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The "Gimmick" Teams Are The Best Part of WCOH

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PensBandwagonerNo272 said:
Very true. It's been cutting into my Blue Jays time for sure (but they've been disappointing lately so there's not much to see anyway).

Whether or not the players go to Korea or not I'm not sure how much interest will be there for the tournament given the timezone is literally about opposite of NA. Not sure how they are going to work that. And the next winter games after that are in China...
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I think the Olympics always sell. If Canada USA made the final you'd still get insane ratings like 20 million Americans and 10 million Canadians at least.
 
Xokkeu said:
Ratings are quite low in the US and Europe and ticket sales seem to either be a case of scalpers really badly misreading the market or corporate ticket buyers who want to give away the tickets.
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I can't seem to find the ratings anywhere. Do you have a link?

As for the thread...I'm an American and I've liked the idea from the beginning. I think fans underestimated from the beginning just how competitive these guys are, which more than compensates the lack of National Team pride that the two "gimmick" teams had entering the tournament.

Someone else said it above, and it's 100% true...while not all fans believe winning the WCOH means anything, then players seem to...and that's really all that matters. It's creates a highly entertaining brand of hockey, and the games are only going to intensify as we get past the prelims.
 
Xokkeu said:
I think the Olympics always sell. If Canada USA made the final you'd still get insane ratings like 20 million Americans and 10 million Canadians at least.
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Yeah but whereas say in Vancouver you had everyone and their ****ing great grandmother watching the game since it was on at a reasonable time of day, I would think a majority of the less than committed fans would not be going out of their way to watch the Gold Medal game at 4 in the morning in Korea. And the other problem is spoilers. Sure you can record it and watch it the next day, but in this age of instant in-your-face information, a lot of people will see who won either on purpose or otherwise before getting a chance to watch the DVR'd game and might not even bother.

I could be wrong and hope I am. We'll see. This tournament has shown the players really do care about playing for their country in best-on-best tournaments, and regardless of interest level you know they would be giving it their all in Korea. Which makes for epic-level cant miss hockey for us hardcore fans.
 
I posted this idea earlier to the Quebec thread - wouldn't this version work scarily well?

What about NHL divisional teams sans non-North Americans + Team Nordic (all four countries) and Team Europe (rest of Europe + Russia)? A stellar 6 team tournament!
 
PensBandwagonerNo272 said:
Yeah but whereas say in Vancouver you had everyone and their ****ing great grandmother watching the game since it was on at a reasonable time of day, I would think a majority of the less than committed fans would not be going out of their way to watch the Gold Medal game at 4 in the morning in Korea. And the other problem is spoilers. Sure you can record it and watch it the next day, but in this age of instant in-your-face information, a lot of people will see who won either on purpose or otherwise before getting a chance to watch the DVR'd game and might not even bother.

I could be wrong and hope I am. We'll see. This tournament has shown the players really do care about playing for their country in best-on-best tournaments, and regardless of interest level you know they would be giving it their all in Korea. Which makes for epic-level cant miss hockey for us hardcore fans.
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Time difference is a ***** but I dunno. Maybe a 9pm start locally that's 8am eastern. 5am pacific on a Sunday Not great but not the end of the world and I'm sure a whole lot of people would be up for it
 
llwyd said:
I posted this idea earlier to the Quebec thread - wouldn't this version work scarily well?

What about NHL divisional teams sans non-North Americans + Team Nordic (all four countries) and Team Europe (rest of Europe + Russia)? A stellar 6 team tournament!
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That sounds like the all star game
 
WreckItRask said:
I can't seem to find the ratings anywhere. Do you have a link?

As for the thread...I'm an American and I've liked the idea from the beginning. I think fans underestimated from the beginning just how competitive these guys are, which more than compensates the lack of National Team pride that the two "gimmick" teams had entering the tournament.

Someone else said it above, and it's 100% true...while not all fans believe winning the WCOH means anything, then players seem to...and that's really all that matters. It's creates a highly entertaining brand of hockey, and the games are only going to intensify as we get past the prelims.
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There's a tv ratings thread at the top.

Canada games doing around a million plus I think. In Canada

USA game v Europe was about 300k
 
BigT2002 said:
At this point, why not field a Super World Team to go against Canada? Didn't they use to do that back in the day?
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Canada is good but not that good. Wouldn't be fair. Especially in the future. Canada just happens to be really ****ing good right now, they aren't always this ahead of the field.

Not hard to imagine Canada and USA becoming almost equal for a time when Crosby, Price, Doughty are old/retired and Eichel, Matthews etc are in their prime. Then again there is McDavid, Ekblad, Matt "SC Champion" Murray, ;)
 
PensBandwagonerNo272 said:
Canada is good but not that good. Wouldn't be fair. Especially in the future. Canada just happens to be really ****ing good right now, they aren't always this ahead of the field.

Not hard to imagine Canada and USA becoming almost equal for a time when Crosby, Price, Doughty are old/retired and Eichel, Matthews etc are in their prime. Then again there is McDavid, Ekblad, Matt "SC Champion" Murray, ;)
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US is a loooong way from being equal to Canada. And I'm not sure they will ever be able to boast the depth that Canada has.

And I think right now, Canada vs the World would be pretty competitive...
 
Xokkeu said:
Which is why the fake teams diminish the tournament. Players don't care about all star games because they play for nothing.
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That argument made sense before the tournament started, when it was a legitimate concern. We were all wondering if the guys would give ****, particularly Team Europe.

But the players clearly do care. Guys are blocking shots, playing dirty, talking smack, throwing big hits, etc. All the things you don't see in an allstar game.
 
arrbez said:
That argument made sense before the tournament started, when it was a legitimate concern. We were all wondering if the guys would give ****, particularly Team Europe.

But the players clearly do care. Guys are blocking shots, playing dirty, talking smack, throwing big hits, etc. All the things you don't see in an allstar game.
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Right I'm not saying they don't care. I'm saying the care because international hockey means something. The more you get away from that the less it means anything.
 
The title of this thread is so appropriate. With Europe in the semis and TNA one game shy, The 'gimmick' teams have me pleasantly surprised.

However, the question still remains that whether the whole tournament is a NHL 'gimmick'
 
g00n said:
The U23 groups are fun to root for, imo. If a country loses in the WC, and their gripe is "yeah we would've won the whole thing if we'd had this 19 year old kid", then how strong were they really?
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Look no further than the 2010 Olympics. Crosby (22), Toews (21) and Doughty (20) played crucial roles on Team Canada. Does Canada win Olympic gold without them? If they don't, would you say: "Too bad for them, but how strong was Canada really when they couldn't win without this kid or that kid"?

NickLidstrom said:
Fair enough. If you haven't given it a chance though, its not really fair to complain about it.
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Well, I'm not complaining about the level of play, I'm complaining about the concept. The concept is what it is, in which way would one give a concept "a chance"?
 
Theokritos said:
Well, I'm not complaining about the level of play, I'm complaining about the concept. The concept is what it is, in which way would one give a concept "a chance"?
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You could try watching it. That would basically be the definition of 'giving something a chance'. I'm not trying to tell you what to do though, I just thought it was interesting that you have such a strong opinion about something you haven't watched.
 
MNRube said:
I think they add an element of fun we have never seen before in a best on best tournament. All due respect to Switzerland, Slovakia but they have to employ purely defensive systems to beat the best teams and it makes for poor entertainment. Every game now is must-watch TV. You have the storyline of Team Europe - the underdogs who supposedly lacked both the talent and motive to compete. Then you have everyone's favorite in Team NA, which is just like porn for hockey fans. Easily the most fun team ever assembled IMO. Big props to the NHL for taking a risk and giving us this terrific tournament.
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They rae the worst part and now after seeing them in action I am even more against the tournament format.
 
Ol' Jase said:
How on earth are they the "worst" part of the tournament??
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Because their games are games, but the games results are pretty meaningless to me. And that kills a tournament. Let's make up Team World or Team Players Born in the First Half of the Year. I wouldn't care about their results either.

Team USA eliminated is meaningful. Team Europe doing good is not.
 
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NickLidstrom said:
You could try watching it. That would basically be the definition of 'giving something a chance'. I'm not trying to tell you what to do though, I just thought it was interesting that you have such a strong opinion about something you haven't watched.
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And that strong opinion of mine is exactly the reason I haven't watched. Why would I watch something that I despise for reasons of principle?
 
Not going to lie watching mackinnon and McDavid team up with my favorite usa players gives me some odd feeling of allying temporally with with the enemy.

Like Churchill and Roosevelt teaming up with Stalin for the greater good.

It's a weird feeling and I don't know how to handle it.
 
Team NA have produced the best games in the tournament by far.
 
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