Which 8 countries should have a spot in a "real" world cup?

[snipes]

6 teams would be my first pick. Keep it simple and short and just have the best teams go at it. But if we wanted to be purists and use IIHF rankings Germany would get in at the expense of Sweden this year.

Then I'd go with 8. Qualifiers would be ideal over pre-game friendlies anyway, but if they weren't willing to do that the cleanest thing to do is to just pick the top 8 ranked countries, which means Germany and Switzerland are in for the forseeable future, Denmark and Slovakia are out.



Ridiculous in practice but I love this idea, just like the other international sports. If we wanted to actually spitball it I'd go top 5 IIHF plus 1 EU, 1 Asia and 1 rest of the world. That would give us

Canada
Finland
Russia
United States
Germany
EU qualifier (Sweden/Czech)
Asia qualifier (Kazakhstan/Korea)
Wild Card/Rest of the world (Australia/Mexico/South Africa)

Terrible idea that Mexico, Australia, or South Africa would have a spot over one of Sweden/Czech.

Hockey is a northern game played by northern countries with a specific climate and culture where the sport flourishes. Mexico and South Africa ain’t that.

Hockey isn’t a global sport like soccer where that type of format works.

 

[Eye of Ra]

IIHF rankings are pretty important, it could decide a tie-breaker who is in and who is out if several teams end up on same points and goal difference

iihf rankings are a big joke.

compare what sweden and czech done last 6 years to what germany done. no doubt sweden and czechs been much better than germany, and yet, somehow, germany is above them? how does that make senses?

 

[WarriorofTime]

iihf rankings are a big joke.

compare what sweden and czech done last 6 years to what germany done. no doubt sweden and czechs been much better than germany, and yet, somehow, germany is above them? how does that make senses?

There has not been a best on best in 7 years, so IIHF Rankings are especially ridiculous. The NHL sponsored World Cup of Hockey didn't feature enough real nations and did not factor into IIHF because it wasn't an IIHF event.

 

[Albatros]

Terrible idea that Mexico, Australia, or South Africa would have a spot over one of Sweden/Czech.

Hockey is a northern game played by northern countries with a specific climate and culture where the sport flourishes. Mexico and South Africa ain’t that.

Hockey isn’t a global sport like soccer where that type of format works.

Instead we have six to eight countries playing one another year after year and making sure that the sport steadily regresses until it becomes completely irrelevant even in these countries.

 

[JackSlater]

iihf rankings are a big joke.

compare what sweden and czech done last 6 years to what germany done. no doubt sweden and czechs been much better than germany, and yet, somehow, germany is above them? how does that make senses?

The IIHF rankings exist for seeding purposes, and that's fine. Only a clueless person, or someone who wants to prop up whatever national team they like, would actually use them to rank national teams or even beyond that.

I'd probably put in the usual six suspects plus Switzerland and Slovakia.

 

[kabidjan18]

There should just be a qualifier...no need to speculate on who is better or worse. Have a few invite slots and then a few qualifier slots. I also don't think only 8 slots is necessary.

 

[User9992]

Germany should be a Top 8 instead of Slovakia or Switzerland.

 

[User9992]

Or 10 teams in World Cup:

Canada
Finland
USA
Sweden
Russia
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Switzerland
Germany
Team Europe (rest of)

 

[JETZZZ]

this is becuse of wc

no way germany is acutally better than sweden and czech

I agree, but it works fine in lieu of a qualifier. Simply put Switzerland and Germany with the big 6 and there you go.

 

[Goodman68]

Or 10 teams in World Cup:

Canada
Finland
USA
Sweden
Russia
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Switzerland
Germany
Team Europe (rest of)

The European team is not interested in anyone. It was already here ..

 

[Eye of Ra]

sweden currently ranked 7th means we would be forced to qualify to olympics lmao

 

[PettersonHughes]

Agreed that it's probably a top-5 (CAN, US, RUS, SWE, FIN) and then some combo of:
- Germany (Draisaitl, Grubauer, Stutzle, Peterka, Reichel, Seider...)
- Switzerland (Hischier and Meier)
- Czechs (Zadina, Vrana, Hronek, Chytil, Hajek...)
- Latvia (Kivlenieks, plus I remember Kenins when he was in Vancouver)
- Denmark?

With the new wave of players though, could only imagine how good a Team Europe would be.

 

[Goodman68]

Agreed that it's probably a top-5 (CAN, US, RUS, SWE, FIN) and then some combo of:
- Germany (Draisaitl, Grubauer, Stutzle, Peterka, Reichel, Seider...)
- Switzerland (Hischier and Meier)
- Czechs (Zadina, Vrana, Hronek, Chytil, Hajek...)
- Latvia (Kivlenieks, plus I remember Kenins when he was in Vancouver)
- Denmark?

With the new wave of players though, could only imagine how good a Team Europe would be.

Again. The European team is not interested in anyone. It was already here ..
Why repeat the same mistake?
In addition, the Czechs have a very good whole attack, why should they be missing? In addition, your list of Czech players is not their best, do you have any age limit ..?

 

[Bruce Granville]

It was 8, but got expanded because Germany managed to relegate.
And Germany is where the money is…okay, and Russia.
But Russia only pays the refs, Germany pays for the whole tournament.

 

[PettersonHughes]

In addition, the Czechs have a very good whole attack, why should they be missing? In addition, your list of Czech players is not their best, do you have any age limit ..?

Haha re: the Czechs, I'm not very familiar with their current era of players (I mostly follow NHL players and most of their players in the league retired awhile ago). Who should I keep a lookout for from them?

 

[Goodman68]

Haha re: the Czechs, I'm not very familiar with their current era of players (I mostly follow NHL players and most of their players in the league retired awhile ago). Who should I keep a lookout for from them?

Well, there are quite a few of those players.
Ok, Hronek is the best player in defense. But better than Hájek are Kempný, Rutta, Gudas, Šimek, maybe Zbořil. And it's just the NHL. And I'm not sure if Hájek will be in Europe in 2, 3 years.
In the attack, you might know at least a little bit of a player named Pastrnak, he's really neither American nor Canadian.. Furthermore, Hertl, Krejčí, Palat, Voráček, Nečas, Kubalík, and probably Zacha are better than the named players.

 

[PettersonHughes]

Well, there are quite a few of those players.
Ok, Hronek is the best player in defense. But better than Hájek are Kempný, Rutta, Gudas, Šimek, maybe Zbořil. And it's just the NHL. And I'm not sure if Hájek will be in Europe in 2, 3 years.
In the attack, you might know at least a little bit of a player named Pastrnak, he's really neither American nor Canadian.. Furthermore, Hertl, Krejčí, Palat, Voráček, Nečas, Kubalík, and probably Zacha are better than the named players.

Good call, forgot they were from there. They should be in great hands then

 

[Pasha71]

Why not just make it a 16-team affair? Three group games, quarterfinal, semifinal, final. Less than in the Olympics.

 

[WaW]

The obvious answers are these 8 teams in regionalized divisions:

Canada
USA
North America U-23
North America 35+

"Europe" from the last "World Cup"
Scandinavia
Russia
The Spengler Cup Winners

 

[Yukon Joe]

Why not just make it a 16-team affair? Three group games, quarterfinal, semifinal, final. Less than in the Olympics.

Problem is it makes for too many boring squash matches in the group games.

Using the IIHF rankings (which have problems but they're something to go off of for debate) the #16 team in the world is - United Kingdom. #15 is France. Is anyone out there clamouring for a Canada-UK hockey game (1 v 16)? How about Finland-France (2 v 15)?

(Actually #3 Russia vs #14 Belarus would be interesting just from a geopolitical perspective)

I liked the idea at first - but there just isn't the kind of parity in hockey when compared to soccer.

 

[WarriorofTime]

The obvious answers are these 8 teams in regionalized divisions:

Canada
USA
North America U-23
North America 35+

"Europe" from the last "World Cup"
Scandinavia
Russia
The Spengler Cup Winners

While we are making gimmick teams (modern countries along with IIHF rankings):

USSR (Russia - 3, Latvia - 10, Kazakhstan- 13, Belarus- 14, Lithuania - 23, Estonia - 26, Ukraine - 27)
Kingdom of Scandinavia (Finland - 2, Sweden - 7, Norway - 11, Denmark - 12, Iceland - 35)
Austrian-Hungarian Empire (Czech Republic - 6, Slovakia - 9, Austria - 18, Slovenia - 20, Hungary - 21)

 

[WaW]

While we are making gimmick teams (modern countries along with IIHF rankings):

USSR (Russia - 3, Latvia - 10, Kazakhstan- 13, Belarus- 14, Lithuania - 23, Estonia - 26, Ukraine - 27)
Kingdom of Scandinavia (Finland - 2, Sweden - 7, Norway - 11, Denmark - 12, Iceland - 35)
Austrian-Hungarian Empire (Czech Republic - 6, Slovakia - 9, Austria - 18, Slovenia - 20, Hungary - 21)

Yeah, I like this, as long as the 4th spot in that group goes to the Spengler Cup winner. It's important to make it more of a clownfest than Bettman's 2016 world cup was.

 

[Lambo]

Hardcore Gimmick Event:

Canada
USA
Scandinavia(SWE, FIN, NOR, DEN)
Team Central Europe(SUI, CZE, GER, AUT)
Team Eastern Europe(RUS, BLR, LAT, SVK)
Team NHL(Best of the rest NHL-Players who were not nominated)

 

[JabbaJabba]

How about just two teams. It's time to find out who is better, lefties or righties.

 

[THE JAM]

While we are making gimmick teams (modern countries along with IIHF rankings):

USSR (Russia - 3, Latvia - 10, Kazakhstan- 13, Belarus- 14, Lithuania - 23, Estonia - 26, Ukraine - 27)
Kingdom of Scandinavia (Finland - 2, Sweden - 7, Norway - 11, Denmark - 12, Iceland - 35)
Austrian-Hungarian Empire (Czech Republic - 6, Slovakia - 9, Austria - 18, Slovenia - 20, Hungary - 21)

WTF - u seriously think that countries occupied by russia last century still somehow should be bunched together with their occupier?