I don't find the lack of time to be a laughable excuse. How does anyone know what is it required to hold a qualification? It's easy for us to plan it, sure.
WC: Which tournament is more important and more interesting?
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1Gold Standard
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- Jun 13, 2012
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Tell me how qualifiers for the last World Cup worked?
The World Cup has never had qualifiers, and if there was no need for qualifiers then, it's stupid for the NHL to trot that out as an excuse now to somehow justify the gimmicky teams. It's just idiotic and an insult.
When was this World Cup announced? All Star break in Columbus 2015! All they had to do was say, this WC will include 8 teams with plans to expand in the future, that may or may not include qualifiers, but for the sake of convenience now, the Top 8 teams at the conclusion of this year's World Hockey Championship (2015 Prague) will win spots in the September 2016 tournament.
Now is that too difficult?
The NHL can take this gimmicky gong show and go take a dump in the Hudson River.
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JackSlater
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- Apr 27, 2010
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It boggles my mind that some people cannot see through the NHL's crap in this instance. Obviously you are right and the qualifier excuse was nothing but a feeble smokescreen. The tournament has been played seven times without qualifiers, and yet there were no gimmick teams.
If you're pushing it that far then Boston, New York, Minnesota (I went to the 2004 games and there were a lot of fans there), Chicago all in play.
It's not hard. Include Slovakia and Switzerland, promise qualifiers in the future and accept that you will have to share some money with the European based Slovak and Swiss players.
They just genuinely couldn't bring themselves to share that money.
I see your point guys and you are right. Still, I think the concpet is interesting if it's just for now. Neither me or you know the true reasons behind all of that. But it will be a great tournament nonetheless for me and I am excited to see those two teams personally.
Best on best is preferable in North America, and the fact that the World Championships take place during the later rounds of the NHL playoffs means that they will always suffer by comparison with any tournament that doesn't overlap with NHL play for fans in Canada and the US. North American fans see it as a tournament by Europeans, for Europeans, held in Europe, and that's fine.
No one likes the additions of non-national teams to the World Cup, but it's the closest thing to best-on-best national teams play this side of the Olympics.
If they replaced the Olympics with a pure national teams World Cup, held in rotating locations around the world along a quadrennial schedule, I'd be equally excited for them as presently for the Olympics. No difference. Either will always be a step above any tournament that doesn't allow for the NHL season to finish first.
No one likes the additions of non-national teams to the World Cup, but it's the closest thing to best-on-best national teams play this side of the Olympics.
If they replaced the Olympics with a pure national teams World Cup, held in rotating locations around the world along a quadrennial schedule, I'd be equally excited for them as presently for the Olympics. No difference. Either will always be a step above any tournament that doesn't allow for the NHL season to finish first.
I've seen this so often it's sickening. I'm biased for sure, but there's nothing in recent results to indicate that Slovakia and Switzerland should really just be included over a host of other countries. They finished 11th and 9th in the last best on best tournament, what about Latvia, what about Slovenia, what about Austria, Germany has as many NHL players as Switzerland, what about the other forum there's already going about Denmark? Some of ya'll are Canadian, some Finnish, some American I think, this means nothing to you, you just want national teams to make this tournament your idea of more proper. There are other qualified national teams though and they feel they deserve as much of a shot as Slovakia and Switzerland. Don't believe in Olympic results?
Slovakia 3-5 Latvia, 2013
Slovakia 1-2 Austria, 2013
Slovakia 3-5 France, 2014
Switzerland 3-4 Belarus, 2014
Switzerland 3-4 Austria, 2015
Switzerland 1-2 Latvia, 2015
Slovakia 2-3 Norway, 2015
It's very important to keep results properly current or else they aren't applicable. I really could care less what Slovakia did in Vancouver because let's look at the roster
in terms of scoring:
Pavol Demitra (RIP)
Marian Hossa (significantly regressed)
Michal Handzus (now irrelevant)
Richard Zednik (retired)
Marian Gaborik (significantly regressed and constantly injured)
Jozef Stumpel (now irrelevant)
Lubomir Visnovsky (retired)
Zdeno Chara (regressing, if slower than Hossa and Gaborik still noticeably)
Zigmund Palffy (retired)
Miroslav Satan (retired)
Tomas Kopecky (now irrelevant)
Ivan Baranka (never peaked if not regressed, off NT radar)
Andrej Sekera (has had better days, still very solid player)
Lubos Bartecko (now irrelevant)
Martin Strbak (now irrelevant)
Marcel Hossa (becoming if not already irrelevant)
Martin Cibak (now irrelevant)
Now that we've established that the 2010 Vancouver team isn't going to be there this fall, and we've gotten the now irrelevant dreams and memories out of our heads, is there a real reason based on recent results to include these teams DE FACTO over other mid-major teams? Germany has as many NHL players as Switzerland. If we go by WC, Belarus should be in. If we go by the last best on best, Slovenia and Latvia should be in and both Switzerland and Slovakia should be out. If we go by potential, Denmark seems to have a very high potential team. If you have no better reason to include Slovakia and Switzerland into a supposedly best on best tournament other than outdated results and old memories, I'm sorry that's not good enough. I hate the gimmicks as much as anyone else but there's no reason to include Slovakia and Switzerland over a host of other teams, they're not in a tier above these other teams they're very much in the same tier and because of that their spots should be earned, not given.
SashaSemin28
My Krasnaya Mashina
Because the rest of the hockey world has a sensible schedule which doesn't run into June, it is apparently a problem. Regular season for most European leagues ends at least two months before the WHC. Why the IIHF should cater to a league which isn't under the IIHF umbrella is beyond me.
For the thread, IIHF World Hockey Championship will always be more entertaining than the NHL "World" Cup of Hockey.
Look we are throwing two decent teams with large amounts of NHLers in the tournament just to fill out eight teams.
It doesn't really matter who just as long as they replaced North America and Europe.
Exactly, as long as it's not your team that gets left out there's no need for due process. The team Europe was supposed to cater to all the nations, make everyone feel good, just it was a miserable idea to treat nations like provinces of a country. If the tournament was more than 8 teams we could have had 1 round qualifications which would be easy enough to do, but, since the NHL insists on a stupid 8 team format, we get, well, haha, what we got.
BayStreetBully
Registered User
As much of a joke the World Cup is, the World Hockey Championship isn't any better. The WHC is only good to display the development of hockey in countries ranked 9-16, and in lower divisions.
There is no glory to be had by winning the World Cup because the European countries don't care. Conversely, there is no glory to be had by winning the WHC because North America doesn't care.
Yes hence the context of my post which you quoted. If the NHL was just going to throw something together with eight teams, refused to have qualifiers then it's still better to have two teams like Slovakia and Switzerland than two fake teams. It doesn't matter who. Hell they could have just gone for 6 teams and been better.
A real World Cup would have qualifiers for every nation that wants to enter. But this isn't a real World Cup obviously.
Oh, does it? Last time i checked, they don't skip a single game (like any other league). But, by the way of congratulations, here's to completely understanding the idea of "sports" the wrong way.
A sport is not a business.
I hate double posts.. but exactly this.
The only league on the planet (for obvious circumstances) to be able to implement an international tournament of any relevance outside the olympics (accepted by europeans and north americans) is the NHL. That's why so many people are that fourious at the WC as it currently is.
I get where you coming from...but it's still a great tournament
I mean, I get you would rather see countries, but Team Europe or Team NA is an interesting concept that we may never see again, if there is motivation and real true effort from those teams, this simply has to be a good tournament. I'm not saying the winner is the "best nation" like when you win the olympics, but it's still the best team out of that tournament, a tournament with a load of talent, and hopefully effort and intensity.I get where you coming from...but it's still a great tournament
No. Splitting the USA team in half makes it not a good tournament at all for me.
No they don't. Eight German players have played in the NHL this season, combining for a total of 338 games played. Switzerland has had 13 players in the NHL this season, combining for 437 games.
You don't have to turn to outdated results. Switzerland and Slovakia are ranked 7th and 8th in the IIHF ranking right now, and they've got more NHL players than any other nation outside the top six right now. If you don't have time for a qualification tournament, that's easily enough to include them in the World Cup over the likes of Denmark, Norway, Germany, Latvia, Belarus, etc.
And when would you have the time for a qualification tournament? In September? Half of the Latvian national team play for Dinamo Riga in the KHL, and half of the Belarusian national team play for Dinamo Minsk in the KHL. The KHL season 2015-16 began on August 24th. Do you think Riga and Minsk would have been willing to release half of their team for a World Cup qualification tournament during league play? Or do you think that NHL teams would have been willing to release their players for a World Cup qualification tournament in July or August? I very much doubt it. I can't even see Latvia or Belarus bringing anything close to their A team to the World Cup itself, cause it's in late September 2016 when the KHL is in full flight again. Dinamo Riga and Dinamo Minsk need their players for their own games.
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Eight Germans are currently in the NHL. Eight Swiss are currently in the NHL. If he's back down in the AHL now or gone back to Europe the NHL don't give a crap about him, don't need to.
People forget that in general other sports do not use rankings to determine playoff spots. American football, that's really it, uses rankings to determine their qualification. The way continental qualifications work is you take the winner of the last tournament (or the one designated as the qualifier), or the top 8 in which case Belarus is in and Slovakia is out. Rankings are only ever used for seeding purposes because it is understood that the logarithm still takes into account dated results, albeit with lower weight, FURHERMORE, those rankings in hockey are based on the WC which is (no offense) a fun practice tournament of non-best on best international friendlies. I love the WC but rankings where the Olympic results or best on best results hold less weight than a tournament of B teams playing friendly matches are inherently inaccurate, and rankings in general aren't used as qualification parameters.
You have to realize, the NHL is a 4 billion dollar business, the guys at the top you may think are stupid but they know how to make money and they know hockey like no one here does. They believe Slovakia and Switzerland are so not deserving of their own tier that they threw in two awful gimmick teams and stuck with them because they would rather that than give Slovakia and Switzerland automatic entry. In light of the numbers and qualifiers we have to show that Slovakia and Switzerland are in fact not next tier, there is no reason to think Slovakia and Switzerland are in fact a whole tier above the other teams in skill level.
Do you have any concrete suggestions on how to determine who's to take part in the World Cup and who's not? If you think Latvia finishing above Switzerland in the Olympics is more relevant than the results of the World Championships, you should try to realize that Latvia brought their A team to Sochi. They wouldn't be able to bring anything close to their A team to the World Cup, cause many of their players would be tied to Dinamo Riga. In fact, the Latvian and Belarusian teams in the "friendly matches" of the World Championships are way closer to their A team than their rosters at the World Cup would be.
So instead of telling us that Switzerland and Slovakia are not "a whole tier above the others", please try to give a concrete suggestion on how they should decide which nations participate. So far, you've failed to do anything like that. My suggestion is that you include Switzerland and Slovakia because of their IIHF ranking and their number of NHL players. What's your suggestion? Should you use the Olympic results and have Slovenia and Latvia there? Or should you have a qualification tournament, and when would it be held? Or what should you do? I'll be a bit surprised if you actually give a real answer to this question instead of rambling on about how Switzerland and Slovakia are not that much better.
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World championships are a joke since they take place during the playoffs and thus we don't get best on best
Well you obviously haven't been reading anything I've written the past idk month or else you would be able to guess what I'm about to say.
First of all for the 10th time, KHL is releasing players. Now that that's over.
12 team tournament, 6 spots up for qualification. 4 day qualification tournament. 6 pools of 3 or 4 teams depending on who registers which would be seeded, not determined by IIHF rankings. Winner of each pool gets a spot.
Actually, the KHL is not releasing players leaguewide. It's up to the individual KHL clubs to decide whether they wish to release players or not. If a club says they want this or that player stick to his day job, he sticks to his day job.
That being said, I believe that if the Russian Federation picks KHLers, they will lean heavily on those clubs to have who they want. But it's not something to be passed with a shrug if one figures a club like Dinamo Riga would be reluctant to release what is practically half their team, if Latvia were to take part.
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