosby and other Olympic players who carried this country to a memorable gold medal at the Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010.

“There are many strong countries and being ranked seventh I am sure will make our players and staff give it 100 per cent to represent the best fans of the great game of hockey in the country we love — Canada,” said Bob Nicholson, president and CEO of Hockey Canada, from Sweden where he’s watching the world junior hockey championships.

Infostrada didn’t make any public hockey projections for the last Winter Olympics.

Infostrada’s projections broadly follow the International Ice Hockey Federations’s latest rankings, which award points for the final positions in the last four world championships and in the last Olympic tournament.

In the IIHF’s 2013 rankings, the Canadian men’s hockey team is ranked No. 5, while Sweden is ranked No. 1.

Infostrada’s Virtual Medal Table, which is based on a mathematical formula, was more favourable to the Canadian women, who are projected to follow up their gold medal in 2010 with a silver medal this time.

This forecast is in the form of the top-eight.

Infostrada Sports is a full service sports and media company based in the Netherlands. It produces, distributes and publishes sports data and video content across multiple platforms. As well, British newspapers have used their soccer statistics.

The focus will soon turn to Sports Illustrated, well known for its Olympic projections.

Four years ago, SI predicted that both of Canada’s hockey teams would come away with Olympic gold.

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Those predictions, of course, turned out to be as good as gold.

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