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

[Clown Baby*]

Love the new format. There is no semifinals-freecard in any other tournament in hockey that I can remember, why should WJC have it?

Agreed.

 

[J17 Vs Proclamation]

Lol the difference is so big. Do you really it's fair that Czech R with 7 points less than Sweden got the easier opponent?

Fair means that all teams are treated equally. All teams in this competiton play under the same system. The higher you finish in your group, the lower the opponent you face in the other group. All teams work under these provisions. Seems fair to me.

Your record is your record. Teams underperform or overpeform in the eyes of some/most. Finland finished 4th because it lost most games. Sweden finished 1st because it won the most. That's the order. It's completely fair, deal with it.

All teams should have to through all the rounds. Otherwise, how is that fair. The reward of winning is to progress in the competition. The reward of winning shouldn't be added perks that give you an even further advantage over your competiton. It's a world tournament. Win on merit.

The old boys mentality of entitlement and "deserving" helps no one but themselves.

 

[FinPanda]

Lol. Sweden won the group and still got worst possible draw. The system is flawed if it's supposed the 1st placed team should have advantage. Where is that advantage?

Lol, you have advantage. You won your group, you meet 4th placed team on the other group. Finland has sucked badly. This is just like it should be. Its fair for every team.

 

[Scotty B]

Fair means that all teams are treated equally. All teams in this competiton play under the same system. The higher you finish in your group, the lower the opponent you face in the other group. All teams work under these provisions. Seems fair to me.

Your record is your record. Teams underperform or overpeform in the eyes of some/most. Finland finished 4th because it lost most games. Sweden finished 1st because it won the most. That's the order. It's completely fair, deal with it.

All teams should have to through all the rounds. Otherwise, how is that fair. The reward of winning is to progress in the competition. The reward of winning shouldn't be added perks that give you an even further advantage over your competiton. It's a world tournament. Win on merit.

The old boys mentality of entitlement and "deserving" helps no one but themselves.

Nonsense. The old system was Every-Bit As Fair...Every team started out on an equal footing, & the team that Won the Pool...wait for it...EARNED the bye to the semis ON MERIT!

 

[PanniniClaus]

Its a Stupid system when comes to excitement and thrill. Only two teams out of 10 are eliminated for the playoffs. I do understand why the stadiums are not packed in the round robin, it's a yawn-fest . For the best teams, the games are almost meaningless, we all know they will go through to the playoffs anyways.

I find this to be a funny comment seeing as this round robin was full of drama from start to finish and the crowds were excellent. This is a Junior hockey tournament played at two of hockey's biggest grounds. You are not selling out every game no matter what the format is.

This format was in place when the tourney first expanded to 10 and the powers that be seemed to get upset when a couple of 4th seeds knocked off 1st seeds and felt drama was lacking - I think the Swiss knocked off a Slovak team that actually won their group back in the late 90's. All they did was give a whopping advantage to the group winners, diminish their revenue, lower excitement and give us extra relegation hockey which is foolish. You want small crowds and a yawn fest - fire up some relegation crossover games.

This is the right format.

 

[lamini]

Under old format you'd face RUS/USA in SF and complain that it's unfair that CAN has to win only against CZE/SVK to reach gold medal game.

 

[helicecopter]

Agree with this. There was a purpose of playing your best hockey in the round robin so you could get a bye into the semi's. Now, it seems its lost a lot of its purpose unless your so bad, you end up in a relagation situation. Look at Sweden. They should be rewarded for finishing first in their pool. But their reward is playing last years winners, despite having a tough round robin. Doesn't make sense to me other then rolling in more money.

this.

 

[helicecopter]

Fair means that all teams are treated equally. All teams in this competiton play under the same system. The higher you finish in your group, the lower the opponent you face in the other group. All teams work under these provisions. Seems fair to me.

Your record is your record. Teams underperform or overpeform in the eyes of some/most. Finland finished 4th because it lost most games. Sweden finished 1st because it won the most. That's the order. It's completely fair, deal with it.

All teams should have to through all the rounds. Otherwise, how is that fair. The reward of winning is to progress in the competition. The reward of winning shouldn't be added perks that give you an even further advantage over your competiton. It's a world tournament. Win on merit.

I'm not sure what you're missing here.

Under the old system you would in fact win the bye on merit.

 

[Uno Bench]

I find this to be a funny comment seeing as this round robin was full of drama from start to finish and the crowds were excellent. This is a Junior hockey tournament played at two of hockey's biggest grounds. You are not selling out every game no matter what the format is.

This format was in place when the tourney first expanded to 10 and the powers that be seemed to get upset when a couple of 4th seeds knocked off 1st seeds and felt drama was lacking - I think the Swiss knocked off a Slovak team that actually won their group back in the late 90's. All they did was give a whopping advantage to the group winners, diminish their revenue, lower excitement and give us extra relegation hockey which is foolish. You want small crowds and a yawn fest - fire up some relegation crossover games.

This is the right format.

No its not. Theese are the elite teams, the best of the best in a short tournament, the format should be about making every point, every game and every goal matter in the long run of the competition. There has to be a better format than this

Three or four groups, groups playing eachother during round robin (?) three teams to the semis, two teams to the quarters, the lowest ranked relegated (??)

 

[PanniniClaus]

No its not. Theese are the elite teams, the best of the best in a short tournament, the format should be about making every point, every game and every goal matter in the long run of the competition. There has to be a better format than this

Three or four groups, groups playing eachother during round robin (?) three teams to the semis, two teams to the quarters, the lowest ranked relegated (??)

Then if that is your desire - head back to the top group of 8, play every team once and the top three get medals. That is how it was in the good old days. Get er back to the good old "elite" as you say.

 

[Uno Bench]

Then if that is your desire - head back to the top group of 8, play every team once and the top three get medals. That is how it was in the good old days. Get er back to the good old "elite" as you say.

That's not what I said, read my post again

 

[cyris]

Lol, you have advantage. You won your group, you meet 4th placed team on the other group. Finland has sucked badly. This is just like it should be. Its fair for every team.

This!
The op keeps saying Sweden has to play the better team but the process thus far has determined that they arent. The 3 teams that finished above the Finns did so because they played better in the round robin, meaning thus far they were the better teams.

The advantage Sweden gets is they play the 4th worst team from the other pool in the QF. They also probably get home ice advantage in every game except if they play Canada in the finals.(not sure who would get home ice then)

 

[helicecopter]

Finland has sucked badly.

yet it has been much better than the Slovaks lol, as the SVK-FIN game showed despite the result. Those who watched the game know Finland pretty much dominated it.

 

[helicecopter]

This!
The op keeps saying Sweden has to play the better team but the process thus far has determined that they arent. The 3 teams that finished above the Finns did so because they played better in the round robin, meaning thus far they were the better teams.

not really. The Finns were easily better than the Slovaks when they played them.

 

[FinPanda]

not really. The Finns were easily better than the Slovaks when they played them.

But they scored more goals than us, so they deserved to be 3rd. It's only result what matters. We were better team on the ice, but we didn't capitalize our chances. So we deserved to lose.

 

[Stanley Foobrick]

Money. You can't sell tickets to a bye.

 

[PanniniClaus]

That's not what I said, read my post again

I know what you said - you said that every game, every point and every goal should matter which is not how tournament play typically is when you have playoffs or brackets.

Your desire to have every game and every point count lends itself to the full round robin format. The bracket format will always have flaws but the bye system ruined the tourney. It gave an unfair advantage to the top teams and basically rendered the elimination games meaningless save for the final. The emphasis was put on the round robin portion, which seems like a silly way to run a tourney that is a showcase for the worlds best under 20's. It killed the sharp end of the tourney rather than enhance it.

I am Canadian by the way and no team has seen a bigger benefit of the bye than Canada. The tourney is bigger than having a short sighted view of a person's own country or circumstance.

It would appear you are a fan of the Swedes and a little sore about getting the Finns.

 

[PanniniClaus]

Money. You can't sell tickets to a bye.

This is definitely one of the reasons for the switch back to this format.

 

[Kamzik]

yet it has been much better than the Slovaks lol, as the SVK-FIN game showed despite the result. Those who watched the game know Finland pretty much dominated it.

Shoulda coulda woulda my friend, shoulda coulda woulda.

 

[Never]

I'm fine with no byes. We get an extra game out of it. Besides, Canada's playing Denmark. Great story for them by upsetting the Swiss, but odds are they'll be no match for Canada.

 

[Slimmy]

Meh, if you win your group and have designs on winning the tournament, you should be able to beat the other best teams anyways. Doesn't matter if it's in the QFs, SFs or the final.

I don't feel strongly ether way.. but the teams might. As a Swede I know full well what could happen in a scenario where it would be more favorable to loose.

 

[Kamzik]

The bye system was too cruel. Sending the 7th place team to fight for relegation. In the old format, Finland, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark would now battle to stay up. Imagine erasing Denmark's accomplishments. And what would it serve having Finland battle for relegation.

 

[Slimmy]

This!
The op keeps saying Sweden has to play the better team but the process thus far has determined that they arent. The 3 teams that finished above the Finns did so because they played better in the round robin, meaning thus far they were the better teams.

The advantage Sweden gets is they play the 4th worst team from the other pool in the QF. They also probably get home ice advantage in every game except if they play Canada in the finals.(not sure who would get home ice then)

In reality, however, the US is playing the second best team from group B. It could even be argued that Russia is the best team from group B. The Slovaks and the Danes have the weakest roster. Playing them would mean your chances of winning increase.
With that said, I'm not a big fan of the bye in ether.

 

[FiLe]

It really gives away unusual sense of entitlement that the system should be changed because of one time things ended in the unexpected side.

Perhaps some pespective should be in order. There's one of these tournaments every year, and most of the time, things pretty much go as expected. If a rematch or three were to be arranged, Finland would most likely thrash Slovakia handily. Now we just had to see the one time a spanner was thrown into the works and it ended up having repercussions for more than just the teams initially involved (which, by the way, is also a commonly occurring feature of the system, bye or no).

Yes, the system isn't perfect, but what is? If you stop gazing the current piece of lint in your navels and see this tournament what it is, one in a continuum of many, you'll notice things still work well enough to not warrant all this crying of change due to the single time they don't. Especially when you wouldn't see anything wrong if it hadn't happened to affect your team.

 

[helicecopter]

Shoulda coulda woulda my friend, shoulda coulda woulda.

No shoulda coulda woulda there, just a fact.

The bye system was too cruel. Sending the 7th place team to fight for relegation. In the old format, Finland, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark would now battle to stay up. Imagine erasing Denmark's accomplishments.

no one is saying they should still have 2 relegations (1 is the way to go) or erase the results 7th through 10th seeds got along the preliminary round. The byes do not automatically mean they should do it that way.