The NHL should should stop making public threats to withdraw every four years, since this kind of squabbling only makes everybody look bad, and it threatens the build of tradition. The NHL should also give the players a few more days of rest before the tournament, to prevent injuries and to make the tournament better.
The olympics achieve the biggest thing for growth: giving the next tier of countries something to play for. Austria, Switzerland and Slovenia aren't close to being gold medalists, but just being a part of the experience is important for the players and the fans. Getting to play against the best also gives the players from those countries important experience. They need to learn firsthand what the level is they need to reach to be the best, you don't learn that from TV.
(The Canadian juniors and to a lesser extent players from other top hockey countries have the benefit of learning to play with the very best each age group has to offer in the world. If you're from a small hockey country, international tournaments is the place to find your peers.)
I feel that the NHL taking part in the olympics has already given the World Championships a boost, which is a good thing in itself. Canadian and US players seem to be more interested in the tournament. Even as a second tier tournament, it's still fun and good enough as an annual thing.
Here's a random new tournament idea:
I was thinking of these summit series -type of tournaments, and thought of it like this: how about you make it several simultaneous challenge serieses?
Here's for example how it could work: The top ranked country (by some system) picks their opponent, then the next not-picked country until you have like 8 pairs. Here's a complete fantasy example, just to give an idea of what it could be like:
Canada (#1) picks US (#4), because of the best ratings.
Sweden (#2) picks Finland (#3) because a) rivalry b) most ranking points
Russia (#5) picks Czech (#6) because they're a rival they feel they can beat, and they need to win someone after the olympics.
Slovakia (#7) picks Slovenia (#11) because a) all the biggest countries are gone, and they want to prove they're better than Slovenia despite losing to them in the last tournament.
Switzerland (#8) picks Germany (#13) because that's the best TV ratings for them.
Latvia (#9) picks Austria (#10) because they feel it's a nice level of opposition.
Norway (#12) picks Denmark (#14) because it's a nice rivalry.
Belarus (the next World Championship host) picks Kazakstan (#16) because they want to practice for the upcoming tournament.
You do this before the NHL season starts on non-Olympic years. Each series is played in both countries involved. Obviusly each year you do the picking process again.
I don't really expect Canadians to follow the Belarus-Kazakstan matchup, but that's not really the point. The point is more to get the Belarussians to follow the Canada-US matchup, by essentially making them and everybody else involved feel like they're a part of the same tournament. A country like Belarus or Denmark is a good place to grow the game, (Canada isn't, it's saturated.).
Even if the hypothetical Danish hockey fans don't feel involved in the other serieses, the idea is to create a matchup that can showcase their best players in games that fit their talent level against the best players of a rival. This makes it much easier to build good stories that people follow. Not changing the players, the countries and the stakes involved between every game makes it much easier for a casual fan to to start following the game. Hockey is not an easy game to get.
This would also create the intense series matchups that many hockey fans feel are an essential part of hockey. Like summit serieses, but regular, something that could over time become a part of hockey lore and part of sports tradition. It would also be something that even the most hardcore old-school Canadian could say is a real matchup. This is important for the general prestige.
It would also give the smaller hockey countries a chance to get a big win against a hated rival, often in front of a home crowd, without having to go get beaten by Russia 6-0 the next day. Stuff like this is great for the casual sports fan. It would help create some good buzz around the national team. (I think this is again something that international soccer does well; there's enough separation between games, so the fans are not just constantly looking forward, but can spend a long time debating that one game that everyone saw.)
I would also imagine that when the local hockey associations fight for budget money to build junior systems, "we want this much to solidly beat Norway every time in the Challenge series" could be a better argument than "we want this to beat Kazakstan for the 14th spot in the World Championships, and maybe win one game there". Goals like that are achievable goals that are interesting outside of that sport.
Essentially: serieses like this would help create interesting, achievable goals, while making the challenge thing a regular event would help build tradition.
Sorry for the long post, and sorry if this is all nonsense to you
Thoughts?
EDIT: Basicly; I think if there would be a series system like this, you could even have an OOT thread on the CP that mentions who won, Austria or Latvia. Which is sort of part of the point
