I'm watching everything. Enjoy being salty and missing out on great hockey.
I will thanks!
I'm watching everything. Enjoy being salty and missing out on great hockey.
From Wikipedia (and sourced)
It appears Eagleson and the various National Feds, along with the IIHF, did the heavy lifting...
The NHL's "role" seems to be as follows...
Thanks for the links - my memory is now officially refreshed. You original quote "if anything they worked against it" I'd say was an overstatement though. Some owners had to be convinced - that's different. It's fair to say though (as you did) that the NHL didn't come up with the concept as Eagleson was a player agent and didn't work for the NHL.
Looking back it was far more credible than the sorry spectacle of amateurs (usually) getting routed by Communist pros at the Olympics.
More like Communist slaves. At least for Soviet Union. Dunno if it was that bad in Czechoslovakia.
In any case, this 2016 WCup is a joke tournament. The winner will be disputed immediately bcs of wonky teams. If Canada or US wins, they will blame eachother for having missed some youth. If a European team wins, the excuses of losing out on youth will fly again. If one of the gimmick teams wins, well...
I'm watching it because its the best players in the world - a far more stacked talent pool than any other tournament because of the controversial team europe/team NA.
I would rather the NHL get my dollars than the IOC anyways plus it means competitive hockey when I will be most hungry for it.
The only thing I don't like about it are the team canada jerseys, I hate the logo on the front it seems like a generic thing that EA would come up with.
I'm watching it because its the best players in the world - a far more stacked talent pool than any other tournament because of the controversial team europe/team NA.
I would rather the NHL get my dollars than the IOC anyways plus it means competitive hockey when I will be most hungry for it.
The only thing I don't like about it are the team canada jerseys, I hate the logo on the front it seems like a generic thing that EA would come up with.
Don't you think that the drama of the game will be hurt because Europeans will not watch or care about this tournament?
Nobody cares about this tournament because the NHL went into it without getting the other Euro leagues involved.
It feels wrong and the two fake teams proves it.
And if the European teams lose they will blame it on being in N.A, with nhl refs, on nhl ice. Like they do and always have done.
Then this "World Cup" will be just like old times in many ways. The winner, aside from when the Soviets won in 1981(and was not disputed by Soviet fans) has always been disputed by European fans, nothing will change there this time around.
Teams like Latvia and Finland just sucked the life out of it, i know they did what they had to do but man.............what boring and uninspired hockey teams such as those put on display.
They made the last olys rather dreadful. It was straight pitiful watching them play.
They set the bar for entertainment so low where it shouldn't take much for this world cup to beat it.