Of course I will be watching this tournament but there are so many things wrong with it and I don't see it living up to the excitement of the Olympics.
First, I agree with those posting about the under 23 team being silly. It has the look of an all star game gimmick and doesn't belong is something called a World Cup. Sure go ahead and have an under 23 World cup, I would watch that, but I'm not getting too interested in seeing if 21 year old North Americans can beat Finland.
Second, I don't understand the snubbing of Slovakia and Switzerland. Yes, they are not the biggest draws but both countries produce NHLers and are respectable internationally. I like the idea of a team making up the remainder of Europe though as this adds some much needed competition to the tournament. They should have gone with 10 teams. The 8 core teams are in automatically, there is a play in tournament between the European teams for the 9th spot, and the 10th team is the best players from the remaining countries. I also don't buy the argument about no time for a play in tournament, it couldn't have been too difficult to organise a quick elimination tournament in Europe right before the Cup starts.
Finally, I don't understand why all the games are in Toronto. Sure play the final and most games there but also spread them across Canada and the US. There are enough games for a few different cities to get a taste of international hockey and if travel is a concern just restrict the locations to either the East or West. Maybe Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, New York, Philly or Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, Denver, LA, San Jose as the hosts? It also seems more like a Canada Cup than World Cup because once again Canada is hosting. It is fine the revival is in Canada but if they really want this to be a world tournament they should have announced the next one for Europe in 2020.
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