Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
I think there is another sport with a fairly successful World Cup. I understand your point, but the corruption of the IOC is not directly relevant to the product on the ice. What makes Olympic hockey great is how much the players care. And when is the best players, it’s obviously better. The fact that it’s in the middle of the season is a positive to me as players are in peak form.
As long as the World Cup is an NHL product there will always be limitations. And there is already a world championships. Just don’t know what it would take to crate a proper World Cup.
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The players care about best-on-best no matter what it is. Canada Cup, World Juniors, World Cup or Olympics. It would take simple NHL cooperation to have a true world cup. There is already a world championship structure at many levels. The NHL could have years ago moved their season forward in order to finish earlier and send the best players to the annual world championships. But they ignored it. The IIHF has even moved the championships from April in the 80s to May presently to get more NHLers. The NHL continues to ignore it and play into the middle of June. All leagues (including the CHL) can co-exist with the IIHF, why can't the NHL?
The other World Cup that you mentioned works because all the leagues cooperates with FIFA and it's in player contracts that they must be released for international matches. The NHL and NHLPA severs this relationship.