10-1 Austria
Austria is just built different.Overrating Austria a bit are we?
10-2 Austria.
Austria 11-1 CanadaI see double digits coming.
Well, all joking aside, at most Austria is maybe a slight favourite: Canadians are tough and hard working and could easily surprise. My prediction: 2-2 at the end of the regulation and Canada will win on penalties.
I'll make a bold statement and say Canada wins this.
I do look forward to the 'goal differential matters' crowd coming in. It doesn't in this case. Not once in my life of watching this tourney has beating the shit out of the 5th nation in a pool of 5 had an impact on rankings. There are several tiebreakers before that (head to head being the first one, the second one being goal differential between the teams that are tied and not the team with 0 points). Having said that... kick the hell out of them and run the score. No rule against it. But don't pretend that winning 5-0 or 15-0 is for advancement. Here are the 5 tiebreakers and not one of them is overall GF and GA from the 4 games overall: First tiebreaker for 2 teams is tied is head to head because there are no ties in this tournament (eg. if Czechs and Germans end up tied, Germany gets the higher seed because they beat us - we could beat Austria 35 to 0 and it won't matter).
If three teams end up tied (I'm not sure who the third team is that could end up somehow tied with Canada and Finland?). However, let's assume Germany, Finland and Canada end up in a 3 way tie:
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I totally agree... I hope Czechs put 10 up on them too. 2 teams scored touchdowns on us last year and I didn't complain once (well, I complained about us sucking but not the other team being good). But it won't be to help us advance.Tie breaker or not you have to play the game, can't just sit in your end and hold onto the puck because you don't want to score anymore, that would be a worse embarrassment.
There is only one way to end beat downs in international hockey and we all know what it is, get better. Either that or reduce the amount of teams playing and then we would have the very vocal crowd saying..." how can these teams be expected to get better if they don't play and test themselves against the powerhouses or experience playing in these tournaments?"
The lopsided scores in this tournament should never be an issue with fans here knowing the reality. What does a team get by totally laying off and clearly dogging it anyway? a HF fans nice guys team award?
I always find it odd when fans moan about the beat downs and want teams to "lie down".
Who cares, winning this tournament now means little. It’s lost all its merit with the states having to forfeit a game.