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Has your stance on the World Cup changed for the better?

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I got to watch entertaining hockey before the NHL season started. I don't know what more I could ask for.
 
Setting aside the fact that USA Hockey played like amateurs, this tournament went better than I had expected. I watched most of the of the games and I was easily the most entertained by the North American team as everybody else was.

Has my stance changed on the World Cup changed for the better? No, but it hasn't changed for the worse. As entertaining as it was for a few games, it still doesn't compete with the Olympics. And you could see with the Canadians after they won it kind of felt half hearted almost. As great a finish as it was, you could just tell that it wasn't the same.

Winning the World Cup would be great from an American stand point, but I'm still recovering from the 2010 heartbreak and I cannot describe how much I'd rather win an Olympic gold medal than a made up tournament with made up teams. Its just not the same.
 
My stance was this was going to be a bs tournament and it turned out exactly that. Everybody lost one way or the other.
 
hirawl said:
My stance was this was going to be a bs tournament and it turned out exactly that. Everybody lost one way or the other.
Click to expand...

expect Canada.
It was still better hockey then Sochi, and now bring on the NHL. The league will be off to a better start, because all the stars will have had a more intense preseason then normal
 
Now I can finally say what I've wanted to say about this tournament but with my heart having vacated my windpipe for much of the past two games it was difficult until now.

I hate what Bettmann and his group of idiots did to this tournament. I hate Team North America and Team Europe. This stupid tournament basically killed international hockey.

The US team was set up by the tournament planners to be in the final with Canada. But they forgot that by creating the U-24 team they would drain too much talent away from the US roster, and that's precisely what happened. A US team with Gaudreau, Eichel, Matthews, Gostibehere and Gibson would have made the finals.

Then we have Team Europe, a ridiculous amalgamation of no less than 8 hockey nations. Never mind that none of them would have been a competitive entry had this been a proper international tournament. The goons at NHL Central figured that being from such minnow countries an aggregation of their best players would be more competitive than one of the minnows alone but no real threat to any of the real hockey powers.

Wrong.

All one had to do was to look at the talent on this team in terms of the importance that many of the players have to their NHL team. Kopitar, Zuccarello, Hossa, Nielson, Draisatl, Tatar and Vanek and a bunch of excellent fast checking forwards such as Hansen, Reider and Nietereitter and a strong defensive corps anchored by Josi and Sekera with Halak in goal. That's an all-star team and they proved it by beating the US, the Czechs, Finland and Sweden--twice. Of course, if pared back to their original 8 countries, they would have beaten no one, and should have beaten no one, as a whole group of countries does not qualify for international play.

Moreover, having beaten these traditional hockey superpowers, Team Europe has poured cold water all over the prestige of these individual international hockey teams, blotted their records in international play, and really hurt the standing of international hockey. Sweden is dominant, eh? Well they got beat twice by a ragtag group, so how good are they really? And how about the US? International hockey has taken a huge hit from this idiotic, stupid NHL idea.

The only hope is that these stupid ideas and joke teams will never again see the light of day. They were an insult to international hockey, an offence to the purity of the game, and a pox on the NHL and its greedy suits for doing this.
 
Check out tv-ratings and empty seats at Air Canada center. This tournament is behind 'Skodacup'. Tells a lot about the non-exiting prestige.
 
Team US only have themselves to blame. Tyler Johnson and Phil Kessel is better than anyone not named Gaudreau on Team NA. Faulk is the 2nd best dmen behind Suter.
 
The set-up was completely disrespectful. Like, its played in Toronto and the arenas are half-full at best. Best players in the world.
 
Players are not at their best this time of year and there are lots and lots of mistakes because of that. These are the first games for all the players so if World Cup continues to be before NHL season start, it would be always far away from olympics.
 
I am laughing my ass off reading these rather poisonous descriptions of the tourney. I am glad that I didn't watch a single game and I am glad that buttman et al. fell on their faces...on a pavement riddled with dog excrement no less.
 
No matter how badly the NHL screwed this tournament up, and they certainly did with those joke teams, it was still a rare best-on-best tournament. No one has ever questioned the legitimacy or importance of the '76, '81, '84, '87 or '91 Canada Cups in the pantheon of international hockey. Or the '96 or '04 World Cups. Trust me, the players take these best on best tournaments with the utmost seriousness, and for all this crowing about the Olympics there is a lot of dreadful godawful hockey in that tournament when you watch games between Canada or Sweden or Russia or the US and some of the pathetic teams that get into it. Also, the Olympic format stinks with all those tiny groups in preliminary play and the loss of good matchups because of elimination games. The World Cup/Canada Cup was a better format until the NHL screwed it up royally this year. Let's hope this is the end of the joke teams and there is proper qualifying to determine the seventh and eighth teams next time. Or leave it at six teams as it used to be and have a proper round-robin so everybody plays everybody else at least once. Whatever happened to that common-sense approach?
 
My opinion hasn't changed, somewhat validated by the horrible ratings and lack of interest.

It was a fun but meaningless tournament. If we win - good. If not - oh well. Similar to the World Championships.
 
hammerwielder said:
Now I can finally say what I've wanted to say about this tournament but with my heart having vacated my windpipe for much of the past two games it was difficult until now.

I hate what Bettmann and his group of idiots did to this tournament. I hate Team North America and Team Europe. This stupid tournament basically killed international hockey.

The US team was set up by the tournament planners to be in the final with Canada. But they forgot that by creating the U-24 team they would drain too much talent away from the US roster, and that's precisely what happened. A US team with Gaudreau, Eichel, Matthews, Gostibehere and Gibson would have made the finals.

Then we have Team Europe, a ridiculous amalgamation of no less than 8 hockey nations. Never mind that none of them would have been a competitive entry had this been a proper international tournament. The goons at NHL Central figured that being from such minnow countries an aggregation of their best players would be more competitive than one of the minnows alone but no real threat to any of the real hockey powers.

Wrong.

All one had to do was to look at the talent on this team in terms of the importance that many of the players have to their NHL team. Kopitar, Zuccarello, Hossa, Nielson, Draisatl, Tatar and Vanek and a bunch of excellent fast checking forwards such as Hansen, Reider and Nietereitter and a strong defensive corps anchored by Josi and Sekera with Halak in goal. That's an all-star team and they proved it by beating the US, the Czechs, Finland and Sweden--twice. Of course, if pared back to their original 8 countries, they would have beaten no one, and should have beaten no one, as a whole group of countries does not qualify for international play.

Moreover, having beaten these traditional hockey superpowers, Team Europe has poured cold water all over the prestige of these individual international hockey teams, blotted their records in international play, and really hurt the standing of international hockey. Sweden is dominant, eh? Well they got beat twice by a ragtag group, so how good are they really? And how about the US? International hockey has taken a huge hit from this idiotic, stupid NHL idea.

The only hope is that these stupid ideas and joke teams will never again see the light of day. They were an insult to international hockey, an offence to the purity of the game, and a pox on the NHL and its greedy suits for doing this.
Click to expand...

You're whining about Gibson, Gostisbehere, and Mathews who wouldn't have made the team anyways and I doubt Gaudreau would'be magically changed the train wreck in anyway.
 
nhlfan9191 said:
You're whining about Gibson, Gostisbehere, and Mathews who wouldn't have made the team anyways and I doubt Gaudreau would'be magically changed the train wreck in anyway.
Click to expand...

Gaudreau 3GP, 2G, 2A, +4
Gostibehere 3GP, 4 points, +4
Matthews 3 GP, 2G, 1A, +3

Gibson 2GP, 1W, 0L, Sv. .932

Top USA Skaters
McDonagh 3GP, 2G, 0A, -2
Pavelski 3GP, 1G, 1A, -1
Kane 3GP, 0G, 2A, -4

USA Goalies
Quick, 2GP, 0W, 2L, Sv. .860
Bishop, 1GP, 0W, 1L, Sv. .800
 
There was like zero emotional investment in the tournement in any way and the only two best games Canada played were in the pre-tourny games. If it wasn't for the u-23 team this would have completely bombed basically.
 
hammerwielder said:
Now I can finally say what I've wanted to say about this tournament but with my heart having vacated my windpipe for much of the past two games it was difficult until now.

I hate what Bettmann and his group of idiots did to this tournament. I hate Team North America and Team Europe. This stupid tournament basically killed international hockey.

The US team was set up by the tournament planners to be in the final with Canada. But they forgot that by creating the U-24 team they would drain too much talent away from the US roster, and that's precisely what happened. A US team with Gaudreau, Eichel, Matthews, Gostibehere and Gibson would have made the finals.

Then we have Team Europe, a ridiculous amalgamation of no less than 8 hockey nations. Never mind that none of them would have been a competitive entry had this been a proper international tournament. The goons at NHL Central figured that being from such minnow countries an aggregation of their best players would be more competitive than one of the minnows alone but no real threat to any of the real hockey powers.

Wrong.

All one had to do was to look at the talent on this team in terms of the importance that many of the players have to their NHL team. Kopitar, Zuccarello, Hossa, Nielson, Draisatl, Tatar and Vanek and a bunch of excellent fast checking forwards such as Hansen, Reider and Nietereitter and a strong defensive corps anchored by Josi and Sekera with Halak in goal. That's an all-star team and they proved it by beating the US, the Czechs, Finland and Sweden--twice. Of course, if pared back to their original 8 countries, they would have beaten no one, and should have beaten no one, as a whole group of countries does not qualify for international play.

Moreover, having beaten these traditional hockey superpowers, Team Europe has poured cold water all over the prestige of these individual international hockey teams, blotted their records in international play, and really hurt the standing of international hockey. Sweden is dominant, eh? Well they got beat twice by a ragtag group, so how good are they really? And how about the US? International hockey has taken a huge hit from this idiotic, stupid NHL idea.

The only hope is that these stupid ideas and joke teams will never again see the light of day. They were an insult to international hockey, an offence to the purity of the game, and a pox on the NHL and its greedy suits for doing this.
Click to expand...

I tried my very best to find a single word that I disagreed with here, but couldn't. Then again, I probably would have been a little more critical of Bettman. :)
 
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