Who else has very little interest in the Four Nations tournament?

[BusQuets]

It's better than nothing. USA especially has to show that they can hang with the top countries.

 

[GrumpyKoala]

No Kenya, No Argentina, Not interested

 

[bossram]

It's best on best hockey. We haven't see that for almost a decade. I'll watch.

It's not the Olympics, so maybe the "stakes" won't be as high, but I think it'll be entertaining. The players will care.

 

[swissdude]

Well I'll be darned.

Well, hardly that. I just wanted to point out that my ‘I couldn't care less’ was effectively meant as a synonym for ‘I don't give a f**k’

 

[MessierII]

So their C depth, the most important position in hockey, is Malkin, Kuznetsov… Barbashev?

The Defense, the second most important position in hockey, is a bunch of guys who wouldn’t make the Canadian or US team.

They’re not true contenders


See above.

Russia’s D has never been great. The center ice position is weak but their goaltending might be the best since the end of the cold war. Wings are star studded. They are definitely legit.

 

[Zalos]

There’s no Czechia. That’s like an NBA tourney with the Lakers, Celtics, Bucks, and Sixers, but no Bulls because they haven’t won anything lately.
It’s dumb, and disrespects the Czechs.

You do understand that there's a practical and logical reason for this, right? Only NHL players can participate and the Czechs could not fill a complete team.

This is also an experiment. I'm sure they will find a way to include players who play in Europe next time. However, if we just get negative nancies like in this thread, there won't be more international tournaments. It will never improve.

Cool, but this has nothing to do with international competition, it's just NHL tournament/exhibition, featuring only 4 teams (nations). It will be probably good training for them ahead of the Olympics. At least it will be better than watching All-Star game, but that is not saying much.

It actually has to do with international competition. The players will care about winning for their country. And, yea, it will be a preview of some of the Olympic national teams.

The NHL and its BOG have deprived us of 2 Olympics and at least one octennial joke Canada/World Cup. Forgive us if we refuse this moldy ass cookie they’re handing out.

It's not a moldy ass cookie. It's a peace offering, where they are trying to give the fans and the players what they've wanted for a while. Everyone needs to support this so the owners realize how much we want international competition.

 

[Bradely]

That's true, but Finland is still 3x larger than Latvia, with 7x as many registered hockey players.

The count of registered hockey players is probably a better way to look at it.
View attachment 919715
It's impressive that they are able to be competitive against even watered down teams from the top nations. Only Canada, Finland, and Sweden have a higher proportion of registered players as a percent of their population, and they do so while being much wealthier countries than Latvia.

Nice graphic, Thanks for sharing. IMHO, the bold part and development program are the basic of success.

 

[Toene]

Could be great! It's best against best and the players will play for their home country. More likely for them to push and try to win. As for Russia, they should have a special draft where each of the four nations get to pick the Russian stars one by one.

That being said, this thread is a good way to identify the people on here who are against fun. The NHL is trying to bring back international competition and we still got people bitching and whining about it before the tourney has even been played.

But they do it all wrong. It's not bitching to underline a missed occasion. Where is the Czech Republic? Germany? Switzerland? Four arbitrary nations and nothing to play for.

 

[nbwingsfan]

Russia’s D has never been great. The center ice position is weak but their goaltending might be the best since the end of the cold war. Wings are star studded. They are definitely legit.

And Russia hasn’t won a true best in best since when? How is their D “never been good” supposed to be some kind of positive?

Also who their #2 or #3 G is meaningless. Only one can play. And other countries have a good #1 too.

Russia wouldn’t medal anyway