WJC: World Junior Hockey Championship Is Not What It Could Be

[bruinsfan46]

Why can't the World Juniors just be an entertaining hockey tournament to determine the best U20 hockey team that year? Why is the World Juniors responsible for hockey not taking off in Mexico or China? I just don't see how that's the domain of the tournament. Hockey is expensive and requires ice, those barriers are always gonna prevent it from becoming as global a sport as soccer or basketball. And some countries that can afford to play hockey and do have cold climates have cultures where they're already occupied by other winter sports. This doesn't mean there's anything wrong with hockey, why does there absolutely need to be more countries good at hockey? I don't understand this self loathing that goes on a lot in today's culture.

 

[Daeni10]

Well it could be a lot better if there would actually be a chance to watch the game in a normal quality here in germany and not just on illegal low quality streams...

And the ticket prices are waaaay to expensive for a group match.

 

[GoalDeny]

Were the ticket prices lower in Toronto than in Montreal?

 

[dsc75]

Lot of empty seats in Montreal so does that mean single game tickets will be lowered during this tournament or will they be lowered in 2 years?

 

[cupcrazyman]

Blame TSN for silly ticket prices. They might not set them but they're the ones that commercialized the balls out of this tournament.

yeah TSN really dropped the ball this time.

 

[Rals]

Needs more ice girls

 

[admire]

The crowd for the denmark game seemed to be quite good..at least from watching on the tv. Where the prices much lower for that game than the USA one?

Needs more ice girls

Thats a little like saying "I need more money", because you always need more icegirls, no matter how many there are.

 

[Shrimper]

The only problem with making the tournament expand is whether you can fit it in still? You'd have to have the same numbers of teams going through to make that happen. I would like to see it expand but I don't think that they should do it straight away. They should do it slowly. 2 teams next, 2 teams 2 years and another 2 2 years after. Slow, gradual increase. 16 teams.

4 groups of 4. Top two in each go through. Same play-offs as before.

 

[KevinBXA]

I was able to get fantastic seats in Vancouver for Canada's games for $40-50 a pair a few hours before games. I bought a package in Calgary so I can't really speak to the cost in 2012.


I thought about going this year but the split between Toronto and Montreal and the cost made it not worth it. Very poorly thought out. I can't see a benefit to splitting it twice instead of having each city host it once.

 

[Inkling]

The crowd for the denmark game seemed to be quite good..at least from watching on the tv. Where the prices much lower for that game than the USA one?

The Denmark game was in Toronto. Attendance is not an issue there.

 

[Canuck71*]

Hockey Canada is a joke. They try to make it out like having the tournament here is for the true hockey fans when the only people that can afford to go are the corporations with ticket priorities and the wealthy. Don't think for a second these guys wanna grow the game and get the underprivledged a chance to watch these games because all they care about is the $$$. I watched these morons try and run the U-17's in Sarnia. They did nothing to market it, still had fairly high ticket prices and send down their higher ups to try and tell the locals what they need to do to make it a successful event. I think the locals know a lot more than the higher up asshats at Hockey Canada would want and need to make this a successful event in our region. They didn't listen and did it their way and got yet another very subpar event.

Hockey Canada needs to wake up.

 

[ATBLeafsTyler]

IMO, the IIHF deserves a lot of the blame for ticket prices too. They are the ones that signed this deal to have all these tournaments in Canada. Why? Because it's the most profitable (this isn't what they say though).

 

[kingsholygrail]

Canada doesn't really love hockey. They only show up to see their team.

Actually it was a lot worse in Sochi. Remember how empty the hockey games were unless Russia was playing? lol And that was damn Olympics.

 

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaa]

Ultimately, I blame people willing to spend hundreds of dollars on single game tickets. When we stop buying, the prices will drop. Until then they will charge whatever they can get for them.

Personally, I am not disappointed by seeing some empty seats. Maybe someone will give their heads a shake and make a game between two non-Canadian teams affordable for regular people.

 

[Urbanskog]

Canada doesn't really love hockey. They only show up to see their team.

Actually it was a lot worse in Sochi. Remember how empty the hockey games were unless Russia was playing? lol And that was damn Olympics.

Sochi isn't really a hockey town though, the sport was pretty much unknown in Sochi before 2014.

 

[Jumptheshark]

As someone who lives in Europe and goes to a great many games at several levels. I can tell you that there is a HUGE gap in level of play outside of the "core" countries. Some countries would get blown out 20-0 in the Junior games if they played. What was suggested is to take it down from 10 to 8--with the bottom 3 finishing team relegated to the lower division with the top three teams from there coming up to give the lower teams better access to playing better teams. There are not many friendly games (for those follow proper football you know what that is) and the top teams just more or less practice against top teams.

 

[Lepardi]

If you want to get a nosebleed. They go up if you want decent seats. I was looking for some in the lower bowl and they were around $250 for Canadian games.

I don't know where you get these prices from, but right now you can get tickets for Canada's game tonight in the lower bowl near the center line for 90 dollars:
http://www.stubhub.com/iihf-world-junior-hockey-championship-tickets/9063697/

You can get great seats for the Finland-Slovakia game tomorrow for 25 dollars:
http://www.stubhub.com/iihf-world-junior-hockey-championship-tickets/9063698/

To me 25 dollars doesn't sound like such a high price. If I was in Montreal right now, I'd be more than happy to pay 25 dollars for such great seats.

In this case, I think the singles were released a week or so ago.

Did you look on StubHub? I'd figure people who bought packages for the entire round robin might well have been selling individual game tickets there.

 

[Lepardi]

Maybe someone will give their heads a shake and make a game between two non-Canadian teams affordable for regular people.

You can get tickets in section 421 (I've never been to Montreal, but 421 looks decent enough according to the Bell Centre seating map) for Finland-Slovakia for 5 dollars. If that's not affordable for regular people in Montreal, the city must be pretty poor.

 

[Urbanskog]

As someone who lives in Europe and goes to a great many games at several levels. I can tell you that there is a HUGE gap in level of play outside of the "core" countries. Some countries would get blown out 20-0 in the Junior games if they played.

You think, say, Belarus or Norway would get blown out 20-0?

 

[Bixby Snyder]

Way too much hype for a kids tournament.

 

[Bob Cole]

Glad to see all those empty seats. This tournament gas gotten way too big for its own good thanks to the tsn hype machine

 

[hototogisu]

That too. I think many people just skip the facts and jump to the statements like; "Wow, those empty seats. Way to go, Montreal."

From several reports I have heard, the upper bowl is completely full. Who would have thought that the $20-30 tickets sell out pretty quickly?

I've been at all 3 games in Montreal so far in the nose bleeds and I can assure you the upper bowl has been nowhere close to full for any of them. Even now at CAN/SVK there are tons of empty seats up here.

Bottom lines - Montreal is a Habs town, not a hockey town...and the tickets are just too expensive.

 

[Gormo]

As mentioned in several other articles about international hockey, there has been virtually no development in the 42 years since the famous Canada-USSR series in 1972. That there is only one country in the “improved level†category, Switzerland says it all.

While I would agree that ice hockey has had very limited growth worldwide, why isnt team USA mentioned as not just a mildly improved, but immensely improved hockey program?

Theyve gone from relative obscurity to being medal favorites every year, perhaps I am missing something?

 

[CBlake]

The medal round is what sold the packages in Toronto. The preliminary round tickets for the games in Toronto have been quite cheap on subhub/ticket exchange. Truth the be told Montreal is a far more sophisticated than Toronto and the corporate base is much smaller.

For anyone who bought tickets was the actually face price printed on the tickets the same for each game for the same seat? I bought a few cheap pairs on the exchange including Denmark Switzerland at the ACC at the ACC, centre ice lower bowl for $22.

 

[Rob]

As someone who lives in Europe and goes to a great many games at several levels. I can tell you that there is a HUGE gap in level of play outside of the "core" countries. Some countries would get blown out 20-0 in the Junior games if they played.

Exactly. The pool of talent for the World Juniors just isn't there. At the World Championships it is less of an issue because countries can take whatever players they want. So if they were to expand to 12 teams it would mean just one more meaningless game. While some people like to watch blowouts I don't.