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WC: Making a better World Championship?

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Exarz

Exarz

Registered User
Jan 1, 2014
2,415
340
Helsinki
Every year, the same teams get promoted and relegated inside the divisional World Championship divisions and I've been wondering for a few months how to get rid of this. The first thing to do is to only make one team get relegated, since the two teams getting relegated are getting promoted next season again.

From that, there are two ways to go. We could either decrease the amount of teams from 16 to 12 or 14, or we could expand it with more teams.

I've chosen an expansion of the top division to 20 teams, and I'm going to tell you how:

  • Four groups with five teams in each. The winner of the group goes directly to the quarter finals, while the 2nd and 3rd placed teams play eight finals (like in the Olympics)
  • The 4th and 5th placed team in each group is facing each other head to head in three playout rounds. The winners from the first round stay in the top division, while the losing team goes to the second round and so on. The losing team in the third round is relegated from the top division.

There are also pros and cons from this:

Pros:
  • There will be competition in the botton of the group as well
  • With the competition, different teams can get relegated every year
  • More geographically spread out
  • A chance of increasing the hockey interest in the new "expansion teams" (could for example host a future World Championship)

Con:
  • High scoring games against the top team vs the bottom team in the group

I've made up four groups from the 2014 February rankings and the standings from Division 1A

Group A:
Sweden
---------------
Czech Republic
Norway
---------------
Denmark
Japan

Group B:
Finland
---------------
United States
Latvia
---------------
Belarus
Hungary

Group C:
Canada
---------------
Switzerland
Germany
---------------
Kazakhstan
Slovenia

Group D:
Russia
---------------
Slovakia
France
---------------
Italy
Austria

Here's an example how it would be:

Quarter finals:
Sweden vs
Finland vs
Canada vs
Russia vs

Eight finals:
Czech Republic vs France
United States vs Germany
Switzerland vs Latvia
Slovakia vs Norway


Playout, first round:
Denmark vs Austria
Belarus vs Slovenia
Kazakhstan vs Hungary
Italy vs Japan

Playout, second round:
Austria vs Hungary
Slovenia vs Japan

Playout, third round:
Hungary vs Japan

Eliminated: Hungary


The best way of doing it would of course be to have it every second of fourth year with qualifications (as in football) but that will probably not happen for a while, so I think this is the best way of doing it at the moment

To create a discussion out of this: What do you think? What is good and what could've been done better? Should there be less teams?
Click to read more...
 
The worst thing about World Championship is too many weak teams and not enough high quality games between top countries. This just makes that problem much worse.
 
The problem is that there's about 17-18 semi-decent national teams right now.

If 20 teams would participate, it's pretty clear that the bottom 2-3 teams would get routed. More pointless games for the big teams.

Overall it's not that bad of an idea, but I don't think it would help to make the tournament 'better'.

I think it is more important to make the World Champs more meaningful, more prestigious rather than more competitive for the teams ranked 14 to 20.
 
Namejs said:
The problem is that there's about 17-18 semi-decent national teams right now.

If 20 teams would participate, it's pretty clear that the bottom 2-3 teams would get routed. More pointless games for the big teams.

Overall it's not that bad of an idea, but I don't think it would help to make the tournament 'better'.

I think it is more important to make the World Champs more meaningful, more prestigious rather than more competitive for the teams ranked 14 to 20.
Click to expand...

I thought of this as well, but with 14 teams, teams like Denmark, France, Belarus, Norway and Germany (who actually have had good chances of reaching the quarter finals) would be eliminated and still being replaced by Italy/Kazakhstan/Austria/Slovenia. Like every other year. Feels like more of a loss losing (for example) Denmark and Belarus for Italy and Kazakhstan..
 
JJTT said:
The worst thing about World Championship is too many weak teams and not enough high quality games between top countries. This just makes that problem much worse.
Click to expand...

The "top 5" would probably win with 6-1 or 7-2 against the considered bottom team. The rest would probably win with a lower result, such as 4-2 for example.

Just watch Slovakia. They're considererd 8th with these groups, and they got beaten by Slovenia (considered one of the 4 new teams). Austria and Slovenia played in the Olympics, Hungary has been in the top division earlier, and Japan almost made it this season.

It's basically adding all the promotion/relegation teams together to the top division, instead of letting them play in a new division every second year. I also believe it's better this way for their hockey development.
 
Exarz said:
I thought of this as well, but with 14 teams, teams like Denmark, France, Belarus, Norway and Germany (who actually have had good chances of reaching the quarter finals) would be eliminated and still being replaced by Italy/Kazakhstan/Austria/Slovenia. Like every other year. Feels like more of a loss losing (for example) Denmark and Belarus for Italy and Kazakhstan..
Click to expand...
We could return to the format used before 1998.

2 groups with 6 teams each. A round robin takes place. The top 3 of each group advances and plays another round robin between themselves. The top 2 teams in the end play a best-of-3 series, while the 3rd and 4th teams play a bronze medal match.

The bottom half plays a round robin between themselves as well. The bottom 2 teams play a qualification round vs. the top 2 teams who won the 2nd tier tournament (Pool B or DivIA or whatever you call it).

This could be modified in some way to include 14 teams instead of 12.

So this would guarantee that the best 12 or 14 teams always stay up in the Elite division. There would also be way less chance involved in determining the World Champion and the medallists.
 
Namejs said:
We could return to the format used before 1998.

2 groups with 6 teams each. A round robin takes place. The top 3 of each group advances and plays another round robin between themselves. The top 2 teams in the end play a best-of-3 series, while the 3rd and 4th teams play a bronze medal match.

The bottom half plays a round robin between themselves as well. The bottom 2 teams play a qualification round vs. the top 2 teams who won the 2nd tier tournament (Pool B or DivIA or whatever you call it).

This could be modified in some way to include 14 teams instead of 12.

So this would guarantee that the best 12 or 14 teams always stay up in the Elite division. There would also be way less chance involved in determining the World Champion and the medallists.
Click to expand...

This is something I've been thinking about as well, letting the winner of D1A and the loser of the top division face each other, but where would it be, and would the D1A winner be able to finance the travelling costs for this series?

Since the D1A WC takes plays a few weeks earlier, and in another place, we would need to make them play at the same time and with a "not so long away distance".
 
Exarz said:
This is something I've been thinking about as well, letting the winner of D1A and the loser of the top division face each other, but where would it be, and would the D1A winner be able to finance the travelling costs for this series?

Since the D1A WC takes plays a few weeks earlier, and in another place, we would need to make them play at the same time and with a "not so long away distance".
Click to expand...
Erm, in the 90s it was a separate tournament hosted by one of the 4 countries, IIRC. It took place the next season.
 
Namejs said:
Erm, in the 90s it was a separate tournament hosted by one of the 4 countries, IIRC. It took place the next season.
Click to expand...

Oh, I see! I was too young to remember it :laugh:

Did it take place directly afterwards? They must've had a good reason removing it, since it really makes the top division "top"!
 
Namejs said:
We could return to the format used before 1998.

2 groups with 6 teams each. A round robin takes place. The top 3 of each group advances and plays another round robin between themselves. The top 2 teams in the end play a best-of-3 series, while the 3rd and 4th teams play a bronze medal match.

The bottom half plays a round robin between themselves as well. The bottom 2 teams play a qualification round vs. the top 2 teams who won the 2nd tier tournament (Pool B or DivIA or whatever you call it).

This could be modified in some way to include 14 teams instead of 12.

So this would guarantee that the best 12 or 14 teams always stay up in the Elite division. There would also be way less chance involved in determining the World Champion and the medallists.
Click to expand...

Though even Kalervo Kummola has said that 12 would be the right size, it's going to stay at 16 because of Germany.
 
there was like 20 people watching Frances game in helsinki world champs and even sweden struggled to fill globen with its ticket prices to swedens games. so would be a lot more empty ring matches if more meaningless kazakstan vs japan matches were added.
 
Erikfromfin said:
there was like 20 people watching Frances game in helsinki world champs and even sweden struggled to fill globen with its ticket prices to swedens games. so would be a lot more empty ring matches if more meaningless kazakstan vs japan matches were added.
Click to expand...

20 people was a bit extreme of you. I think 1000 is more of a fair and square number, but this is something we might have to struggle with.

Another solution could be by having the WC in 2 or 4 countries. One or two countries in each host country, which would make it easier selling tickets.
 
Erikfromfin said:
there was like 20 people watching Frances game in helsinki world champs and even sweden struggled to fill globen with its ticket prices to swedens games. so would be a lot more empty ring matches if more meaningless kazakstan vs japan matches were added.
Click to expand...

Don't be ridiculous. Even France's match against Kazakhstan had almost 9 000 spectators.
 
Latvia-11th to 13th 6 of the last 7 years
Slovenia-15th to 19th 11 of the last 12 years
Austria-14th-18th the last 9 years
France-12th to 14th 5 of the last 6 years
Belarus-14th the last 3 years
Denmark-10th to 14th 10 of the last 11 years
Kazakhstan-16th or 17th the last 5 years
Italy-15th to 18th the last 6 years
Japan-19th to 21st the last 6 years
Hungary-19th to 21st the last 5 years
Ukraine-19th to 21st 5 of the last 7 years
South Korea-21st to 23rd the last 4 years
Poland-22nd to 24th the last 7 years
 
Uncle Rotter said:
Latvia-11th to 13th 6 of the last 7 years
Slovenia-15th to 19th 11 of the last 12 years
Austria-14th-18th the last 9 years
France-12th to 14th 5 of the last 6 years
Belarus-14th the last 3 years
Denmark-10th to 14th 10 of the last 11 years
Kazakhstan-16th or 17th the last 5 years
Italy-15th to 18th the last 6 years
Japan-19th to 21st the last 6 years
Hungary-19th to 21st the last 5 years
Ukraine-19th to 21st 5 of the last 7 years
South Korea-21st to 23rd the last 4 years
Poland-22nd to 24th the last 7 years
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're trying to point out? :(
 
Namejs said:
We could return to the format used before 1998.

2 groups with 6 teams each. A round robin takes place. The top 3 of each group advances and plays another round robin between themselves. The top 2 teams in the end play a best-of-3 series, while the 3rd and 4th teams play a bronze medal match.
Click to expand...

That exact format was used only once (1997). I recall that was one of the best tournaments. The next year they went to an idiotic 2 game total goal final (1 goal scored in 120 minutes). It seems the IIHF is committed to the current knockout format (QF-SF-F)
 
Uncle Rotter said:
The same results year after year
Click to expand...

Oh!

Yeah, that's what my point is. Instead of letting the same teams getting promoted and then relegated again, why not add all of them into the top division, and only make one team relegate. It would be better for their development, and we won't have the same two teams every year as it is today!
 
Erikfromfin said:


I dont care about the numbers look at the empty seats... thats what you get.
Click to expand...


Do not forget that the ticket prices were really high...

I think they will be reduced for this year so I guess there will be better attendance. Plus, Belarus is close to a lot of countries.
 
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