Add (I MEAN BRING BACK) a day off between the semi and final

[MeHateHe]

We can all agree that the number one improvement to be made to the IIHF world senior men's championship would be to launch every copy of the 1-877-Kars-For-Kids commercial into space, along with whoever wrote the jingle, and whoever added the autotune and whoever directed it. The kids, who are probably in their mid-30s by now, get a pass, and besides, I suspect they're in witness protection, hidden deep in a cave in northern Manitoba. (We all know what's being grown in the caves of northern Manitoba, I suspect. If you don't, well, there's the DM button.)

A close second in terms of improvement to the tournament would be to add - NAY I SAY BRING BACK - the day off between the semifinal and final in the tournament.

What's that, you say? Bring back? Yes! Since the IIHF did away with the pure round robin format and brought in a final game (1992), there have been eight tournaments in which there was a day off between the semifinal and final. It was as recently as 2011 that there was a day betwen the semifinal and final. In most of those tournaments, they played the semis on Friday, the bronze on Saturday and the gold on Sunday.

Let's bring that back!

I looked at schedules from all the tournaments because I wanted to show that there is an unfairness to the team that plays the late game and then has (roughly) 18 hours between the end of the semifinal and puck drop the next game. I thought the raw data would bear out that unfairness and it has, certainly recently. Since 2011, when the last day-off tournament was held, the team that played the late game has lost all but two (nine of 11) gold medal games. Canada in 2016 and Sweden in 2017 are the exceptions.

In the tournaments where there was a day off between (1993, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2009 and 2011), the team with the late semifinal won three and lost five.

Currently, the tournament starts on a Friday and runs for 16 days before concluding on a Sunday. Add a day, start the tournament on a Thursday, have the semifinals on the Friday, the bronze medal game on the Saturday and the gold medal game on Sunday. It adds a day to the tournament, allows for more of the fans to travel home after the game Sunday (you can play it a couple hours earlier in the day) and allows for more fairness in the tournament. Yes, Saturday is an easier day to sell to fans, but well-organaized tournaments (see: Prague) can sell daytime tickets for elimination games.

Don't argue with me. Reply to tell me how damn smart I am.

Click to read more...

 

[therealdeal]

Semi finals should be day after quarters, day off to build the hype for the gold medal game.

But nothing is ideal, it’ll be awesome all the same the way it is.

 

[MeHateHe]

Semi finals should be day after quarters, day off to build the hype for the gold medal game.

The reason for the day off between the quarters and the semis is because there's almost always travel for the teams (and logistical teams, sometimes) from the secondary city to the main city. Go back to 2008 and you have to have teams playing a late game in Halifax and then having to travel to Quebec for a semifinal the next day? Also unfair.

 

[therealdeal]

Ah I didn’t think about that travel day for half the teams. Makes sense.

 

[Pan]

Ah I didn’t think about that travel day for half the teams. Makes sense.

With a positive and unbiased approach, you could perhaps find a reasonable explanation for the point #1 of your message as well.

 

[vlady]

I think the Kars-4-kids jingle should be the next goal song for team Canada.

At least it's a Canadian song, unlike Live is Life

9 out of 11 winners have played the early semi you say? That is indeed alarming. Can you also check how the bronze medal games went? Just to have a larger sample.

 

[MeHateHe]

I think the Kars-4-kids jingle should be the next goal song for team Canada.

You're a bad person.

 

[MeHateHe]

9 out of 11 winners have played the early semi you say? That is indeed alarming. Can you also check how the bronze medal games went? Just to have a larger sample.

I looked at this, although I don't think this is as consequential as the results of the final, because the level of compete in the bronze medal games is variable. Some of the teams that have lost in the bronze medal game looked like they showed up hungover and weren't as engaged as they would have been in a gold medal game.

Having said that, of the 11 tournaments since 2011, the team playing the the late semifinal lost seven of the 11 bronze medal games. In total, the teams playing the late semifinal have a combined record of 6-16 since 2011.

 

[Albatros]

On Friday afternoon you'd have the semifinal too early for many people to watch, on Saturday you can play between major soccer games.

14:20 Sweden vs. Czechia
16:00 Manchester City vs. Manchester United (England FA Cup final)
18:20 Canada vs. Switzerland
20:00 Kaiserslautern vs. Leverkusen (Germany DFB-Pokal final)

 

[MeHateHe]

10 of 12 last gold medals to the early semifinal winner. 8 of 12 last bronze medals to early semifinal loser. That’s a 75% success rate for the teams playing the early game.

 

[Reds4Life]

10 of 12 last gold medals to the early semifinal winner. 8 of 12 last bronze medals to early semifinal loser. That’s a 75% success rate for the teams playing the early game.

Small sample size.

 

[MeHateHe]

Small sample size.

I acknowledged that in the first post. Next step is to look at WJCs and Olympics for a larger sample size.

 

[ES]

Here are the teams who were the best in the group stage among the semifinalists.
2012 Russia (won)
2013 Switzerland (lost final)
2014 Russia (won)
2015 Canada (won)
2016 Finland (lost final)
2017 Canada (lost semi and bronze)
2018 Sweden (won)
2019 Russia (lost semi, won bronze)
2021 USA (lost semi, won bronze)
2022 Finland (won)
2023 USA (lost semi and bronze)
2024 Sweden (lost semi, won bronze)

 

[Hesher]

The simple solution is to start the tournament a day earlier. Or they could cut two teams, but less games means less money so that's never going to happen.