Quote:
Originally Posted by GirlySports
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.
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Hockey is not the global sport that soccer is and there’s just no way the NHL cares about the IIHF. You make a good point on cooperation but anything that starts with the NHL moving it’s season just isn’t going to happen.
To say the players care equally about the tournaments you named doesn’t seem right. I remember when the Canada Cup was a big deal, but to say the players cared about the recent best on best World Cup the same as the Olympics?
The players want to go to the Olympics. They will play Canada Cup’s etc. for money and no doubt will still play hard, somewhere in between NHL regular season effort and all star game effort.