4 Nations Takeaways/suprises

[daver]

Forgetting politics, it's amazing how much dislike Canadians have for Americans. Many posts were above and beyond standard banter before a sporting event.

• As for the hockey, I expected nothing but it wound up being great.
• I found it difficult to cheer for the Tkachuks even when they were on my team.
• I was impressed with Brady Tkachuk's play. He is a gamer.

"We" didn't do anything. Some public figures may have done something, but that does not excuse the actions directed toward individual Americans.

If you think someone is acting in a bad way, be better than them, don't go after uninvolved people.

You started this by making a general comment about a whole group of people feeling the same way. If the Canadian "we" apparently dislike Americans then the American "we" has semi-serious ideas of taking over Canada.

I think what you are trying to say here is that the leader of the most powerful country in the world talking about annexing your country is no excuse for being rude on a hockey message board.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

The 4 nations is much better than the softball All-Star game.

Imagine this as a way of revamping the allstar game:

Do the allstar game as a four-team, allstars of each division setup, 3 on 3 format, do a 6 game round robin, then a playoff. Use the results of the playoff to assign the divisions a 1 through 4 ranking.

Slightly change the playoffs format. Instead of East/West conferences, play the first two rounds of the playoffs as usual, then reseed for the final four. Home ice for the finals and semi-finals is determined by the results of the allstar game tournament. You can now have previously impossible finals matchups like Hawks-Canucks, Bruins-Flyers, Bruins-Rangers. If you keep the wildcard, banger finals like Toronto-Montreal, Boston-Montreal, Rangers-Islanders are possible in theory. Finals have a better chance of getting nasty and heated, and the average travel might actually go down a lot for the finals at the expense of some possible long conference finals flights.

The allstar tournament is now suddenly an important event that every coach and player in the league has to take seriously-but-not-too-seriously. If you decide to fake an injury to skip it, or dont take it seriously by not backchecking on a breakaway, not having home ice in the finals might be the reason you didnt win the cup. Finals involving teams with historic dislike become a lot more likely, and finals involving two major media markets out of the pool of LA/Chicago/Detroit/Philly/Boston/New York/Toronto become a lot more likely. This system does also open up the possibility of Garys worst nightmare to publicize if Winnipeg-Edmonton or Ottawa-Columbus happened, but oh well. Baseball already has that problem, and they manage.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk

 

[CarolinaBlueJacket]

You started this by making a general comment about a whole group of people feeling the same way. If the Canadian "we" apparently dislike Americans then the American "we" has semi-serious ideas of taking over Canada.

I think what you are trying to say here is that the leader of the most powerful country in the world talking about annexing your country is no excuse for being rude on a hockey message board.

You are correct that I should have said that I am surprised that a decent portion of Canadians dislike Americans. I know not all Canadians feel like that.

Let me let you in on a little secret... Not everyone in the country agrees with everything that our President does. Shocker, I know. Don't take it out on us. You should want us on your side, not push us away.

Here's something to think about... Think of a pest in the NHL, that is what our President is doing. He will do almost anything to get you off your game so he can win the game. Don't fall for it. There is as close to a zero chance as possible of Canada becoming the 51st state as you can get. If you fall for the pest, then the pest wins.

 

[GreatSaveEssensa]

"We" didn't do anything. Some public figures may have done something, but that does not excuse the actions directed toward individual Americans.

If you think someone is acting in a bad way, be better than them, don't go after uninvolved people.

‘some public figures’? You mean the President of the United States and 70 million of his followers right?

I kind of think your downplaying it a tad.

 

[CarolinaBlueJacket]

‘some public figures’? You mean the President of the United States and 70 million of his followers right?

I kind of think your downplaying it a tad.

Not downplaying it, just not trying to stay away from politics so that the post won't be deleted. Of course, we know who I am talking about.
As I said earlier, do you think that all 70 million agree with everything he does? Of course not.
Have you agreed with everything all of your politicians have done?

 

[Random Comment]

I actually thought the US would win going into the tournament, but that it's really close between the two countries, and it was.

Canada's big guns had to come up big and they did. Not a lot of space out there and few clean looks.

The team could still use some tweaking.

Yeah I just figured with so little space, Canada’s top end talent would come out on top. And although they did, it wasn’t in the way I expected. The US has no answer to MacKinnon and McDavid. And they are unlikely to have that coming soon either given Bedard Cellibrini and Mckenna emerging.

 

[MadCGN]

My two cents from a European perspective:

1. Didn’t expect such high intensity.
2. International with the best of the best works in North America as well.
3. NHL ice rink for IIHF international tournaments, please.
4. Fanatics does a great job with jerseys for all nations.

Thanks, NHL! I really enjoyed it.

 

[ahmedou]

 

[CarolinaBlueJacket]

That's great, but sadly, it doesn't even get close to the top 100 events on US TV this year. Top 100 events of the year was as low as I could find and #100 was a college football game with 16.8M.

 

[Czechboy]

I know this is an oversimplification... so grain of salt but US has a population over 300 million... 9 million is quite small. It's even scarier when you realize that all the Stanley Cup wins were in the USA and this was viewed by more Americans.

So it's great it got some eyes but that numbers seems really low to me. I could be wrong though as I am not a TV stats guy. I just know that around 3 million Czechs watched the finals in Prague last year and we only have 10 million people.

Or

That's about half the country.

 

[Summer Rose]

I know this is an oversimplification... so grain of salt but US has a population over 300 million... 9 million is quite small. It's even scarier when you realize that all the Stanley Cup wins were in the USA and this was viewed by more Americans.

So it's great it got some eyes but that numbers seems really low to me. I could be wrong though as I am not a TV stats guy. I just know that around 3 million Czechs watched the finals in Prague last year and we only have 10 million people.

Or

View attachment 981021

That's about half the country.

9 million is small compared to the population of our country, sure, but it's a still a good sign that things are trending in a positive direction for us. It would most likely take a century of hockey being the most popular sport in the US (and that's assuming it ever gets there... which it won't anyway) for us to get on Canada's level. It will also never, ever reach people who simply aren't interested in sports at all, with it not mattering which sport it is (which makes up the vast majority of the population in the first place).

 

[Czechboy]

9 million is small compared to the population of our country, sure, but it's a still a good sign that things are trending in a positive direction for us. It would most likely take a century of hockey being the most popular sport in the US (and that's assuming it ever gets there... which it won't anyway) for us to get on Canada's level. It will also never, ever reach people who simply aren't interested in sports at all, with it not mattering which sport it is (which makes up the vast majority of the population in the first place).

I'd curious to see what attracts 10 million.. something tells me it'd be bowling and pickleball.

 

[heksagon]

Barkov is the only Finn who is able to keep up with USA/Canada stars.

I disagree. Granlund was better than Barkov in this tournament anyways, and arguably in the national team in general. Also Heiskanen certainly can. Guys like Aho and Rantanen have already proven in the NHL that they can compete with CAN/USA stars, and could've made their rosters if they were a different nationality. They might not match the likes of McDavid and MacKinnon (who does?), but they can keep up if the circumstances are right.


Hintz, Aho, Teräväinen, Lehkonen and Rantanen were disappointing, but I put at least the first 4 largely on coaching. Finland's biggest problems were:

• Injuries decimating the D that already lacked depth and was behind others. The D was decent defensively, but I don't buy the "they were surprisingly good" argument. There was nothing surprising about their defensive skills being serviceable, but the puck moving was noticeably lacking and made the forwards' job harder.

• Coaching: Finland has often had a coaching advantage in the past, and needs it. Pennanen was the weakest coach in the tournament though: Lines were all over the place and reactions in game too slow. For example Teräväinen was not tried with Aho all tournament and both were wasted, Hintz+Aho clearly didn't work etc. Goaltenders changed too late or not at all, late timeouts, late line changes, lack of a clear gameplan and lack of training time. Just didn't make much sense. Unfortunately this didn't surprise me, and I don't think we can go to the Olympics with Pennanen if we want to compete. Him missing training sessions and press conferences only made him seem even more unprofessional. A large improvement needs to happen before the Olympics, hopefully he can somehow pull it off or we go with someone else.

• Goaltending. This was somewhat surprising, but I also think the injuries on D made this seem worse than it should've been. Goaltending in a short tournament is often a crapshoot anyways, which is why I thought Canada's goalie woes were way overstated and they were the favourite always.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

I'd curious to see what attracts 10 million.. something tells me it'd be bowling and pickleball.

 

[JackSlater]

I was mildly but pleasantly surprised by how good Larkin looked at this level. He's a very good third line centre or top six wing option even at this level. I've liked his international play in general and respect his efforts.

Canada really needs both McDavid and MacKinnon to carry the load, which is bad in that such a thing has almost never been necessary even at this level (1987 being the notable exception) but good in that they looked good enough to pull it off. Realistically a team that defends well and has MacKinnon and McDavid will inevitably be a significant threat in 2025.

 

[CarolinaBlueJacket]

I disagree. Granlund was better than Barkov in this tournament anyways, and arguably in the national team in general. Also Heiskanen certainly can. Guys like Aho and Rantanen have already proven in the NHL that they can compete with CAN/USA stars, and could've made their rosters if they were a different nationality. They might not match the likes of McDavid and MacKinnon (who does?), but they can keep up if the circumstances are right.


Hintz, Aho, Teräväinen, Lehkonen and Rantanen were disappointing, but I put at least the first 4 largely on coaching. Finland's biggest problems were:

• Injuries decimating the D that already lacked depth and was behind others. The D was decent defensively, but I don't buy the "they were surprisingly good" argument. There was nothing surprising about their defensive skills being serviceable, but the puck moving was noticeably lacking and made the forwards' job harder.

• Coaching: Finland has often had a coaching advantage in the past, and needs it. Pennanen was the weakest coach in the tournament though: Lines were all over the place and reactions in game too slow. For example Teräväinen was not tried with Aho all tournament and both were wasted, Hintz+Aho clearly didn't work etc. Goaltenders changed too late or not at all, late timeouts, late line changes, lack of a clear gameplan and lack of training time. Just didn't make much sense. Unfortunately this didn't surprise me, and I don't think we can go to the Olympics with Pennanen if we want to compete. Him missing training sessions and press conferences only made him seem even more unprofessional. A large improvement needs to happen before the Olympics, hopefully he can somehow pull it off or we go with someone else.

• Goaltending. This was somewhat surprising, but I also think the injuries on D made this seem worse than it should've been. Goaltending in a short tournament is often a crapshoot anyways, which is why I thought Canada's goalie woes were way overstated and they were the favourite always.

Wait a minute.... Are you trying to say that there were other teams there besides the US and Canada??