Next year there are two overlapping tournament windows, both for a month. First Africa Cup of Nations and Asian Cup in January-February and then Copa América and Euro in June-July. Most top leagues will be affected by at least one of the two.
Next World Cup
- Thread starter independent observer
- Start date
-
Xenforo Cloud will be upgrading us to version 2.3.5 on March 3rd at 12 AM GMT. This version has increased stability and fixes several bugs. We expect downtime for the duration of the update. The admin team will continue to work on existing issues, templates and upgrade all necessary available addons to minimize impact of this new version. Click Here for Updates
That is very different from actually stopping the league completely, isn’t it? Absolutely not comparable. They don’t suspend the leagues for the African cup of nations. It affects a lot of top European clubs because they all tend to have some African players in the top European leagues who represent a country that has qualified for the tournament. But it’s not like Liverpool stopped existing and doing OK when Mo Salah was at the African championships, was it? Quite apart from that, even if all your arguments were absolutely valid, I don’t see the slightest reason why the NHL should imitate football. Apart from the fact that they really should not care how football runs its affairs, I come back to my previous point about number of games lost in an 83 game season plus playoffs, versus the situation football. How many games did the African players miss who went to the African cup of nations?
That's of course up to the leagues whether they want to play without certain players or keep a break. For international soccer the issue is already cleared when the players are released.
In hockey I don't expect anything from the NHL, it's a separate branch of the entertainment industry that is generally harmful to the game of hockey as a sport. But I would wish that all European leagues would operate in a way that would allow all their players to participate, in some albeit relatively few cases also this has not been so.
First, I’m going to snip down some of this so that everyone isn’t just tl:dr as I refute like 5 points.
Second, the football season in Europe is over by the end of may. There’s two teams (out of like 100) playing for the CL trophy, and everyone else is done. The WC/Euros is still a week after the CL final, which is exactly what I’m suggesting: a best-on-best tournament in late June.
Because the Stanley Cup is a league trophy (yes I know it’s technically a “challenge cup” available to all, but it’s a league trophy). You aren’t arguing that the KHL or SHL or Liiga should award their championships every 4 years are you? What makes these international competitions special is they don’t happen every year.Faterson said:
While the World Championship and the NHL have been around for about the same length (NHL 1917, WC 1920) the WC did not begin allowing professional players until 1976, so in terms of best-on-best the WC is about 60 years behind.Faterson said:
First off, the Stanley Cup Playoffs typically end around the third week in June, and the players are all over it. That’s because it’s currently the closest to best-on-best we have.Faterson said:
Second, the football season in Europe is over by the end of may. There’s two teams (out of like 100) playing for the CL trophy, and everyone else is done. The WC/Euros is still a week after the CL final, which is exactly what I’m suggesting: a best-on-best tournament in late June.
Oh they absolutely did object to that, but the World Cup is an institution, while the WC is not. The (football) players care about the World Cup. The (hockey) players don’t care about the WC. The solution is to make it more accessible.Faterson said:
Last edited:
Many top-level hockey seasons are over by early March, already the current dates are somewhat problematic relative to that. Late June would be more than three months after the end of the season for many players and would largely eliminate their off-season altogether. Secondly I see little value in changing things for those that don't care about the competition to start with. Whether players or fans.
mattihp
Registered User
Shocker
Registered User
- Dec 20, 2019
- 2,137
- 3,906
Even if NHL technically allowed Euros there weren't almost any until 80s, they weren't a best-on-best until the 90's really, so this is kind of a moot point.
Silky Johnson
I wish you all the bad things in life.
NHL/NHLPA does the job it is supposed to do, the job that most people on here pay them to do. It delivers the best hockey product in the world on a regular basis.
IIHF sucks at its job and doesn't understand that it is the junior partner in any interaction between these orgs.
NHL & NHLPA are effective partners in delivering a hockey product. If there is going to be a good best on best tournament it will be at the discretion of these stakeholders and not the IIHF who impotent at best.
Once again, f*** the IIHF.
Silky Johnson
I wish you all the bad things in life.
There is only on top level of hockey. You know it, I know it, we all know it. The rest are just side shows.
Why is their viewership low even in the biggest hockey countries outside of North America if that is the case? I'm sure they're effective at delivering to a certain segment of the market, but that's barely overlapping with the IIHF at all.
Team English speakers would have to play Nathan Walker and Liam Kirk.
Team French speakers would have to have players from France and Switzerland
Team Finland/Hungary/Estonia has to have players from Hungary and Estonia.
Team Latvia and Lithuania.
Silky Johnson
I wish you all the bad things in life.
Their viewership and revenues are fine and are orders of magnitude better then anyone else. Hockey is a niche sport fundamentally. That the Ottawa Senators are about to be sold for 1 billion dollars in a large pool of bidders tells us how well the NHL is doing considering Hockey's niche status.
Contrarians like you have been saying how bad the NHL is doing for at least my adult life and yet they still keep trucking on.
Its a great product. They do serve their market incredibly well. That is their job. The overlap is that the NHL/NHLPA controls all the best talent in the world and the IIHF controls jack shit. NHLPA and Fans would prefer to have some best on best tournaments as well but not at the expense of NHL season. NHL will allow that to happen in partnership with the NHLPA only under the right circumstances. All of the above is completely reasonable when considering organisational mandates.
I personally don't like the international game/ice. I would prefer NHL ice in all international tournaments. I like it when guys punch each other in games. Even though I live in European (time zones) i would rather stay up late to watch elite hockey. NHL/NHLPA domination of the sport serves me well. If you fans of euro hockey and IIHF don't like it you can reprioritise your hockey spends and you will have more say. Otherwise its status quo.
I like that team French only has to have French and (I’m assuming French-speaking) Swiss players, while team English has to actually play Walker and Kirk.
In North America only. In Europe the IIHF World Championships receive more than 10x as many viewers as the Stanley Cup playoffs even when the NHL games are prime time in national television. That being the case, the current situation of largely separate spheres serves both sides better than realistic alternatives. And given that the tickets are already now often too expensive there's no need to put in more money either.
Shocker
Registered User
- Dec 20, 2019
- 2,137
- 3,906
Silky Johnson
I wish you all the bad things in life.
Cool. You continue watching an inferior product and Ill keep watching the NHL. World Championships will continue to mean nothing and every once in a while there will be a real best on best that's worth watching. Status quo completely works for me.
No problemo, Switzerland has no good french speaking players anyway, but gladly takes Ehlers that wants to join his childhood friends like Meier
PullHard
☂
- Jul 18, 2007
- 28,588
- 2,838
If they had kept it going at regular intervals since 1996 by this time over a quarter of century later the competition would have gathered tradition so that it would have become the pinnacle of international hockey and everybody would want to win it.
I'm sure the same thing happened with the soccer wc in the 1920s. They decided let's have an international competition.
The English spurned it at first an thought it was inferior to the English league but oh boy how much they would like to win it now.
But the thing is to get it started and keep it going.
I'm sure the same thing happened with the soccer wc in the 1920s. They decided let's have an international competition.
The English spurned it at first an thought it was inferior to the English league but oh boy how much they would like to win it now.
But the thing is to get it started and keep it going.
MeHateHe
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2006
- 2,832
- 3,256
Silky Johnson
I wish you all the bad things in life.
That money isn’t coming from their personal savings….
The NHL can generate the most revenue because they have the best product by far.
How well would a top tier NA hockey league do without access to the vast majority of the top 600 players in the world?Probably about as well as the Euro leagues are doing now.
The NHL has built a league that is as dominant relative to their sport as any other outside of the NFL, which basically has no competition.
As a NA sports fan, I thank them for it.
The NHL has increased its revenues by expanding into new markets and in some cases also abandoning less profitable old ones even in traditional locations. Regarding players, first and foremost they've sorely needed (and got) more from the US. Beyond that, fans care more about the competitiveness of their own team relative to others in the league and that the league is the biggest show in town than about what exists or doesn't exist somewhere overseas. For the business model it's largely irrelevant whether there are 0 or 600 top players somewhere in Europe.
Silky Johnson
I wish you all the bad things in life.
Come on, you know fans would rather see better players play in better leagues. If you can't tell the significant talent and quality difference between SHL and NHL games then you are a casual fan at best.
And yes, while the NHL has expanded into new regions. Same market revenue is up consistently over time.
Expansion and moving teams to more viable markets is ONE reason for revenue growth, what is your point?
What about us Swedish-speaking Finns? We have lived in on the Finnish west- and southcoast probably longer than the Finnish speaking population has been here...
