World Cup: 2016 World Cup — Team Europe
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I don't think this is about whether or not those countries players can compete or not. The NHL is trying to showcase NHLers.
International NHlers outside of the teams competing only make up 7% of all the players.
Canada alone makes up 51% of all NHLers but will only ice one national team.
I have no idea what the NHLs plans are but I don't think they want to get in to the mess of having relegation, qualifying games etc..
I honestly don't mean to sound insensitive but if Slovakia or Switzerland could ice a competitive team full of NHLers I am sure the NHL would have considered them.
The idea of this is to highlight the NHL brand on an international stage. Switzerland collapsing in front of their net and blocking 50+ shots is absolutely heroic but it doesn't make the NHL money.
They want flashy plays and jersey sales. They won't please everyone with this tournament but if vets decide not to show up I am sure there will be young players like Draisaitl, Marincin etc.. that would love a chance to go play.
If we would have a proper tournament where the best always play fairly often on regular basis I wouldnt care about this either, but this could be what we get and nothing else.
Hockey would have been so much more fun without NHL.
Team Canada A and B would have been a decent solution. Both would be very good. USA might even be able to put two teams in but that might water down the talent pool.
IF the small euro nations want to boycott that would be totally fine. If they want to compete thats cool too but in all reality they aren't imparative to the tournament. Betman sited the fact there wasn't enough time to do a qualifying round and that was the reason for euro and u23 teams.
It's an interesting idea.
The reality is the NHL want all the stars in the tournament but it can't accommodate every team.
For those who will be on the Euro and the U23 team they would otherwise not get a chance to play in the tournament so I don't see why they're so outraged when you break it all down.
The Euro team is also supposed to contain Slovak and Swiss players who would have had a chance to play in fairly competitive teams of their own without this brainfart of the century.
Mark Streit put it quite well: "There's supposed to be the top eight. Go with that. Whoever's in is in; whoever's not is not."
The world is full of exceptional athletes who never got a chance to play in international competition because they were born in a country that couldn't field a good enough team. Such is the nature of the world in sports, and the mankind at large has pretty much learnt to accept that. And let's not kid ourselves for a minute the NHL is actually out to right this "wrong". All they're looking for is another way to fill their own coffers.
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What do you mean by "there isn't time for qualifying" ??? 
It's January 2015 and you supposedly can't find the time to play qualifying games for a September 2016 event ??? They should invent an excuse that is less lame. The football Euro cup will be in the summer of 2016 in France, and qualifying games will be played throughout 2015.
Keep it a Top 6 tourney primarily for the narcissist fans from those top 6 countries, if you find the idea of underdog teams at a World Cup unbearable. Never mind Slovakia finishing 4th in Vancouver, just winning bronze at the World Juniors, Switzerland winning silver at the World Championships a couple of years ago, etc.
What travesty.
It's January 2015 and you supposedly can't find the time to play qualifying games for a September 2016 event ??? They should invent an excuse that is less lame. The football Euro cup will be in the summer of 2016 in France, and qualifying games will be played throughout 2015.Keep it a Top 6 tourney primarily for the narcissist fans from those top 6 countries, if you find the idea of underdog teams at a World Cup unbearable. Never mind Slovakia finishing 4th in Vancouver, just winning bronze at the World Juniors, Switzerland winning silver at the World Championships a couple of years ago, etc.
What travesty.
Yeah. Restrict it to the elite nations then if you don't like seeing "lesser" countries (no offense, Slovakia and Switzerland) in your prestigious tournament. Still not ideal, but far better than what we're seeing now. I guess even majority of the fans from countries supposed to be represented in Team Leftovers are going to agree with this.
Canada4Gold
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- Dec 22, 2010
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There's not "supposed" to be anything. This is the NHL's tournament they can do with it whatever they please.
I get that players may not feel they have anything to play for, not being in their countries, but instead a mixed or a young team. If they don't want to show up, fine whatever.
But to act like it's supposed to be 1 way and only that way is dumb. If you create a tournament you can make it however you damn well please, it's not supposed to be anything except whatever the person who makes it wants it to be.
Mickey Marner
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Slovakia and Switzerland can ice competitive Olympic teams, that would seem to indicate they could ice a team full of NHL'ers had they the requisite number to make up a team.
Finland, Russia and the Cezch Rep. can barely make up NHL only 23-man rosters with everybody in their natural position. And some of those players wouldn't normally make their national teams.
If this tournament were called the NHL Cup I wouldn't really care, but you can't call it the World Cup and then tell the rest of the world they can't play. Alan Eagleson never pulled crap like this when he put together the Canada Cups and that guy made a living off of and went to prison for screwing over NHL'ers.
What do you mean by "there isn't time for qualifying" ???
Keep it a Top 6 tourney primarily for the narcissist fans from those top 6 countries, if you find the idea of underdog teams at a World Cup unbearable. Never mind Slovakia finishing 4th in Vancouver, just winning bronze at the World Juniors, Switzerland winning silver at the World Championships a couple of years ago, etc.
What travesty.
There are a couple thing to point out.
First of all comparing soccer with hockey is not a good comparison. Football is the on truly global game. No other sports are global and thus they work hard to make sure national team play in all kinds of tournaments because it is the global game. Unfortunately when it comes to hockey they already play 82 regular season games plus playoffs and potentially world championships, couple that with the fact there hasn't been a history of many international tournaments (in comparison with soccer). As it stands they can barely figure out how to do the main tournament let alone a qualifying tournament.
I do tend to agree with you though it does suck. To call the top 6 countries 'nacissists' though is just plain silly. The top 6 isn't the reason for this nor would we be threatened by the likes of Switzerland or Slovakia. A Euro team and a U23 team are better competetion for us.
The league wants the stars in it. If it were like you said and Swiss and Slovaks got in instead of U23 and Euro we'd miss out on Kopitar, Vanek, Ehrhoff, Neidereiter etc and the likes of Slovenia, Germany, Austria, etc wouldn't follow the tournament at all.
This is an attempt to include all countries. Is it a tough pill to swallow maybe for some countries sure but it is also a cool new idea and I for one am excited to see it.
If everybody taking part in the tournament agreed with the setup, I'd agree with this statement wholeheartedly. There is no larger principle or IIHF regulations to follow here, so they're not breaking a single letter of the rules.
However, it appears that the European federations were suckered into this due to a technical loophole in the standing PTA, and especially some of the feds supposed to have players in Team Leftovers are very much in arms over the setup - not to mention quite a number of players feeling iffy over it.
If all the outrage stemmed from media and some fans, they would indeed be the proverbial barking dogs to the wandering caravan. But when you have guys supposed to be part of it voicing their discontent, the worth of comments like yours are zilch.
Exactly. Then we could safely ignore this pseudo-"World Cup", just like we've been ignoring the laughable "Euro Hockey Tour" for years now, which is just 4 Euro countries playing each other all the time, with all other countries banned (regardless of how good they are, such as finishing higher in the World Championships than some/all of those 4 countries).
I hope that this tournament implodes and becomes a PR disaster for the NHL. By far the best course now would be to cancel/revoke the current plans. Either keep it top 6, or let other countries compete for the 2 vacant spots. Lots and lots of time left for that!
One guy has voice his disapproval many others have said they would love to just to compete.
If it's of any consolation, the EHT is hardly more than an amusing sideshow for us who do have a team in it. All it's good for is giving an inclination which players might be useful on the WHC come the spring.
Matter of fact, if they invited some kind of composite team to Karjala Cup for example, I bet many people here in Finland wouldn't bat an eye.
So I guess that's what this World Cup stands for these people who don't mind the idea or are even defending it; not an international tournament of any serious prestige, but merely an amusing sideshow.
Theokritos
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- Apr 6, 2010
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What do you mean by "there isn't time for qualifying" ???
On top of that, it's funny how they never had that issue before ... not in 1976, 1981, 1984, 1987, 1991, 1996 or 2004. And now all of a sudden "there isn't time for a qualifying" so they have to cut the field to six countries. Pardon?
EDIT: Of course there were only six teams back in the Canada Cup days (then eight teams in 1996 and 2004). But there was never talk of a qualifying and it wasn't any issue in the World Cup 96 and 04 either. And now it is supposed to explain why they go back to six nations...
Technically you're right, but read it the following way and it's a simple statement of truth: There's supposed to be the top eight (at least) if you claim to tie on the Canada Cup & World Cup tradition and want the rest of the world (everybody not paid by the NHL) to buy it as the "World Cup" you're trying to sell it as.
Right now people who I've seen say they don't mind it are Anze Kopitar and Jaroslav Halak.
The people I've seen say they don't like the idea involve at the very least, Mark Streit, Marian Hossa... and the entire Slovak Ice Hockey Federation.
The quality of Team Leftovers will sure take a big hit if most Slovaks either skip the show altogether or show up, but display dishearted effort at best. But I guess you can feed any kind of crow to some people and they keep telling themselves they're watching bona fide best-on-best hockey.
This is unfortunately the best way for all the best players to compete. We won't miss out on any of the stars of the NHL and the tournament will most certainly be of the highest standard. Get behind team Euro if your a Slovak. Support your boys and the team they're on but most of all sit back and watch the best, best on best competetion we've ever seen.
Streit and Hossa are 2 guys already. It's early days yet.
I hope they can find a good PR company and prepare a joint public statement on behalf of all affected players, or something like that. It doesn't help that English isn't these players' native language, to be fully articulate about it. But as the agent for a number of these players, Allan Walsh, indicated, this (lack of motivation) will definitely be an issue for more than just a couple of guys.
And if you lack top motivation, why play at all?
What's the use of a tourney of basically friendly/preparation pre-season games, instead of a top international hockey event, like the old Canada/World Cups used to be?
I hope they can find a good PR company and prepare a joint public statement on behalf of all affected players, or something like that. It doesn't help that English isn't these players' native language, to be fully articulate about it. But as the agent for a number of these players, Allan Walsh, indicated, this (lack of motivation) will definitely be an issue for more than just a couple of guys.
And if you lack top motivation, why play at all?
What's the use of a tourney of basically friendly/preparation pre-season games, instead of a top international hockey event, like the old Canada/World Cups used to be?That's a transparent lie.
There was no qualification process for Slovakia or Germany in 1996 or 2004. There didn't need to be, and there doesn't need to be one for Slovakia and Switzerland now.
Bettman's just trying to make excuses for inexplicably turning this event into the biggest joke in hockey history.
The tournament is next yr. They barely have time to organize the main tournament on top of that there was no qualifying in the old days Czech and Slovaks were together as were Russia, Belarus and the former USSR countries. We didn't have players from Austria and Slovenia. Now we do. It is important to continue to grow the global game in these smaller markets not lock them out of a world cup.
Theokritos
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Personally I hope the hockey federation of my country threatens every single player with a lifetime ban from the national team if they represent "the rest of Europe" in this shabby caricature of an international tournament. Not going to happen, but one can dream.
If that is the case, then you give 'em a whole team, not small percentage of one.
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