WCH - Impressions of the Tournament

[XokkeyGuy]

The best referees in the world referee in the NHL which are generally Canadian and american, they weren't going to have a convenient mistake they're professionals in the Olympic finals. Voinov beat up a women and the NHL decided it was better to get rid of a clown like that because thats pretty low It's Voinovs fault he can't play in the world cup not some evil North American plot. As for for what happened before I wasn't around but maybe it could be blamed on Alan Eagleson who was literally almost kicked out of Luzhniki arena during the Summit series.

The team playing in a match should never have referees from their or a neighbouring country. Easy as that, don´t try to make it sound as if only refs from Canada/USA know hockey.
Also, it isn´t up to a private organization to make that descision, at least not if it's a serious tournament which World Cup isn´t trying to become as we can see.
If a player isn´t sanctioned by IIHF, KHL or FHR then it's not their descision to make. Do you think no one in the current olympics or the FIFA world cups have ever been sentenced for any crime? Seriously? In this case Voinov was sentenced in USA, he is Russian and the tournament is being played in Canada.. so why does this even matter? Yea, because NHL is heavily owned by americans and they are the ones hosting this clown tournament. They could as well have banned Kovalchuk for leaving New Jersey for all I care or some other bullsh*t, they shouldn´t have let Bäckström play the following months of NHL after he was banned from the Olympics.. all of this shows the elitist culture of NHL and how they like to set up own rules who are just in the interest of americans and canadiens.
Do you even try to see why most of us europeans see this as an utterly biased tournament and NHL as a whole when it comes to reasoning?

 

[JackSlater]

It's not as if we just hate NA and everything they do, what this loss in faith of your tournaments comes from is usually from the older generation of fans and players who have passed their veiws on to the younger, from parents, commentators and so on who watched those older games.
They all talk and remember those tournaments as if it was yesterday, they remember them as the greatest games ever played, but always end the stories and sentences with "but we felt bad for the russians who were cheated everytime", or mentioning the worse conditions the europeans got - everything from locker rooms to hotels etc.
And during the 2000's there has been little change to it, JWC's and various WHC's have continued to be good examples of bias. There has simply been too little effort from your side to change our view of you guys. This upcoming World Cup is like even another step backwards - like some others here have mentioned, had you at least not put these mix-teams up in the tournament we would at least give it a chance, even if it would be with critical eyes to start with because of the past experiences. But it feels as if NHL just keeps trying to become more and more elitist, cooperation and compromising isn´t of any interest - that's how I see the NHL.

And I will be honest to say this - I did not care to watch the OG final in 2014 even though Sweden reached the final. All I know from it was seeing Crosbys goal in a summary later that day. When I heard that the final was going to have 3 canadiens as refs and 1 american it was done deal for me (this doesn´t represent the average fans although it was a huge thing during those days in the media and everyone was upset by it, but I personally simply lost interest, this was too much, even the olympics got destroyed).
I'm glad that Canada won 3-0, because then it showed that they were the better team, but in reality there was never a chance for Sweden to win it. If it would be a tight game then the "mistakes" from the highly professional referees would suddenly start occurring.
Canada has a hegemony on the influence in this sport, it is being hosted by a private organization which is heavily influenced by canadiens, setting their own rules such as banning Voinov from participating although he played in the recent IIHF tournament and will play in the Olympics, the entire tournament is being played in Canada with no one from outside having a say in it and on top of that they will use their own referees securing the right results if needed.

As much as I disagree with much of this and have made points against it in the past, it is amusing to see the classic statements from Europeans about the Canada/World Cup come up again. There has been a great deal of attempted revision going on here lately with regard to how this tournament has been viewed outside of Canada, not that I believe everyone in Europe shares your view.

 

[snipes]

How about this? Canada was the better hockey team in those Canada Cup years. The Soviets hadn't faced the best we could bring outside of 1972. They weren't used to losing, give me a break there was nothing unfair about it.

The simpler explanation is that Canada was better. Period.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Do you guys think Canada would have defeated the Soviets on a neutral ice?

 

[JackSlater]

Do you guys think Canada would have defeated the Soviets on a neutral ice?

Sometimes yes, of course. The Soviets being far better than their European counterparts (Czechs included in some years) doesn't mean that they were far better than Canada.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Do you guys think Canada would have defeated the Soviets on a neutral ice?

Well in 1972 we beat them on their home ice despite the refereeing which was abysmal and slanted in their favor.

"Would have defeated ..." - "could have defeated" makes more sense IMO. The Soviets were a fantastic team, whenever Canada played them back then, neither team would have been a big favorite no matter where the games were played.

 

[Gary Nylund]

The team playing in a match should never have referees from their or a neighbouring country. Easy as that, don´t try to make it sound as if only refs from Canada/USA know hockey.
Also, it isn´t up to a private organization to make that descision, at least not if it's a serious tournament which World Cup isn´t trying to become as we can see.
If a player isn´t sanctioned by IIHF, KHL or FHR then it's not their descision to make. Do you think no one in the current olympics or the FIFA world cups have ever been sentenced for any crime? Seriously? In this case Voinov was sentenced in USA, he is Russian and the tournament is being played in Canada.. so why does this even matter? Yea, because NHL is heavily owned by americans and they are the ones hosting this clown tournament. They could as well have banned Kovalchuk for leaving New Jersey for all I care or some other bullsh*t, they shouldn´t have let Bäckström play the following months of NHL after he was banned from the Olympics.. all of this shows the elitist culture of NHL and how they like to set up own rules who are just in the interest of americans and canadiens.
Do you even try to see why most of us europeans see this as an utterly biased tournament and NHL as a whole when it comes to reasoning?

No. The most important games deserve the best referees, simple as that. What you absolutely don't want is referees having a hand in deciding the outcome. Having anything less than the best in the deciding games is doing a disservice to fans of the game everywhere. There's no need to get overly dramatic - it's not that NA referees are the only ones that know hockey, it's just that they are the best.

I'm sure the vast majority of players want the best, they know NA referees are the best and thus that's who they want. This crap about referees from a neighboring country is nothing more than politics and the less politics in hockey the better - another advantage the World Cup has over the OG.

Or then again, maybe we should do it differently. Maybe the games would be more interesting if we had Olympic quality refereeing, you know like they do in boxing and figure skating etc. Is that what you really want?

 

[Lepardi]

Is there any promotion for this tournament in those countries?

There's plenty of promotion. Viasat Finland will broadcast the tournament in Finland. Whenever I watch the Premier League, La Liga, UEFA Champions League qualifiers or UFC on their channels, I can see World Cup ads.

 

[Lepardi]

The guy from sweden just finished saying their commentators always talk about the built in Canadian bias when talking about past world/Canada cups.

It's obvious Alan Eagleson rigged the Canada Cups against the Soviets and they had horrible home refereeing, but I couldn't see anything like that in 1996 and 2004. Ofcourse it was a major disadvantage that Finland had to fly from Finland to USA before the semi-final in 2004, but that had to be done in order to see some games here in Europe too.

How about this? Canada was the better hockey team in those Canada Cup years.

Yeah, that surely explains no penalty being called while the ref watches a Soviet player taking a two-handed slash into the head while celebrating a goal.

As a Finnish person I naturally like Canada a lot more than I like Russia or Soviet Union, but that doesn't stop me from seeing obvious referee bias.

 

[jj cale]

It's obvious Alan Eagleson rigged the Canada Cups against the Soviets and they had horrible home refereeing, but I couldn't see anything like that in 1996 and 2004. Ofcourse it was a major disadvantage that Finland had to fly from Finland to USA before the semi-final in 2004, but that had to be done in order to see some games here in Europe too.



Yeah, that surely explains no penalty being called while the ref watches a Soviet player taking a two-handed slash into the head while celebrating a goal.

As a Finnish person I naturally like Canada a lot more than I like Russia or Soviet Union, but that doesn't stop me from seeing obvious referee bias.

You said Europeans had respect for the past Canada/world cups but right away you get a poster from Europe who shows what I said was the general attitude of european fans was right on the money.

Also.............your comments here basically backs that up too.

Do you really think European fans held those tournaments in high regard?

They did not................and likely never will.

Hence why only the comments from North american fans towards this upcoming tournament have interested me.. The european fans were going to badmouth this tournament regardless of format.

The gimmick teams just gives them a different angle to attack it,but as I said, that was always a given anyways.

If it is an NHL tournament held in N.A it will never be accepted by the majority of european fans.

The gimmick teams really make no difference to that attitude. What has been amusing is to see a certain amount of revision concerning those past tournaments when comparing it to this years version from some European fans, all of a sudden they have suddenly become somewhat respectable vis a vis "world cup" 2016. Respect that never existed prior.

I'm starting to get a little kick out of that.

 

[Jablkon]

You said Europeans had respect for the past Canada/world cups but right away you get a poster from Europe who shows what I said was the general attitude of european fans was right on the money.

Also.............your comments here basically backs that up too.

Do you really think European fans held those tournaments in high regard?

They did not................and likely never will.

Hence why only the comments from North american fans towards this upcoming tournament have interested me.. The european fans were going to badmouth this tournament regardless of format.

The gimmick teams just gives them a different angle to attack it,but as I said, that was always a given anyways.

If it is an NHL tournament held in N.A it will never be accepted by the majority of european fans.

The gimmick teams really make no difference to that attitude.

Sorry, but if you watched WC press coneference and saw Bettman and the second guy from NHLPA?, you can hardly say they are interested in anything else than NHL and NA fan base. It would be fine to give other fans more reasons not to complain about it. One would say that most positive thing on this tourney is that NHL and NHLPA are working together. But who cares on int. stage? I dont have any reason to like Fasel, he had been actaully constantly booed in CZ for lets say 15 years since 98 or 97 Can Cz brawl. But these two guys just look like they need to show IIHF or IOC who has bigger balls, who play best hockey and is able to organize the biggest tourney. I have to say that no int. stage works like this. No matter if we talk about politics, hockey, soccer etc..

 

[snipes]

Eagleson rigged the Canada Cup? Sure did a poor job of it in 1981.

This rigging talk is pure trash. I'm sorry, but that's a bunch of poor loser talk. I think some projecting is going on here, just can't accept we were the superior hockey team and nation.

 

[jj cale]

Sorry, but if you watched WC press coneference and saw Bettman and the second guy from NHLPA?, you can hardly say they are interested in anything else than NHL and NA fan base. It would be fine to give other fans more reasons not to complain about it. One would say that most positive thing on this tourney is that NHL and NHLPA are working together. But who cares on int. stage? I dont have any reason to like Fasel, he had been actaully constantly booed in CZ for lets say 15 years since 98 or 97 Can Cz brawl. But these two guys just look like they need to show IIHF or IOC who has bigger balls, who play best hockey and is able to organize the biggest tourney. I have to say that no int. stage works like this. No matter if we talk about politics, hockey, soccer etc..

My point is that this tournament is not and never was viewed positively by the majority of european fans.

That point still stands.

I do agree things could be done better for the good of any future World cups going forward.

Closing down the annual IIHF WHC tournament and working together for an every 4 years joint run IIHF-NHL venture would be a nice start.

 

[snipes]

My point is that this tournament is not and never was viewed positively by the majority of european fans.

That point still stands.

I do agree things could be done better for the good of any future World cups going forward.

Closing down the annual IIHF WHC tournament and working together for an every 4 years joint run IIHF-NHL venture would be a nice start.

But we would be rigging the system if there was no more IIHF WHC .

It's like both Euros and North Americans have this smugness about different tournaments, it's amusing. We still harp about the WHC not being best-on-best, but if we lose it's not because it was rigged. We just couldn't send our best or the nature of single elimination lends itself to upsets and other teams have good hockey players as well. I still watch annually.

 

[jj cale]

But we would be rigging the system if there was no more IIHF WHC .

It's like both Euros and North Americans have this smugness about different tournaments, it's amusing. We still harp about the WHC not being best-on-best, but if we lose it's not because it was rigged. We just couldn't send our best or the nature of single elimination lends itself to upsets and other teams have good hockey players as well.

You will never hear me cry about Canadian losses at the WHC being the result of a rigged European showcase.But a European hockey showcase is what it is...........all sanctioned by what is supposed to be a body for INTERNATIONAL hockey, not EUROPEAN hockey.

If we lose it is usually because the team we had there was not as good as other teams.

As it stands the WHC (or skodas as I like to call them) really only exist as an annual event to make money for the IIHF coffers and please European hockey fans.

Can't see the difference between them and the NHL bigwigs honestly.

It is a European hockey dominated monopoly which is redundant and not needed every single year. Get rid of it as a yearly event and start working together on a real World championship held every 4 years and rotated between Europe and N.A.

That is what I want.

 

[Jablkon]

You will never hear me cry about Canadian losses at the WHC being the result of a rigged European showcase.But a European hockey showcase is what it is...........all sanctioned by what is supposed to be a body for INTERNATIONAL hockey, not EUROPEAN hockey.

If we lose it is usually because the team we had there was not as good as other teams.

As it stands the WHC (or skodas as I like to call them) really only exist as an annual event to make money for the IIHF coffers and please European hockey fans.

Can't see the difference between them and the NHL bigwigs honestly.

It is a European hockey dominated monopoly which is redundant and not needed every single year. Get rid of it as a yearly event and start working together on a real World championship held every 4 years and rotated between Europe and N.A.

That is what I want.

It just comes to my mind that after undergoing reading negative posters about WHC insulting it by naming it Skoda or excusing all that bad teams etc every year, I personally was curious with what the NA side can come up.. And when they announced WC, all that small insults just transformed to one wow efect " WTF, are you kidding me?" I know mixing together NHL and north american fans is horrible symplification, I just couldnt help myself and we obviously all do it sometimes...It just could be another reason why the reaction from europe was so negative. Btw. It is quite tricky to call us europeans in terms of opinions etc. Onlything we share is similar hockey system, i.e. leagues structure, timing etc. But culturally, etnically etc. its very different so perceiving of things might vary a lot...

 

[jj cale]

Btw. It is quite tricky to call us europeans in terms of opinions etc. Onlything we share is similar hockey system, i.e. leagues structure, timing etc. But culturally, etnically etc. its very different so perceiving of things might vary a lot...

It is hockey we are talking about though and that is where the rift resides.

There is the European way of looking at hockey and the North American one.

Both sides will have to compromise if we want a true world cup in the future. As it stands right now there is little if any compromise.

The two camps are far apart.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Eagleson rigged the Canada Cup? Sure did a poor job of it in 1981.

This rigging talk is pure trash. I'm sorry, but that's a bunch of poor loser talk. I think some projecting is going on here, just can't accept we were the superior hockey team and nation.

Canada Cup rigged?

 

[snipes]

Canada Cup rigged?

I couldn't even believe it when someone was trying to argue that. Hilarious.

 

[XokkeyGuy]

Both sides will have to compromise if we want a true world cup in the future. As it stands right now there is little if any compromise.

The two camps are far apart.

I agree. That is where the NHL has to start following international breaks and respect the schedules in other leagues and organization should be under one international organization - IIHF, where people from all countries are welcome and work, not under a private league where in the end the owners try to fill their own pockets.
EDIT: Again, look at how the football looks like. There is one strong football federation and it has mandate to impose international breaks across the whole world, the national federations are under its mandate, you have 1 week about every second month where each national team usually plays 2 games in that week (its either a friendly game or a qualification game). Then they have breaks for the various World Cups and continental cups where the affected national leagues can not schedule league games (which means no club football if your nation is competing). Doesn´t this sound like a perfect idea? If you think yes, then what is the problem? The problem is that while IIHF tries to use the exactly same type of organization, North America isn´t ready to follow it and IIHF doesn´t have muscles to sanction it.
Why shouldn´t the NHL have breaks as we have in Europe across the leagues for exhibition games and WHC's? We would get the same type of epic exhibition games in ice hockey as we get in football, we fill the stadiums during those qualification games. I simply don´t get it why you don´t want this?

Ice hockey is pretty much the only case where the international sport federation is not the central power because of an arrogant league trying to seize total power.
So happy that USA/Canada are nowhere near football or any other great sports to ruin them in the same way. Or maybe not just ice hockey, pretty much all sports that are heavily based in America, such as basketball, baseball, american football etc. are the ones that grow least across the world. The NA way of organizing sports is not good, simple as that. Everything is turned into gimmicks, pop corn, hot dogs and a decline of international tournaments.

 

[jj cale]

I agree. That is where the NHL has to start following international breaks and respect the schedules in other leagues and organization should be under one international organization - IIHF, where people from all countries are welcome and work, not under a private league where in the end the owners try to fill their own pockets.
Ice hockey is pretty much the only case where the international sport federation is not the central power because of an arrogant league trying to seize total power.

So happy that USA/Canada are nowhere near football or any other great sports to ruin them in the same way. Or maybe not just ice hockey, pretty much all sports that are heavily based in America, such as basketball, baseball, american football etc. are the ones that grow least across the world. The NA way of organizing sports is not good, simple as that. Everything is turned into gimmicks, pop corn, hot dogs and a decline of international tournaments.

I said compromise from both sides..................not North America bending over to accomodate all of European hockey fans wishes.

The NHL is a business that pays out big money and houses the best talent in the world,like it or not their business has to be respected. If people from over there are not prepared to do that then not much will be achieved.

P.S: hockey is not football. In football you have a global sport with several very powerful leagues, in hockey you basically have one and one which has almost all the top players. It is a whole different ballgame.

Europeans simply must make peace with this.

 

[XokkeyGuy]

I said compromise from both sides..................not North America bending over to accomodate all of European hockey fans wishes.

The NHL is a business that pays out big money and houses the best talent in the world,like it or not their business has to be respected. If people from over there are not prepared to do that then not much will be achieved.

The european football teams/leagues are greater than your NHL teams, yet they stand under UEFA and FIFA and organize great international breaks and competitions across the world and respect them. The english, spanish, italian leagues etc. all have the exact same breaks as those in Costa Rica, Fiji or anywhere.. doesn´t seem to be a problem here. hmmm..?
Edit: I edited my last post so that's why I'm comparing it with football.

 

[jj cale]

The european football teams/leagues are greater than your NHL teams, yet they stand under UEFA and FIFA and organize great international breaks and competitions across the world and respect them. The english, spanish, italian leagues etc. all have the exact same breaks as those in Costa Rica, Fiji or anywhere.. doesn´t seem to be a problem here. hmmm..?
Edit: I edited my last post so that's why I'm comparing it with football.

No sense to compare them though, they are two entirely different situations.

 

[XokkeyGuy]

No sense to compare them though, they are two entirely different situations.

Well, all sports trying to organize world championships only get into trouble in those sports where NA has established the best league and the owners don´t want to compromise unless they profit from everything. I don´t see that mentality among leagues/organizations in any other countries when it comes to sports.
I mean, it's not only NHL that "loses" money from taking a 2 weeks break during the olympics but they are the only ones that are pointing it out?

 

[jj cale]

I mean, it's not only NHL that "loses" money from taking a 2 weeks break during the olympics but they are the only ones that are pointing it out?

They lose the biggest money though, this is the biggest hockey league in the world. They have the most to lose not only in terms of league shutdown but ramifications due to star injuries and whatnot.

This is not some danish pro league, this is the NHL we are talking about.

They have the biggest investments and the most to lose.