Quote:
Originally Posted by FireGilbert
The World Cup in its' current form being held in North America only, in random years, and with random 7th and 8th teams, is a gimmicky pointless tournament which has no where near the excitement or prestige of the Olympics.
They need to turn this into a proper World Cup every four years with a qualification process and hosting alternating between North America and Europe. Then I agree that one day fans will forget about the Olympics and come to see the World Cup as the pinnacle of hockey like they do for soccer, rugby, and cricket.
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What you described in your second paragraph is the World Cup. You just named literally all of the things they announced plans for when they announced the 2016 World Cup. They said they wanted to start with an exciting tournament to get it off the ground and transition to a more traditional tournament for 2020 and beyond (including only national teams, having it every four years, and alternating between NA and Europe. I don't know where you got the random years thing, it was always intended to be every 4 years.
In addition, let's see just how full of prestige the Olympic hockey tournament is without NHL players. It now ranks a little lower than WJC as far as prestige goes.