tape to tape
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Canada Cup - Best On Best or Not?
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Because we have won almost every tournament. That's the biggest reason. I highly doubt that they would bring this **** if the Canada Cup was won by the Soviets, the Czechs or Sweden.
JackSlater
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Well there are certainly years where the rosters were not ideal, with 1991 being a particularly strong example. This is true for Canada in some instances as well.
If the Canada Cup was not best-on-best then there simply was no such thing as a best-on-best tournament.
tape to tape
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Nevertheless, couldn't you make the argument that since the tournament was held in September, that each country had the full opportunity to send their best?
VMBM
Hansel?!
Now, if there had been a best-on-best tournament called the 'Soviet Cup', being held in Soviet Union (& maybe partly in Czechoslovakia), with mostly European officials, would you be as willing to accept it as the ideal best-on-best tournament - especially if and when the Soviets would've (likely) won most of them?
The Canada Cup might have been the closest thing to the 'true World Championships', and I'm glad that those tournaments were played (some of the greatest hockey ever), but were they perfect & equally fair to all? Bollocks mon.
1Gold Standard
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There's only 1 condition that needs to be met in order for it to qualify as a best on best tournament, all players must be available and at your disposal when making a roster of 22 players. Roster decisions i.e. who's on who's off, injuries, officiating, tournament location and blah blah blah sounds like a whole lot of excuse making to me.
I agree with this. It's only in hockey that you can play international games with refs from a non-neutral country and somebody actually (for real!) calling that completely fair competition. No other international sport does this and this gives international hockey a bit of a bush league status. People should look for what is happening outside the very small sport of hockey to get a clue.
And to avoid any comments about the OG final. Yes, that was good reefing, not biased to any side. But that is beside the point. If you don't get what I mean by that, I sure hope you aren't working in the law business.
Would have been best on best if the Sowjets would have been allowed to have three extra players on the ice, too.
Would have been best on best if the Sowjets would have been allowed to have three extra players on the ice, too.
The Soviets didn't have three extra players that were qualified
In fact, Russia still doesn't have three extra players that are qualified even today.
IIHF's words, not mine
JackSlater
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Availability isn't enough. It depends on if they actually send their top players. USSR rosters in 1976 and 1991 for instance were not optimal, even though the option was there.
Yes it would be best on best. Regardless of who organizes it (Russians, Swedes, Finns or Chinese) as long as every country entering has the option to choose their top players, it is absolutely a best on best.
In 1991 Canada was without Mario Lemieux, Ray bourque and Patrick Roy. Arguably the best players of their generation at their respective positions. Doesn't take away the legitimacy of the tournament. I doubt any country was missing players of that calibre but that irrelevant.
In this summers up coming World Cup of soccer, you'll never hear anyone take the legitimacy of ots value as best on best if 1/5 the Spain or Brazil top players aren't selected, injured or just refuse to go.
This.
And absolutely only this
I don't care if it's organized by Iranians on "Persian ice size" if each participating nation has the option of selecting its best players (not discounting injuries, which don't diminish the legitimacy the tournament) it's best on best. Bottom line.
JackSlater
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It's not just Canada, though as most posters will forget Canada had this issue. USSR had bigger issues, even if the names were not as big as the three you mentioned for Canada.
Sonny Lamateena
Registered User
For me it has to be simply based on player availability, if a best vs best tournament is dependent on no injuries, no players declining to play for any reason, or all management teams choosing the consensus best team possible then their has never been a best vs best tournament and their never will be.
For me the best vs best tournament list is:
Canada Cup 1976, 1981, 1984, 1987, 1991
World Cup 1996, 2004
World Hockey Championships 2005
Olympics 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014
For me the best vs best tournament list is:
Canada Cup 1976, 1981, 1984, 1987, 1991
World Cup 1996, 2004
World Hockey Championships 2005
Olympics 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014
The olympics are held all over the place with the IIHF and IOC as the sanctioning body with neutral reffing and most of those(like the Canada cup) are being won by Canada also.
It seems like however they are being run and by who the end scenario has been the same with Canada winning the lions share.
maybe, just maybe, they have been the best team most of the time regardless of who organizes the best on best tournaments.
That is what the results of neutral organization of best on best versus organization of best on best by the nhl has shown so far.
Roster-wise? Yes. As a legitimate tournament that is respected and fair? Absolutely not.
The Canada/World Cup is simply North America's version of the World Championships. In fact, that is exactly the reason it was created since Canadians had no interest in watching the (at the time) amateur WHC and wanted to see their NHL heroes in Canadian uniforms.
Best-on-best or not, it is a second tier tournament. It never should have been re-named as "Canada Cup" is very fitting for a tournament only Canadians care about and was in fact created for Canadians. They re-named it simply to appeal to Americans as well but hockey isn't that big of a deal in the U.S., especially in August, so besides the hardcore hockey fans there isn't much interest in it here either. Those same people would probably watch a "Canada Cup" regardless so the whole "World Cup" nonsense is simply pointless marketing. Even baseball's equivalent (a much more popular sport in the U.S.) is almost entirely ignored because everyone can see through the charade for a major league who only cares about money just trying to capitalize on another kind of competition that is set up entirely for the benefit of the country(ies) that league operates in.
The failure that was the World Cup needs no more explanation than the fact that it hasn't been held since 2004 (after an 8 year gap). It only made some sense before NHL players started taking part in the Olympics, yet it obviously still wasn't an ideal tournament even then beyond the fact that all players were available to play in it.
The Canada/World Cup is simply North America's version of the World Championships. In fact, that is exactly the reason it was created since Canadians had no interest in watching the (at the time) amateur WHC and wanted to see their NHL heroes in Canadian uniforms.
Best-on-best or not, it is a second tier tournament. It never should have been re-named as "Canada Cup" is very fitting for a tournament only Canadians care about and was in fact created for Canadians. They re-named it simply to appeal to Americans as well but hockey isn't that big of a deal in the U.S., especially in August, so besides the hardcore hockey fans there isn't much interest in it here either. Those same people would probably watch a "Canada Cup" regardless so the whole "World Cup" nonsense is simply pointless marketing. Even baseball's equivalent (a much more popular sport in the U.S.) is almost entirely ignored because everyone can see through the charade for a major league who only cares about money just trying to capitalize on another kind of competition that is set up entirely for the benefit of the country(ies) that league operates in.
The failure that was the World Cup needs no more explanation than the fact that it hasn't been held since 2004 (after an 8 year gap). It only made some sense before NHL players started taking part in the Olympics, yet it obviously still wasn't an ideal tournament even then beyond the fact that all players were available to play in it.
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For me the 2005 WC are border-line best-on-best if only because so many players did not attend for whatever reason, even though all were available.
Usually in such events you find each team missing a handful of players. Yet in 2005...
Czechs were very well-rounded (hense the gold) but were missing Dominik Hasek, Roman Hamrlik, Martin Skoula, Filip Kuba, Martin Havlat, Patrik Elias, Milan Hejduk, Jiri Dopita, Robert Reichel, Robert Lang, Juri Fischer
Canada was also a pretty complete team but was still without Eric Brewer, Adam Foote, Scott Niedermayer, Jay Bouwmeester, Chris Pronger, Rob Blake, Vincent Lecavalier, Joe Sakic, Jarome Iginla, Brad Richards, Martin St. Louis, Steve Yzerman
Russia had most of its stars at forward (missing only Zhamnov, Fedorov and V Bure) but in goal and on defence were without Nikolai Khabibulin, Ilya Bryzgalov, Evgeni Nabokov, Sergei Gonchar, Darius Kasparaitis, Oleg Tverdovsky, Vitaly Vishnevski, Anton Volchenkov, Danny Markov, Alexei Zhitnik, Fedor Tyutin
Sweden was without Kim Johnsson, Nicklas Lidstrom, Mattias Ohlund, Daniel Tjarnqvist, Fredrik Modin, Tomas Holmstrom, Mats Sundin, Peter Forsberg, Markus Naslund, Michael Nylander, Mikael Renberg, Niklas Sundstrom
Slovakia had most its stars but not Andrej Meszaros, Milan Jurcina, Ladislav Nagy, Branko Radivojevic, Radovan Somik, Peter Bondra, Richard Kapus, Robert Petrovicky, Tomas Surovy, Marek Svatos
Finland had no Miikka Kiprusoff, Kari Lehtonen, Antero Niittymaki, Toni Lydman, Teppo Numminen, Aki-Petteri Berg, Sami Salo, Janne Niinimaa, Joni Pitkanen, Saku Koivu, Jere Lehtinen, Teemu Selanne, Tuomo Ruutu, Mikko Koivu, Ville Nieminen, Sami Kapanen, Esa Pirnes
USA was without Robert Esche, Brian Rafalski, Chris Chelios, Brian Leetch, Eric Weinrich, Mathieu Schneider, Jeremy Roenick, Keith Tkachuk, Bill Guerin, Scott Gomez, Bryan Smolinski, Jason Blake, Tony Amonte, Craig Conroy, Brian Rolston, Jamie Langenbrunner, Chris Drury
Even though the rosters in 2005 were a lot stronger than usual (probably Canada's best team ever at the event), they were still closer to a normal WC than a best-on-best.
The Canada/World Cup is NOT north americas version of the world championship. The main difference being that it is held at a time of year when all participating nations have the option of bringing the best players available to them. That is in stark contrast to the world championships.
If the canada/World Cup was held when North Americans were able to bring their best players but the euro leagues were still running causing the euro teams to. Ring subpar squads, it would also be a poor measure of best on best.
Even if the tournament was held in Australia on "Australian size ice", as long as all nations had the option of bringing all their top players, it should be considered best
I've asked you before, if not any of these situations (where all nations have the option of bringing their best players) is not a true best on best, what in your opinion is?
Sonny Lamateena
Registered User
Here's the problem if you base it on actual rosters vs availability. Less than 12 months on both sides of the 05 World Championships was another best vs best tournament where the bolded players either also didn't play in 1 or both of those tournaments, so if you go this route you must examine every single player for every single team and see what is the best possible roster they could of had at that moment and then determine what % of missing players per tournament is acceptable to maintain that best vs best tournament title.
Go over the rosters of 2004 and 2006 and determine which players were missing who would have played had they not been injured or turned down an invite.
Then do the same for 2005. You'll find FAR more players missing from the 2005 rosters, as I outlined above, who were unquestionably good enough to make the team had they accepted.
Sure some teams are especially hard-hit by absent players in best-on-best events, yet in 2005 we saw plenty of stars missing from ALL teams. That's what disqualifies it as being best-on-best in my opinion.
Sonny Lamateena
Registered User
Are you sure the 2005 World Championships has the highest number of top players not playing? It's a 16 team tournament with 100% player availability and when you compare it to some of the other tournaments that have the same issues such as injuries, players declining invitations, and teams omitting deserving players, but also have bigger issues too.
All the Canada Cups were 6 team tournaments, the 84 Canada Cup didn't include Finland and the Czechoslovakian team had a bunch of defections (Peter Stastny played for Canada).
The Olympics had different qualifying scenarios in each tournament, in 2002 Slovakia didn't get out of the qualification round because the NHL didn't release it's players to play in it, is that a best vs best tournament?
When entire top teams don't get to participate then the % of top players not involved can go up pretty quickly.
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