They should let the main sponsor run a huge online hockey pool. The top 8 finishers go to a live draft where, with the help of 8 NHL GMs or PoHOs, they each draft a team of NHL players in the traditional 'snake draft' format. Head Coaches are also drafted for each team. Probably don't want to do this live on TV, as it will take hours and be pretty dry, but then edit it down to a two hour special with the regular talking heads giving their opinions on the picks etc.
The 8 regular joes and josephines that drafted the teams get box seats for their teams games and the finals.
Play the tournament as a bracket with best of 3 series in the first two rounds and a best 5 in the last round. Give the players $$$ for each round they win so that they're motivated.
I was kinda joking with this proposal... but I think the big hockey pool to get to be one of the 8 regular people GMs would attract a HUGE number of participants. People would eat that up. Imagine a hockey pool where the main sponsor gets to pimp his wares and send direct advertising to the millions of people who would sign up for this in Canada and world wide... sponsors would be banging down the door for that kind of advertising.
There's probably a bunch of stuff about this that is stupid... but I think it would be a fun event and better than this new world cup format.
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