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2017 WJC Failure?

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It honestly has been. One of the worst tournaments I've seen in awhile. And Canada still has the possible chance of winning gold. The talent seems down all around and the venue should be in another Canadian market other then Montreal/Toronto for 2 in 3 years. Just a cluster of things not going well.
 
mooreflyers said:
With the lack of stars, boring quarterfinals games, empty stadiums and ticket prices through the roof has this year's world juniors thus far been the worst in a while?
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I have considered attending this event on several previous occasions in North America and the tickets are just too expensive and difficult to acquire. I always watch it on TV or on the web.

The World Juniors has become too corporate. Just another event for rich people. And with the recent decision to host most of the tournaments in North America, it is only getting worse.
 
Between the lack of star talent and the corporate gloss and over saturation the WJC just feels like an overhyped TSN product now, and even Toronto and Montreal seem to be fatigued by the event.
 
WJC was only interesting when the Canadian teams had a stake in the tournament - either their top prospects were playing or they had a shot at drafting the top talent that year.

No one is really in that boat this year. I didn't go to a single game and haven't watched a full one either. Thought about going to USA/Swiss today but wasn't worth the $20 USD ha.
 
Haven't had the urge to watch a single WJ game this year. Never happened to me before, but I literally have 0 interest this year.
 
It certainly feels like an off-year, at least in terms of rosters/hype. You had McDavid/Eichel, then Matthews/Laine/Puljujarvi, then...I dunno, what would the story for this year be?

Hype is one things, but the games haven't been great either. The NYE game was anything but a classic, the quarters haven't been exciting except for SUI/USA being tied for like 30 seconds in the third...

The most interesting things to date have been Denmark doing well and Finland bombing. Not exactly a receipe for a memorable tournament.

By the same token, obviously, the most important games are to come so it feels silly to judge it too harshly right now.
 
No? I mean maybe the majority doesn't like it but I think it's great. There's a lot of players missing because they're in the NHL but this tournament still has plenty of talent. Strome, Barzal, Chabot, Keller, White, McAvoy, Kaprizov, Sergachev, Samsonov, Nylander, Eriksson Ek, Grundstrom, Sandstrom, Juolevi, Tolvanen, Hischier, Seigenthaler, Spacek. And there are more off the top of my head but I didn't want the list to go too long. Not all of it has performed up to expectations, and there's been some who weren't as known that has been great to watch.

As for the games the round robin I think was the most competitive round robin ever. Maybe not on Canada's side, but the other group saw a 6-1 game to start and almost every game afterwards went down to the wire, we saw perennial underdog Denmark win 2 games to finish 2nd, we saw a shocker in Finland finishing last in their pool.

The QF games weren't as good, but the USA/Swiss game was fairly intense going down to the wire and exciting to watch the Swiss playing so well. Canada/Czech was a solid game viewing wise with the Czechs giving us a run for our money.

Sure they might be missing that 1 really elite name player, and the crowd might suck, and I guess that turns some people off from watching but as far as I've concerned this has been one of the better WJC's in recent memory. The only thing really missing for me is 1 of the underdog teams making the SF but that will probably lend itself to better SF and medal games, those should be pretty intense.
 
Agree, the talent is way down compared to previous three years. I think Sweden has been the best team in the tournament so far, but even that team is at best mediocre when compared to the last four tournaments. Finland 2016, Canada 2015, Sweden 2014 (yes, I know Finland out-coached them in the GMG) were way more star powered line ups, and USA 2013 were probably the best junior team in the last decade.
 
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I got gold level seats for only 20 dollars for Russia/Slovakia from a scalper.

Paid 25 for some nosebleeds for today's quarter finals on StubHub.

Really just need to know where to look. StubHub was filled with cheap tickets for any non-Canada game.
 
Going back to the same two cities two years later just doesn't feel right. It gets Canadians thinking about that great team with McDavid, Domi, Reinhart, etc. that won gold. There was excitement there, now we tune in to watch games in these same arenas with a roster with no marquee talent.
 
Yeah I agree. The games have also severely lacked passion. Maybe the players are bored too? :laugh:
 
I suppose this is a fair question, but as someone else said we haven't even had the semis yet. It's also worth noting that having poor matchups in the QF, means you have better matchups in the semis. You see how that works? The top four teams, which are well ahead of the field this year, now start to play one another. This is where things get interesting.

I will admit there is less star power than usual, but this is a direct result of how many studs there were last year at such a young age. I hope when you look back at that tournament from last year you remember how that one was better than most WJC's, if you spend time on thinking how subpar elements of this one are.
 
- Patrick is missing. We are missing the top draft eligible talent from North America.
- Too many omissions this year. For example, think of how much better Czech Republic and Switzerland would have been with Zacha and Malgin.

+ Competitive, 9 of the 10 teams were competitive this year. And the tenth team lost with just a single goal to Finland yesterday.
+ The obviously 4 best teams is now in the semis. The best is yet to come.
 
NHLs fault. They vaccuming european and NA prospects and put them in NHL early. With players i NHL that could play WJC. Like Laine for example.
They tried to do WC. But that sucked. Boone cared about that. It was truly a boring tourney. I dont know why. But it never took off.

NHL is only taking care of NHL and that even though they get prospects almost for free developed in sweden and Russia and more. The dream of NHL is to blame. If tou bojcott NHL they have to change but untill that happens WC WJC Worlds will be worst
 
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PTmbp13 said:
NHLs fault. They vaccuming european and NA prospects and put them in NHL early. With players i NHL that could play WJC. Like Laine for example.
They tried to do WC. But that sucked. Boone cared about that. It was truly a boring tourney. I dont know why. But it never took off.

NHL is only taking care of NHL and that even though they get prospects almost for free developed in sweden and Russia and more. The dream of NHL is to blame. If tou bojcott NHL they have to change but untill that happens WC WJC Worlds will be worst
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I don't know what this post says but I think you are inferring that it's the NHL's fault junior players are ready for the pros? lol
 
dubey said:
I don't know what this post says but I think you are inferring that it's the NHL's fault junior players are ready for the pros? lol
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nhl teams would ease on the contract signing until theyre 20 or sumting
 
PTmbp13 said:
NHLs fault. They vaccuming european and NA prospects and put them in NHL early. With players i NHL that could play WJC. Like Laine for example.
They tried to do WC. But that sucked. Boone cared about that. It was truly a boring tourney. I dont know why. But it never took off.

NHL is only taking care of NHL and that even though they get prospects almost for free developed in sweden and Russia and more. The dream of NHL is to blame. If tou bojcott NHL they have to change but untill that happens WC WJC Worlds will be worst
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right... because the World Juniors is the pinnacle of any prospective pro hockey player. If only the NHL wasn't taking all the talent and giving the guys the opportunity to play in the pros. indeed, boycott the NHL until they give our players back.
 
The projected #1 (Nolan Patrick) is out injured. The best players from last years draft are all in the NHL. This years tournament has the least amount of star power of any WJCs in recent history.
 
This Swedish team has been way more fun to watch than in the previous two years. Been mainly watching them though.
 
McDavid
Matthews
Marner
Tkachuk
Hanifin
Werenski
Aho
Konecny
Provorov
Zacha
Laine
Puljujarvi
Chychrun
Patrick

That is a lot of eligible talent among others that is missing.
 
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