8? How do you get 8 teams?
I think 6 (the league champions and the league runners up) or 3 would be better than 8 or the current 4.
Because 8 is better for a tournament. You can make two "division" of 4 teams.
-Round robin (3 games)
-1 Vs 4, 2 Vs 3
-Cross over (or not)
-Finals
That is a maximum of 6 games for the winner and runner up. Which is exactly the amount of games Shawinigan played last year. But most importantly, it's 19 games for the host city.
You can't really make this kind of tournament with 6 teams.
If you go two division of 3 teams, it's a total of 4 games for the winner but only 9 for the host city. If you go with a round robin with all 6 teams, the winning and runner up will play 7 games. 18 games for the host city.
Now, how you decide who plays is another story...
Anyways, I just think that the Memorial Cup does not get the respect it should and the actual format is ridiculous. Any tournament that could force a team to play 3 games in 3 nights because of a tie breaker lacks serious planning. The Memorial cup should be junior hockey's equivalent of March madness.