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WJC: Bring back the bye to semifinals for the group winners!

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I think it's a fair point, that after a four-game round robin, only two of 10 teams are eliminated and there isn't mor incentive to win your group.

I actually think it's time to go back to 12 teams.
 
The Fact remains that to win Gold you have to win 3 elimination games. If you honestly believe Finland is a tournament favourite then your country would have to beat it at some point.

Lucky/Unlucky or Favourable/Unfavourable elimination Matchups happen in almost every tournament with a round robin format.
 
helgo said:
It is the worst team given their record and frankly, that is all that matters, you cannot bring aspects like team potential to this.
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Might as well give Canada Gold for team potential, forget about the tournament all together. :sarcasm:
 
MeHateHe said:
I think it's a fair point, that after a four-game round robin, only two of 10 teams are eliminated and there isn't mor incentive to win your group.

I actually think it's time to go back to 12 teams.
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Even putting the whole rivalry thing behind, I'm pretty sure that Canadians are happy they beat the Americans to win their group and face Denmark rather than Russia in the quarterfinals.

There really isn't a system that is going to be "fair" for every team in every situation. Especially in the small circles of international hockey where we all know there's been an upset if Canada, US, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland aren't the quarterfinalists.
 
Wanna be the best? Beat the rest.

Whats the point of being scared of some teams if you think your team is the best one? Or whats the point of thinking your team is the best if you are scared of a team with one win and 5 goals in 4 games.
 
You should not be worried about Finland this year. I think this system is good as it is. Sweden has played whole tournament in Toronto, Finland had to fly there with small amount of sleep and I know how much they can train before the game. I think it's huge advantage.

If we beat Sweden, I would say it is a miracle. I just don't see it happening.
 
Porkkan4 said:
You should not be worried about Finland this year. I think this system is good as it is. Sweden has played whole tournament in Toronto, Finland had to fly there with small amount of sleep and I know how much they can train before the game. I think it's huge advantage.

If we beat Sweden, I would say it is a miracle. I just don't see it happening.
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Lol let's not over do it with the whole travel thing. Montreal to Toronto is literally ilke a 2 hour flight, 2 1/2 hours max. It's not like these guys are going from Ufa to Moscow. Travel shouldn't be any disadvantage to a team, and if it is then to me that's just flat out excuses for poor play. "Had to fly there with little amount of sleep" Finland probably has a charter flight or a red eye waiting for them. And by the time they got to sleep on the plane they'd be landing in Toronto.
 
Lollipop said:
Not really. Canada needs to win their group nothing else.

Yes, they play for easier opponents. Still Sweden got the tougher opponent. The system is flawed.
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The system isn't flawed at all. If a nation that is stronger on paper has a bad tournament and ends up 4th, then they are not really the tougher opponent, now are they?

Sure, they could possible get it all together and beat the 1st place team from the other group, but that would be entirely on the 1st place team sucking at the worst possible moment.

There is nothing unfair about playing the team that got only the 4th most amount of points. The 1st place team gets the biggest advantage it can get, the team from the other group that performed the worst (disregarding the team that goes to the relegation round). The logic of the Finns not really being the worst team and thus a bad choice for Sweden makes little sense, you could use it at any point, even in the NHL. The Kings won the Cup from 8th and 6th place in the Conference, Anaheim, Calgary and Edmonton made it into three successive Cup finals with none of them finishing higher than 6th in the conference. These teams ran hot at the right time. I'm sure their opponents would have loved to meet a different team at that time. Was that unfair to the best teams as well? after all, there were teams that fared better in the season that would have been weaker opponents in the playoffs.

In the end, regardless of whether it is a long season or a short tournament, you always need to peak at the right time, else all your prior accomplishments are meaningless. If anything, the short tournament is a lot more accomodating to the teams that fared best in the preliminary round, as the 1st place team is on a pretty good run, while the 4th placed team couldn't get anything done. Less chance for the 4th placed team to suddenly run hot, especially compared to the NHL, where the dominant team of the regular season could sleepwalk into the playoffs while the 7th or 8th place that eeked just into the playoffs could be on a serious hotstreak.
 
skip2mybordeleau said:
Might as well give Canada Gold for team potential, forget about the tournament all together. :sarcasm:
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Lol, Canada hasn't medal in two years. They couldn't even win medal with their best team filled with NHL players. What potential are you talking about?
 
Stats01 said:
Lol let's not over do it with the whole travel thing. Montreal to Toronto is literally ilke a 2 hour flight, 2 1/2 hours max. It's not like these guys are going from Ufa to Moscow. Travel shouldn't be any disadvantage to a team, and if it is then to me that's just flat out excuses for poor play. "Had to fly there with little amount of sleep" Finland probably has a charter flight or a red eye waiting for them. And by the time they got to sleep on the plane they'd be landing in Toronto.
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I just read comments about this from our head coach, that's why I mentioned it.

But our team has been really bad so I don't think if this matters so much.

http://www.mtv.fi/sport/jaakiekko/leijonat/artikkeli/jortikka-haukkui-mm-turnauksen-ohjelman/4656744
 
FinRuutu said:
Wanna be the best? Beat the rest.

Whats the point of being scared of some teams if you think your team is the best one? Or whats the point of thinking your team is the best if you are scared of a team with one win and 5 goals in 4 games.
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Agreed but shouldn't that be in round robin too?? Now teams can not give their best round robin. It doesn't matter.
 
Oh please.

Don't pretend that fans from Canada, USA, Russia, etc weren't ecstatic to find out that the Swedes and the Fins would be playing each other in the first round and one of them would be eliminated right off the bat.

It's a complete joke that Sweden won just as many games as Canada yet are forced to face the Fins while we get to play Denmark.

Feel bad for the Swedes in this case, the system screwed them.
 
SillyRabbit said:
Feel bad for the Swedes in this case, the system screwed them.
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They are screwed because they get to play a team with grand total of one win that scores like one goal per game? I don't want to disrespect team Finland, but it is clearly not a problem of the system, that they played this bad in the group stage ...
 
teris said:
Even putting the whole rivalry thing behind, I'm pretty sure that Canadians are happy they beat the Americans to win their group and face Denmark rather than Russia in the quarterfinals.

There really isn't a system that is going to be "fair" for every team in every situation. Especially in the small circles of international hockey where we all know there's been an upset if Canada, US, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland aren't the quarterfinalists.
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If you look back at the previous system, you'll see that the bye-winners pretty regularly advanced tot the final. There is an advantage to the day off, for one.

I am mostly in favour of the bye system because I don't think that 80 per cent of the teams should advance past the round robin. Either go back to the bye system or go back to having 12 teams, and eliminate two from each pool. I think the gap between 6-10 has narrowed sufficiently that it's time to add some competition to the lower end of the pool. Yes, it will lead to some blowouts involving the 11th and 12th ranked teams, but in the long run, it will foster development in the teams now on the bubble or bouncing between the elite pool and pool 1A. Allowing the likes of Germany, Denmark or Norway more than one or two years playing against Canada, US, Russian and the rest might give them a chance to start challenging The Swiss and maybe even the Slovaks.
 
It's not disrespect. This team has been worst in years. But yes, it's not this systems fault that they have to face Finland.

You have nothing to worry about.
 
EDIT: Looks like this traveling thing has already been mentioned but I added few details about what our coach said about the times.

I also hated the free pass to semis system. It's too big of an advantage in my opinion and partly ruined some of the past tournaments.

Let's also remember that Swedes are still getting some nice advantages against Finland:
1. Finland Travels to Toronto. Sweden is already there practising and they had earlier game in the last group stage game, so more time to rest and to prepare.
2. Our head coach was pissed to the organizers about the fact that he estimated that Finnish players can go to bed earliest at 2am Canadian time after the Germany game. 4 hours of sleep and 6:00am wake up to take a buss ride to the airport. 8:00 flight to Toronto. This means they can't really do many proper practises before the Sweden game. Then the next day the game starts some time in the afternoon, so there's really not much time to prepare.

So Finland did get penalized for placing 4th.
 
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With 10 teams being involved in 2 groups and with usage of serpentine system of seedings based on the rankings from the previous WJC, it's impossible to create two groups with same amount of quality and strength. Look at the groups at 1999 WJC. It's quite clear, that one group was better than the other and to achieve "bye" you had to beat stronger opponents than in the other group.

I like the new format, although it create a place for tactical losses, but at the same time bye gives you huge advantage, which was sometimes unfair due to different strength of groups.
 
L - O - L

just let Canada, USA, Finnland and Sweden play medals game right after round robin, no matter how bad they were...:sarcasm:

no way we could desire more exciting QF matchups than SVK - CZE, SWE - FIN, RUS - USA...
 
Are people really complaining over that the best teams have to play the games to be awarded the medals? :laugh:

Of course there should be QF. I would love for it be a round of 16 if there were 16 good hockey nations (i.e. on the current level of Denmark/Germany). Expansion of the tournament, and the sport, is a good thing. If a team Sweden craps their bed and loses to a team Belarus in the QF after winning their group, it is not the tournament's fault.
 
absolutely no! My country will be absolutely destroyed by canada but we get a chance to play the best junior team in the world...that's our prize for a great tournament. I'm looking very much forward to that match. Otherwise you should just include the top 4..
 
There is already a reward for winning the group - that is, getting to play the team with (second) weakest record from the other group.

It's pointless to complain about not getting to play the team with that seems to have the "least actual potential" because one can't design a system that would guarantee it. How could it be done, since there is no metric to determine such a thing.

"In that case the group winner should be given a chance to avoid that QF randomness altogether, bwah bwah!" ...tell you what, the group stage is pretty random too. Even better example than Finland is Switzerland. All they had to do was beat lowly Denmark in regulation to play Sweden for the group win. Then, along came single measly OTL and now they're suddenly in the regulation side of the tournament.
 
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