The betting line on "best hockey nation" is certainly starting to swing.
I see crowds like those and makes me want to see a true World Cup of Hockey very badly. One with players in mid season form and where the stakes are high.
It will never be soccer because of the number of countries that are competitive, but a legitimate tournament with some best of 3 knockout rounds. Let it take a month to play. Fine by me.
It could be done but the NHL runs the show and NHL owners dont want that.
It's hard to start and maintain a tournament. Whatever momentum gained from the 2014 Olympics or 2016 world cup is gone.
The soccer world cup has had 21 editions and 8 winners. And its only gotten big since I wanna say 82. The expanded 24 team format.
The baseball world classic has had 4 editions and is barely off the ground.
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Last edited by GirlySports; 05-28-2019 at 11:56 AM.
It could be done but the NHL runs the show and NHL owners dont want that.
It's hard to start and maintain a tournament. Whatever momentum gained from the 2014 Olympics or 2016 world cup is gone.
The soccer world cup has had 21 editions and 8 winners. And its only gotten big since I wanna say 82. The expanded 24 team format.
The baseball world classic has had 4 editions and is barely off the ground.
Yep I hear you. Hockey had something very close with the Olympics but money got in the way. So the fans lost out.
The Canada Cup was also very good.
There is great history of international hockey play involving NHL players, from '72, the touring Soviet teams, Canada Cup etc. now it all seems stalled. Going to require some different leadership from the NHL I imagine.
I like how the NBA commish has talked about shortening the regular season, introducing tournaments etc. I hope we start to see some fan friendly creativity from hockey eventually.
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Yep I hear you. Hockey had something very close with the Olympics but money got in the way. So the fans lost out.
The Canada Cup was also very good.
There is great history of international hockey play involving NHL players, from '72, the touring Soviet teams, Canada Cup etc. now it all seems stalled. Going to require some different leadership from the NHL I imagine.
I like how the NBA commish has talked about shortening the regular season, introducing tournaments etc. I hope we start to see some fan friendly creativity from hockey eventually.
Yes basketball has a revamped 32 team world cup this September in China. It's really going to push the sport forward.
Canada is in Group H with Australia, Lithuania, and Senegal.
There is no room for fan friendly events in the NHL. It's a nickel and dime league. Let's have another outdoor game between Chicago and Boston.
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^^Does anyone really care though? Certainly not on a FIFA scale. The NBA is more interesting. I would say that really only the Olympic events or the World Cup surpass league interest in most sports(maybe Rugby WC as well).
The Olympic tournanent was good for Canada because it was more of an all star game format where talent wins out. They were not even allowed to practice.
Last edited by Flamenspiel; 05-29-2019 at 11:04 AM.
^^Does anyone really care though? Certainly not on a FIFA scale. The NBA is more interesting. I would say that really only the Olympic events or the World Cup surpass league interest in most sports(maybe Rugby WC as well).
What? No, that's only America.
Here's a rough guide to how sports audiences work:
- Americans watch only sports they invented, and then only if it's played in America. (And even then mostly just their own team.) There's a few exceptions like the Olympics, but not really that many.
- Everyone else goes crazy over international sports in general (and football).
If your country is playing in a prestigious tournament, it doesn't matter if you've never watched that sport, it's big news and everyone cares. That's how you suddenly get a million Finns (20% of the population) to watch a FIBA world cup basketball game even if the local basketball league is so small I'm not sure if all the games are televised. (Finland has I think only made the FIBA world cup once.)
In general when it comes to the not-major-powers of the world (basically meaning the countries which don't regularly kick the crap out of smaller countries in wars), national pride is often very deeply connected to (team) sports, and almost any sport will do.
Also, any sport which is watched in India and/or China are huge. For example, Cricket World Cup gets twice the audiences of Superbowl because India watches that. When China plays in the FIBA world cup, that's instantly 50 million eyeballs on every one of those games.
So yeah, FIBA World Cup is actually a really big event. Total TV audiences way over half a billion, tickets sold are in the hundreds of thousands. When your country is playing, something like 10% of the population can easily be watching. Quadruple that if that country actually cares about basketball.
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Thanks Itse, I still cannot get excited about FIBA, or the Cricket World Cup. I have been to many world championship events in niche sports that I have an interest in(judo and water polo)in Canada and around the world. They are world class and attended very poorly in Canada. It’s not American thing.
Last edited by Flamenspiel; 05-30-2019 at 09:42 AM.
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There are professional leagues overseas. Why would someone move to North America and learn a new language to play on the 4th line for their careers??
So the best come over for the money and glory.
And North Americans fill in the holes at the bottom.
That. You can make a couple of million a year, tax free, in the KHL. Even in the Finnish league you can make something like 250k. Considering how short the career of a typical 4th liner is in the NHL, it's not necessarily worth it to toil in the AHL for a year or three making 60k and risking a career ending injury so that you MIGHT make 600K some day.
As for the tournaments, you can only play about 20 guys at a time. The other 400+ Canadian NHLers are only a pool to draw from, they dont actually matter when you play the games.
After that, you have to consider that every NHL player is somewhat competitive against any other NHLers. Being able to hold your own most of the time against the very best the opposition has to throw at you is basically the minimum requirement to make the league. If you can't do that, you're a defensive liability and likely quickly replaced.
Considering all that, the way Canada has dominated the best-on-best tournaments recently is actually quite remarkable and something you should be proud of. It shows that you haven't just had great players, but those players have come together to form great teams.
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I like how Alberta has half the population of Quebec, yet produces more NHLers.
Alberta's economy is also almost as large as Quebec's, but that's another story.
Alberta also matches up well against British Columbia in both regards.
But Saskatchewan and Manitoba produce more NHLers per capita.
