World Cup of Hockey

[HellOnICE]

I bet the players don't care either about the all star teams. The players want to play to win. I think they'll be excited to be on an all star team of 'underdogs' in a way. 

Edited January 18, 2015 by HellOnICE

[eaglejelly]

  Players care about the World Championship and that is a nonsense tournament where most of the best players in the world can't or refuse to attend.

It will be as exciting as the World Baseball Classic

[CRASHER]

You are fooling yourself. This is a money grab by the NHL and a excuse not to send its players to the Olympics. These games will have the quality of pre-season games, because that's exactly what they will be.

 

Did you watch the World Cup of Hockey games from the 90s?? I totally disagree there.....players play HARD when they're sent out there....especially when they're doing it for country (and endorsements )

[HellOnICE]

They'll be a lot of hype to these games and with 20,000 fans in the building players will respond. It'll be electric.

[jagknife]

Did you watch the World Cup of Hockey games from the 90s?? I totally disagree there.....players play HARD when they're sent out there....especially when they're doing it for country (and endorsements )

 

I STILL remember seeing the US trounce the Czechs at MSG in 96, I think the score was like 7-3

 

EDIT: Sorry, it was the Slovaks and it was 9-3.

Edited January 18, 2015 by jagknife

[HellOnICE]

I am not a huge fan apparently of all the games being played in the ACC and Bell Centre. I'd like to see one played here if it was possible in the NY/NJ area whether it be at the Garden or Rock.

[SterioDesign]

Under the 2 Canada scenario, I can't wait to hear how that prevented Canada from winning every time they don't.

I like the current proposed format. Much more interesting than adding 2 awful teams to the 6 supposed good ones.

 

Yeah cause a fan pointing out that his team is missing 4-5 top guys who are a step ahead of everyone their age and good enough to stay in the NHL each year is CLEARLY an unfair and ridiculous statement. How could one think it's some kind of disadvantage right. 

Edited January 18, 2015 by SterioDesign

[Devils731]

Yeah cause a fan pointing out that his team is missing 4-5 top guys who are a step ahead of everyone their age and good enough to stay in the NHL each year is CLEARLY an unfair and ridiculous statement. How could one think it's some kind of disadvantage right.

This is what I'm talking about.

It is a disadvantage but I don't need a second tournament where something similar is brought up constantly.

[Daniel]

The players under 23 team is silly, but I could live with the "miscellaneous" category, the idea being not to devote too much time to qualifying games, if the thing we're really open to everyone. Downside though that you lose the possibility of any kind of Cinderella storyline.

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Edited January 18, 2015 by Daniel

[HellOnICE]

Those all star teams will be underdogs. The under 23 I like a lot. Young guys show what they can do, really good for the game, the federations, etc.

[Daniel]

Those all star teams will be underdogs. The under 23 I like a lot. Young guys show what they can do, really good for the game, the federations, etc.

Meh, technically, I suppose, but the entire team will be made up of NHLers. Not exactly the miracle on ice.

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[capo]

I'd rather they just make a tourney with the big 6 than any of the gimmick sh!t.  Players care about playing for their country... One of my favorite moments in this tournament was when Guerin dropped the gloves with Stevens when they were both NJD.  Playing for your country matters to these guys.

[NJDevs4978]

As a theory I don't mind the extra teams to get more players in, but what exactly would you CALL them?  There's no simple nickname for either of these teams...European All-Stars?  Young Stars?  Leftovers?  The first two are misnomers cause other nations obviously have European players and younger players as well.  They might as well just have the big six, then have one smaller nation win a spot and have one other miscellaneous All-Star team instead of two miscellaneous teams.  

 

As others have pointed out small nations playing the big teams is the only way they're going to improve their programs in the long run.  It wasn't any fun watching the US Dream Team beat Angola by 80 points, but after a generation a lot of other nations have improved their basketball to where the US can be beat in any Olympics/WC.

Edited January 19, 2015 by NJDevs4978

[Triumph]

It will be as exciting as the World Baseball Classic

 

The World Baseball Classic has several issues, the largest of which is simply that baseball does not have a history of being played internationally.  There are no baseball rivalries to me - there probably are to people of other nationalities.  In addition, there are all sorts of rules about pitcher usage.

 

The Canada/World Cup has resulted in moments in hockey history that are still noted today - I still hear about Mike Richter at the 96 World Cup or Mario Lemieux at the 87 Canada Cup.  You can't be more wrong about this.  But hey, Olympic hockey right guys?  

[jagknife]

The World Baseball Classic has several issues, the largest of which is simply that baseball does not have a history of being played internationally.  There are no baseball rivalries to me - there probably are to people of other nationalities.  In addition, there are all sorts of rules about pitcher usage.

 

The Canada/World Cup has resulted in moments in hockey history that are still noted today - I still hear about Mike Richter at the 96 World Cup or Mario Lemieux at the 87 Canada Cup.  You can't be more wrong about this.  But hey, Olympic hockey right guys?  

 

Exactly. I've got to events in both WBC and WCoH. As I previously stated, I might not be able to recall the date specifically, but I knew who played and the year for the World Cup. For baseball, I went to a USA Venezuela [or Possibly Columbia] game at SkyDome. I know the Americans won, but have no idea the score or hell even what year it was.

 

Hockey's reach can only be improved with another World Cup. Its easier to get behind and for people to become passionate about. Baseball, to me, is more of a social gathering than a sporting event.

[Triumph]

As a theory I don't mind the extra teams to get more players in, but what exactly would you CALL them?  There's no simple nickname for either of these teams...European All-Stars?  Young Stars?  Leftovers?  The first two are misnomers cause other nations obviously have European players and younger players as well.  They might as well just have the big six, then have one smaller nation win a spot and have one other miscellaneous All-Star team instead of two miscellaneous teams.  

 

As others have pointed out small nations playing the big teams is the only way they're going to improve their programs in the long run.  It wasn't any fun watching the US Dream Team beat Angola by 80 points, but after a generation a lot of other nations have improved their basketball to where the US can be beat in any Olympics/WC.

 

Olympic hockey isn't going away.  Even if the NHL ducks out of Olympic participation, which isn't a given at this point, the Russians will still focus on Olympic hockey and take time off from the KHL for it.  Those small nations can still have their Olympic upsets.  Regardless, hockey is an expensive sport to play no matter how you slice it - it's not going to explode even in a wealthy country like Switzerland.  What we've had is players from more European countries than ever and I think we can expect that to continue, but for another nation to enter the world stage?  No, I don't see that as possible - all the potential 'new' hockey countries are too small.  

[Chimaira_Devil_#9]

It's insulting to who? The countries? Ask players like Kopitar, Gaborik - I bet they'd tell you they would rather have this all star team that way they have a chance to one actually be in the tournament, and two - not get murdered. If there's a Latvian (Grgensons) on the World Team and they go and actually win this thing - you don't think Latvians wouldn't be glued to their tv sets to cheer their own guy? I think the hockey fans in those countries would be elated to cheer a team that has a chance to win.

I think players would still want to play for their country. Especially in small eastern European countries. There is a lot of national pride in these places which I think people underestimate. Slovenia is the example being used. It has only been an independent country since 1991.

In terms of what Kopitar would say?

http://www.nhl.com/ice/m_news.htm?id=705554

[Chimaira_Devil_#9]

I don't care who cares about that team. Latvia, Slovenia, and Switzerland are never going to compete with Canada and the US at hockey. Sure, they can win a game off one of them 1 out of 10 times. But the hockey is going to be miserable to watch for anyone neutral - it's going to be the big power dominating the game 95% of the time and the smaller side is just going to try to limit the huge chances. I want to see world-class players playing hockey at a high level without all sorts of systems designed to slow them down, and when you get teams like Switzerland in there where that's their only chance of winning is playing tremendously passive and hoping their goalie can stop 40 shots, I'm not interested in that. The Olympics will still exist and if the NHL pulls out - these countries will do better in the Olympics anyway, so they'll have that tournament. This is about best on best hockey and getting together all the world's best players for a tournament. It's less about nationalism than the Olympics. I would watch just about any of these games - maybe I wouldn't watch Czech Republic-Finland or Sweden-Czech Republic. But I won't watch 50% of Olympic hockey.

So on one hand the argument is to grow the sport globally, yet you don't care about people in small global markets or their teams?

In the article I posted already in the thread you can see the impact the Olympics and top level competition had on the Slovenian team and it's programme.

This tournament won't be the world cup of hockey in the proposed format. Calling it a world cup is a joke and the talk of growing the game globally is a farce.

What the people in charge of this want is to make money off people who already like hockey. Which is fine if that's what you want to do. But don't try and dress it up as selling the sport globally. Because that's just pure bullsh!t.

[Neb00rs]

I think players would still want to play for their country. Especially in small eastern European countries. There is a lot of national pride in these places which I think people underestimate. Slovenia is the example being used. It has only been an independent country since 1991.

In terms of what Kopitar would say?

http://www.nhl.com/ice/m_news.htm?id=705554

 

And this is an important point. You have to make the players care about the tournament. If you gimmick it up, it majorly takes away from it. Just look at how intense the players play in the olympics. National sentiments are some of the most intense emotions people can have. The all under 23 team represents nothing and that is why it is silly and takes away from the tournament. 

 

The one area I disagree with Chimaira though is that I think it is okay to pair geographically close small nations together. That won't take away from players feeling like they are playing for their countries and culture. It works VERY well for the West Indies in cricket. Also, this set up will allow these small nations (as a group) to instantly compete with the powerhouses. If the smaller countries get better they can always change the rules. 

 

I also think there needs to be qualifying and the six powerhouses should NOT be predetermined. This could be the worst move of all. I don't think that there is any good reason to assume that those six teams (Canada, United States, Sweden, Finland, Russia and Czech Republic) are the six best and it gives an air of entitlement to the tournament.

 

As someone said above: goodbye cinderella stories and the magic of international play. Though, I hold out hope that Bettman's announcement will not exactly be what is being reported.

[HellOnICE]

This isn't the olympics or the WC. This is an NHL event, it really has nothing to do with the counties, per se. It's an all star tournament, they don't have enough spots for all the little counties in this tournament. People in Slovenia will be watching Kopitar and rooting for him because they love him. Kopitar will appreciate getting a chance to play with some really good players (and probably friends like Gaborik) and get a chance at actually winning something internationally. 

[HellOnICE]

I think Slovakian players, and others of Kopitar's stature as much as they love playing for their countries, you have to think on some level they'd LOVE the opportunity to actually win something or have the chance too. It's got to be a drag knowing every international tournament you play in you have almost ZERO chance of winning even a game. There's still the IIHF-WC and Olympics.

[Triumph]

So on one hand the argument is to grow the sport globally, yet you don't care about people in small global markets or their teams?

In the article I posted already in the thread you can see the impact the Olympics and top level competition had on the Slovenian team and it's programme.

This tournament won't be the world cup of hockey in the proposed format. Calling it a world cup is a joke and the talk of growing the game globally is a farce.

What the people in charge of this want is to make money off people who already like hockey. Which is fine if that's what you want to do. But don't try and dress it up as selling the sport globally. Because that's just pure bullsh!t.

 

it is going to be the highest level hockey.  It's going to be a pure skill tournament.  I mean, great, hockey's growing in Slovenia.  Will Slovenia become a player on the world stage?  Of course not - it's a country of 2 million people.  At best they can hope to fight it out with the smaller countries in tournaments like the World Championships and the Olympics and maybe sneak into an elimination round game.   In addition, there's such a thing as growing the game in countries like the US where hockey penetration is less than total.

 

Hockey in the NHL and Olympics is bogged down by system play.  I was watching the WJCs this year and thinking why can't we ever see NHL players playing like this?  Now we will.

[DJ Eco]

This isn't the olympics or the WC. This is an NHL event, it really has nothing to do with the counties, per se. It's an all star tournament, they don't have enough spots for all the little counties in this tournament. People in Slovenia will be watching Kopitar and rooting for him because they love him. Kopitar will appreciate getting a chance to play with some really good players (and probably friends like Gaborik) and get a chance at actually winning something internationally. 

 

Just a small correction here, Kopitar does indeed play for Slovenia, but Gaborik plays for Slovakia. Slovakia's a lot more stacked than Slovenia relatively speaking, a lot more NHLers. They have a much bigger hockey background. Kopitar was skating with amateurs out there lol although their effort was admirable.

Edited January 19, 2015 by DJ Eco

[Chuck the Duck]

Another pure money grab by the NHL (much like the Stadium series).  The format is a gimmick, no matter how you try and justify it.  It just doesn't seem right to me for some reason.  Sometimes you are best served leaving well enough alone. The World Cup works in soccer, and it can work in hockey as well.  But , in the end, does it really matter?  Nobody (outside of Canada) is going to care about this tournament anyways.   

 

But if you are going to change it, why not take the best 184 players in the world and hold a fantasy draft to select the teams?  No country affiliations at all, and still the same high level of play and skill that purportedly is the basis for this format.  In fact, it would be an even better tournament because the teams (in theory) would be more evenly skilled.  

[Triumph]

Another pure money grab by the NHL (much like the Stadium series).  The format is a gimmick, no matter how you try and justify it.  It just doesn't seem right to me for some reason.  Sometimes you are best served leaving well enough alone. The World Cup works in soccer, and it can work in hockey as well.  But , in the end, does it really matter?  Nobody (outside of Canada) is going to care about this tournament anyways.   

 

But if you are going to change it, why not take the best 184 players in the world and hold a fantasy draft to select the teams?  No country affiliations at all, and still the same high level of play and skill that purportedly is the basis for this format.  In fact, it would be an even better tournament because the teams (in theory) would be more evenly skilled.  

 

I think World Cup games would sell out in major US markets - maybe not the first year, but if the first year goes well, then each year after that.

 

Deciding who the best 184 players in the world are is a giant pain, making sure that everyone wants to do this, then getting together on a draft - yeah, this doesn't seem like a great idea.  How does anyone know who to cheer for?  With this tournament it's pretty easy.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Triumph