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Terrible world cup ideas

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I'm honestly surprised the NHL needs 5 months to figure out the video game teams. Fansmedia have mocked it for a while, and they still dont know how their players even feel about it, after working on it for years? Good grief....
 
cutchemist42 said:
I'm honestly surprised the NHL needs 5 months to figure out the video game teams. Fansmedia have mocked it for a while, and they still dont know how their players even feel about it, after working on it for years? Good grief....
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You'd think they would first do some rather detailed market research on any "dramatic changes" being proposed, especially regarding mickey mouse teams that have never been iced before in international hockey history (for good reason).

"How do the fans feel about it? After all, our money-making plans depend on them watching this and paying for it. How do the players feel? Might want to know, seeing how they're expected to play on these stupid squads..."

Instead they apparently debated the idea in boardrooms, dropped some hints to the media (resulting in about 90% negative responses), plan to roll out the idea to the public on Friday as part of the All-Star game festivities....and THEN they'll get around to asking fans and players what they think of it! :amazed:

Seriously, what is wrong with these people?
 
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Yeah, let's not kid ourselves for a minute that they really need time to figure out this hare-brained idea of theirs isn't working. I'm fairly confident they know already it's sinking faster than a lone merchant marine in the middle of a wolf pack flotilla. Otherwise they wouldn't bother with the extra time in the first place.


What they really need the timeout for is either:

Extend the invitation to two additional national federations and work out the kinks between them. Not a pleasant pill to swallow, especially if you've already managed to tick 'em off.

Retool the tournament format. It's of course going to be rather different if you have only six teams instead of eight. Two groups of four and regular playoff setup to follow is obviously off the table when cutting two.


Most likely they'll be working on both, as plan A and plan B, so they sure got their work cut out for them.

If I were to make an educated guess, that May deadline has something to do with the WHCs. They'll have reps of all the feds in the same place to make an announcement.
 
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These ideas are unbelievably bad. I will be not watching this crap. Take Jacob Trouba for example why would he want to waste his time playing on a under 23 all star team if he doesn't get picked for the US team. The Jets and all other teams with young stars will not want their players playing for a gimmicky all star team before the season starts.

Who are the morons who came up with this :shakehead
 
JackSlater said:
I can understand the IIHF going along with it as they stifle their laughter. It makes them, and their tournaments, look better comparatively. I agree on the federations... there must be some incentive, and I doubt the NHL is going to guarantee them some cut of the profits significant enough to get compliance.
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You probably are 100% right in that conclusion.
 
GlobeHockey said:
http://www.courierpostonline.com/st...ne-flyer-happy-new-world-cup-format/22192403/

Mark Streit first of what will be many nhler's voicing their opinion of this garbage.
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Good, I hope every player eligible for that team comes out and says the same thing. I hope that every North American player under whatever arbitrary age is selected says the same thing. Every player regardless of age or nationality should say the same thing.

FiLe said:
Yeah, let's not kid ourselves for a minute that they really need time to figure out this hare-brained idea of theirs isn't working. I'm fairly confident they know already it's sinking faster than a lone merchant marine in the middle of a wolf pack flotilla. Otherwise they wouldn't bother with the extra time in the first place.
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I'm hoping the same. This idea is getting ripped pretty thoroughly in Canadian media, and there is no way they haven't seen it. Fans are pretty unanimous against it too. It's still salvageable, but only just barely. Even if they do the correct thing and completely flip flop, the whole group involved on the NHLs end looks idiotic.
 
JackSlater said:
Good, I hope every player eligible for that team comes out and says the same thing. I hope that every North American player under whatever arbitrary age is selected says the same thing. Every player regardless of age or nationality should say the same thing.



I'm hoping the same. This idea is getting ripped pretty thoroughly in Canadian media, and there is no way they haven't seen it. Fans are pretty unanimous against it too. It's still salvageable, but only just barely. Even if they do the correct thing and completely flip flop, the whole group involved on the NHLs end looks idiotic.
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According to Friedman, his sources tell him the NHL is locked in and it's too late to change it.
but I don't buy it. The NHL wants everybody to believe it's a fait accompli..but eventually they'll finally realize that this is just dogs*!t on a stick and nobody is buying it. my guess is that it will be abandoned by the WHC in May. where there will be another media presser.
 
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Mr Writer said:
According to Friedman, his sources tell him the NHL is locked in and it's too late to change it.
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That's total BS. We're over 1 1/2 years away from the tournament, they could change things. If they don't, it's because they don't want to.
 
Slimmy said:
If that's true, it's the smoking gun I was looking for. Sons of *****es.
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Considering European leagues/federation are needed for the World Cup to have it in the first place, I'd imagine they would have more leverage in the matter. So maybe they'll get an increase in the transfer money in exchange?
 
Mr Writer said:
According to Friedman, his sources tell him the NHL is locked in and it's too late to change it.
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At the very least, the president of the Finnish Fed disagrees. Since he's most likely sat in those tables when decisions were being made (especially since he's also the VP of IIHF), he should know what he's talking about.
 
Gaps said:
That's total BS. We're over 1 1/2 years away from the tournament, they could change things. If they don't, it's because they don't want to.
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If the NHL don't get rid of their two mickey mouse teams it will be purely out of stubbornness and a refusal to admit that they're the biggest idiots in the history of the game.

We can expect them to ride this stupidity out to its embarrassing and insulting conclusion.

Our only hope now is for the NHL to show up to South Korea in 2018. The World Cup is a complete writeoff.
 
Slovak Icehockey Federation officials are on their way to US to voice their disagreement to NHL and NHLPA officials. They are aware that it's an invitational tournament, but will nonetheless speak out.
 
tobu said:
Slovak Icehockey Federation officials are on their way to US to voice their disagreement to NHL and NHLPA officials. They are aware that it's an invitational tournament, but will nonetheless speak out.
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Whom they should really have a chat with are the Slovak players. If they speak out in unison and make clear they won't be playing for Team Leftovers, this brainfart is dead in the water.
 
Zine said:
Tweet from 2 years ago:
Dan Rosen‏@drosennhl
Included in the Player Transfer Agreement is cooperation for a World Cup of Hockey.
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I read World Cup of Hockey here and not World Cup of Mockery. There was never an agreement on such a thing as the latter.
 
Some thoughts: I think they know that majority of the players and fans don't like the idea, at least first. They still proceed because they've calculated that it's the way how they get most $$$ and most exposure for NHL players and NHL itself. They think that an average NA hockey fan is more interested in seeing the best players play (like Czech vs Euro leftovers) than a real international game between Euro countries like Czech vs Slovakia.

In Europe nobody (least the Slovakians) cares about Czech vs Euro leftovers, but NHL just does not care. All they care about is the visibility and markets in NA. NHL doesn't give a ***t if Slovakians would like to play in national team, because it just does not generate enough money to NHL. That's why I think this is not pure stupidity, but more like calculated arrogance. It would be surprising if IIHF suggested something like this, but it's natural when it comes from NHL.

NHL's attitude towards international tournaments have been discussed in many threads. So far this attitude of NHL has just been passively negative and many NA posters have tried to defend NHL, like the whole thing is IIHF's fault. Of course it's not completely NHL's fault that WHC is played in the middle of NHL playoffs, for example, but attitude of NHL has been very clear anyway. This WC thingy just points out clearly to everybody how NHL sees international tournaments: national teams can be replaced with joke teams if it just generates more money and marketing value for NHL.
 
tobu said:
Slovak Icehockey Federation officials are on their way to US to voice their disagreement to NHL and NHLPA officials. They are aware that it's an invitational tournament, but will nonetheless speak out.
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Good for them. Other European federations pushed into the leftover pile should do the same, as should USA Hockey and Hockey Canada. The latter isn't going to happen though.
 
roto said:
This WC thingy just points out clearly to everybody how NHL sees international tournaments: national teams can be replaced with joke teams if it just generates more money and marketing value for NHL.
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The sad thing is that it was originally intended to expand the field of participating countries over time when the Canada Cup was created in 1974/1975. Twelve countries instead of eight were supposed to take part eventually. Even Alan Eagleson realized that this would be the right direction. And now we're down to six countries and a leftover team thanks to the brain trust of the 2015 NHL...
 
JackSlater said:
Good for them. Other European federations pushed into the leftover pile should do the same, as should USA Hockey and Hockey Canada. The latter isn't going to happen though.
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USA and Canada might have a thing or two to say if the U-23 mickey mouse squad has automatic access to all players of that age group (as is rumoured to be the case).

This would mean that the NHL is overriding the pics of the national teams if, say, Seth Jones or Nathan MacKinnon are deemed worthy of a spot on the big boys team.

Just how stupid is the NHL's idea? Using the proposed "World Cup" U-23 rules, Canada's team in Vancouver would have been without Sidney Crosby (gold medal winning goal), Jonathan Toews (tops in points) and Drew Doughty (best D-man)!
 
Canuckistani said:
Just how stupid is the NHL's idea? Using the proposed "World Cup" U-23 rules, Canada's team in Vancouver would have been without Sidney Crosby (gold medal winning goal), Jonathan Toews (tops in points) and Drew Doughty (best D-man)!
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Just wait for them to add the best U-23 players once the Youngster Team is eliminated and Team Canada enters the playoffs. More credibility for the whole venture. :sarcasm:
 
roto said:
NHL's attitude towards international tournaments have been discussed in many threads. So far this attitude of NHL has just been passively negative and many NA posters have tried to defend NHL, like the whole thing is IIHF's fault. Of course it's not completely NHL's fault that WHC is played in the middle of NHL playoffs, for example, but attitude of NHL has been very clear anyway. This WC thingy just points out clearly to everybody how NHL sees international tournaments: national teams can be replaced with joke teams if it just generates more money and marketing value for NHL.
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Up until now the NHL hadn't been that bad when it comes to the international game.

Since 1977 NHLers have been going to the WHC, NHL teams can allow players to take part in the WJC (though not enough do), and the NHL shut down for two weeks to allow participation in the past five Olympics (even when held in Japan and Italy).

Even NHL events were pretty good with the Canada Cup tournaments being open to all players which established the first "best-on-best" event. The World Cups in 1996 and 2004 were ground-breaking in that they featured games in both NA and Europe - the first tournaments ever to do so. I though having the Finns and Swedes playing in Stockholm or Helsinki was a great idea and made the games so much more interesting to watch.

So it's come as a huge shock to see the NHL lose its mind all of a sudden with this U-23 / Euro Leftover nonsense and its insulting disregard for the Slovaks and Swiss.

Very out of character.
 
I primarily meant how difficult is to get NHL players to Olympics, while it's not a problem for other leagues in the world.
 
Canuckistani said:
Very out of character.
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Well, this all has been happening at the league's immediate disadvantage, but in constant hope that these actions somehow help grow the game abroad and benefit the NHL in the long run.

However, over the past 15 years or so, it hasn't happened. So I guess we've finally seen the moment where the NHL execs just said "sod it, this ain't working" and decided to dig their extra revenue out of the markets they already have.

Not so out of character, really.


Best note though, that despite seeing the logic, I don't really find it reasonable at all. Is there any other venue in the entire world of sports where international competion somehow benefits single one league - or even another with which people somehow figure that should happen?
 
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