2016 World Cup of Hockey

[Lanny'sDaMan]

Another beauty feed from Getz after the sweet steal!!!

[GreenLantern2814]

I know people have complained about this tournament not doing much to grow the game. But I cannot imagine how good this is for growing the game in Slovenia. They've never had a hockey player play against Canada, the best team in the world. Think about how inspiring that must be to a whole group of kids who've never really been exposed to one of their guys having a shot on this stage.

This Canada Team is stupid good. There's literally not a team on the planet that can beat them. I don't think I truly appreciate how much we're running this game.

You literally cannot beat them. Carey Price is very much alive. Nobody has forwards good enough to play against any of Canada's defense pairs, and every forward line is better than every other team's top pairing.

And yet here is Kopitar, this lone hero from a tiny country that's never gotten this much attention from hockey internally. Sets up the first goal. Hope springs. Maybe they can do it. How cool would be it be if they did. That's be incredible.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

I know people have complained about this tournament not doing much to grow the game. But I cannot imagine how good this is for growing the game in Slovenia. They've never had a hockey player play against Canada, the best team in the world. Think about how inspiring that must be to a whole group of kids who've never really been exposed to one of their guys having a shot on this stage.

This Canada Team is stupid good. There's literally not a team on the planet that can beat them. I don't think I truly appreciate how much we're running this game.

You literally cannot beat them. Carey Price is very much alive. Nobody has forwards good enough to play against any of Canada's defense pairs, and every forward line is better than every other team's top pairing.

And yet here is Kopitar, this lone hero from a tiny country that's never gotten this much attention from hockey internally. Sets up the first goal. Hope springs. Maybe they can do it. How cool would be it be if they did. That's be incredible.

There were in the last Olympics. They won two games and made the quarterfinals. That would move the needle about a billion times more than one guy on a team that's not going to win it. I doubt this even matters more in Slovenia than Kopitar winning the Stanley Cup twice.

[Erick Estrada]

Lots of empty seats and tickets available online for only $40 for the final. I understand it's a perfect storm of an underwhelming opponent, the Jays playing in a playoff race close by, but pretty obvious this isn't going to be a big success especially given the fact that absolutely nobody is watching the games in the US. Maybe if they do it again the finals should be played in Calgary, Edmonton, or Montreal. Andrew Walker was on 960 and said it's different in Toronto as the city is populated with Leafs fans not hockey fans and the city right now is not into hockey.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Lots of empty seats and tickets available online for only $40 for the final. I understand it's a perfect storm of an underwhelming opponent, the Jays playing in a playoff race close by, but pretty obvious this isn't going to be a big success especially given the fact that absolutely nobody is watching the games in the US. Maybe if they do it again the finals should be played in Calgary, Edmonton, or Montreal. Andrew Walker was on 960 and said it's different in Toronto as the city is populated with Leafs fans not hockey fans and the city right now is not into hockey.

Montreal is Habs fans not hockey fans too. the Jays becoming relevant after the tournament was announced was definitely a big problem for them.

Meanwhile, the NHLPA spin machine is on full throttle. From Reddit:

Spoiler!

[CroFlames]

That is such a sad picture.

[Otto-matic]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Montreal is Habs fans not hockey fans too. the Jays becoming relevant after the tournament was announced was definitely a big problem for them.

Meanwhile, the NHLPA spin machine is on full throttle. From Reddit:

Spoiler!

Haha almost reminds me of the NHL faceoff festival they put on last year in Calgary.


I wish they did spread the tournament throughout the country, Calgary/Vancouver/Edmonton would probably have drawn better crowds.

[GirlySports]

i think it's just an underwhelming final. The tournament itself is fine. Having it all in one city with fans converging from all over is cool.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

i think it's just an underwhelming final. The tournament itself is fine. Having it all in one city with fans converging from all over is cool.

How much of this actually happened though? Unless "all over" means the various towns in the GTA and maybe a few people up from Buffalo.

[The Yen Man]

Man, that's sad. I think Regina could have mustered up a bigger crowd.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Table 5

How much of this actually happened though? Unless "all over" means the various towns in the GTA and maybe a few people up from Buffalo.

Looks like it was only 1 person from each of the towns in the GTA lol.

[TheoFleury]

When does Bettman declare this thing a success? My guess is the NHL can't wait to shift the focus to the regular season.

[dubc80]

My brother was at the game last night. He's in Toronto for work, paid $25USD off Stubhub for his ticket.

Said the atmosphere was similar to an NHL regular season game.

Do people even care about this tournament?

How are merch sales? Now that I think of it, I haven't seen anyone wearing the new Team Canada jersey. I remember tons of people buying and wearing the 2010 and 2014 Canada Olympic jerseys.

How is tv viewership?

How was attendance/viewership in bars? Where is the Molson Canadian Hockey House?!?!

Most hockey fans I know did watch, but wasn't as invested as the Olympics. They have a long ways to go to make this the premiere best-on-best tournament in my opinion.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by dubc80

My brother was at the game last night. He's in Toronto for work, paid $25USD off Stubhub for his ticket.

Said the atmosphere was similar to an NHL regular season game.

Do people even care about this tournament?

How are merch sales? Now that I think of it, I haven't seen anyone wearing the new Team Canada jersey. I remember tons of people buying and wearing the 2010 and 2014 Canada Olympic jerseys.

How is tv viewership?

How was attendance/viewership in bars? Where is the Molson Canadian Hockey House?!?!

Most hockey fans I know did watch, but wasn't as invested as the Olympics. They have a long ways to go to make this the premiere best-on-best tournament in my opinion.

This generation has been spoiled by Olympic hockey so it'll extremely difficult to reboot this event. People loved the NA team though so that worked but might make NHLs decisions harder going forward.

[OutOfTheCube]

I think the big thing is that I don't truly care if Canada wins. We should win -- it should be no contest. There's no tension, no real excitement. I would care if we lost, because that would be a disaster. But Canada being world champions is just business as usual at this point.

[GirlySports]

would like to see this tournament somewhere else in 2020 (or even 2019). Like in Las Vegas. Then the next edition in Europe.

[lazypucker]

This World Cup doesn't work because of many reasons, for example:

- No build up (no qualifying matches for lesser nations, sounds more like a glorified all-star exhibition series with teams thrown together), fans just don't have a vested interest
- Bad timing (many people are still in Summer mode and the crave for hockey isn't really there yet this time of year)
- Hockey is just not that popular (you have to admit it)

My proposal to fix it:
- pick a better time of year to hold the tournament. If it is a NHL event, what prevents the league to shut down for like 3 weeks during Christmas to hold a World Cup when people crave hockey?
- sync up with IIHF and combine with the World Championship (I know there is the money issue, but multiple rival competitions mean watered-down products)
- have a proper qualification process setup to give smaller nations a chance to participate so that more people from different nations will have some vested interests in it (e.g. look at what a wonderful story Iceland had during the Euro)

But again, international hockey will never surpass the popularity of soccer and even basketball (OK, people just want to see by how many points US can crush their opponents, or maybe hoping by some miracle a team can fluke out a win against the dream team). It will be a tough road ahead if Bettman wants to achieve some success in selling international hockey to the masses.

[FanIn80]

NA vs CAN would have drawn a much larger audience than EU vs CAN.

[Erick Estrada]

I wish the NHL would focus on making the NHL game better rather than spend resources on stuff like this. Scoring is still decreasing and most arenas have plenty of empty seats including Canadian and original six markets. I would rather they focus on changing goaltender equipment or changing net size than oversaturate things and provide a tournament that nobody asked for.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I wish the NHL would focus on making the NHL game better rather than spend resources on stuff like this. Scoring is still decreasing and most arenas have plenty of empty seats including Canadian and original six markets. I would rather they focus on changing goaltender equipment or changing net size than oversaturate things and provide a tournament that nobody asked for.

But this is low hanging fruit to add revenue. New live dates, new TV contract rights, new jerseys. All new revenue.