The World Cup of Hockey is set to return after the 10 year hiatus. This time however there are expected to be changes. The proposed changes are that the tournament will consist of Two All-Star Teams and the Six Strongest Hockey Nations. To put it more clearly...
Canada Sweden USA Russia Finland Czech Republic
and
a mixed All-Star squad of
Slovakia Switzerland Latvia Germany Slovenia Denmark Austria Belarus France Any other European nation that has a player they want...so likely none.
and an undetermined second All-Star squad which I'll get to later.
I love this move. While it is very fun to watch the strong star studded teams destroy nations with one or two NHLers and turn the goalie of that squad into a folk hero (Gudlevskis and Gerber)...it isn't very productive. This is one of my few gripes with the WJC's. There is a cream of the crop, then the rest. The cream whips the rest silly until they are allowed to play meaningful hockey. While the rest get to fight over who gets eliminated this year to only immediately win the D1 tournament and be in the next tourney. It's stupid and pointless. Worse, it's almost embarrassing. Teams like Switzerland give it their all, they play a team game and they might even upset a team, but they will never win. With the All-Star system, we will get to see the stars play with other stars and not (for example) have to see a player like Kopitar line up next to the Slovenian elite line of Jeglic-Mursak.
I think the new format will give this competition a level of...well...competition that the Olympics are lacking. By compressing the amount of competitors and upping the level of talent, you kill two birds with one stone and ensure every game is meaningful and every game has the best potential players on the ice that can be fielded. Most of these nations don't have the depth to compete, hell, even an old glory team like Slovakia doesn't have a hope in hell of competing.
Here's a quick little sneak at what the European All-Stars could look like juxtaposed with some of their national teams...it's jarring.
European All-Star Team
Vanek-Kopitar-Hossa Boedker-Grabovski-Gaborik Raffl-Girgensons-Niederreiter Grabner-Nielsen-Roussel
Draisaitl/Tatar/Zuccarello/Eller
Chara-Josi Erhoff-Streit Sekera-Seidenberg
Mueller/Marincin
Hiller Halak Andersen
vs the 2014 Swiss Squad which finished ninth
Simon Bodenmann Martin Plüss Simon Moser Reto Suri Denis Hollenstein Kevin Romy Mark Streit Patrick von Gunten Ryan Gardner Morris Trachsler Luca Cunti Damien Brunner Matthias Bieber Andres Ambühl Mathias Seger Roman Josi Julien Vauclair Severin Blindenbacher Nino Niederreiter Yannick Weber Raphael Dàaz Roman Wick
Tobias Stephan Jonas Hiller Reto Berra
Bolded are NHL players with only Josi and Hiller as real elite players...and it's hard to consider Weber and Diaz as NHL players.
It's night and day. Now don't get me wrong either, I love the Swiss, I love how they play and their complete team game philosophy is amazing, but they aren't nearly as dangerous away from the big ice where they can trap the living hell out of teams. It's just a fact. The All-Star team is unequivocally better or if it isn't...hire that freaking Swiss coach already! Also, while that team is certainly not the greatest out there, it's immensely stronger than any of the individuals can field seeing as how Slovenia and Latvia got the farthest of all these teams and are terrible.
The one major flaw I see is the identity of the proposed "Other All-Star Team." What could it possibly be made up of that makes any sense? Team World? Well there's an Australian in the AHL and I'm sure somebody can dig up Antropov from out back of the knee clinic, aside from that though? Hockey is sadly a North American and European sport. I've heard that the idea of having the second All-Star squad be a "Young Stars" team thrown out there...two reasons that is laughable.
1. If that means the best players under, let's say, 22 that couldn't make their own Olympic team then you have a conflict of interest. Say MacKinnon doesn't make Canada and is asked to join this team. Despite being an all world competitive guy, who in their right mind thinks the allegations of throwing a game or not giving your all won't be the story of the tournament. These kids love their country (especially the Russians, they'd rather die than play their own country literally) and 99% of them have dreamed of wearing the colours themselves. This isn't a patriotic wankfest, it's the truth, and if you think they want to play against their dream in a real tournament, you're out of your mind.
As Don Cherry often and loudly (if not arrogantly) proclaims "Canada can field two teams and win Gold and Silver." The truth of that is hard to determine, though the truth of fielding two teams is pretty realistic. The question then becomes again, a conflict of interest and the politics of having two teams from the same nation. It's a quagmire politically and let's not kid ourselves, the IIHF is anything if not a political quagmire.
2. Let's put aside the conflict of interest and go with just the pure "young stars" idea since one was proposed that it was the best U20 players...are you insane? They would get murdered. Want to see the results in a real live situation? Watch any European club hockey and watch the U20's on their teams. The few who made it are exceptional and most are treading water at that level. Sure it would be fun and an experiment, but a foolish one and basically re-establishing a weak link for teams to beat up on. Plus if this is a world All-Star team of U20 players, they will need to bring some of those UN Translators, because a lot of the European players at that stage still speak primarily their native tongue (especially in Russia) and Canadian's and American's second language options should they choose to take it up are sadly from countries without a lot of input.
It's an interesting concept, but I don't see how they can reasonably do it other than adding a second Canadian squad to compete. Even then...it's murky.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm excited to see the developments of the World Cup of Hockey. I like the changes and think this could really work out and be exciting as all hell. However, the final All-Star team is still up in the air and could make or break this deal depending on what they come out with.
Added this in the comment section as some fun, thought I'd post it in here officially.
Team Snub 2014
Hall-Giroux-Seguin O'Reilly-Thornton-Couture Neal-E.Staal-Okposo Lucic-Johansen-Simmonds Hornqvist
Hedman-Yandle Phaneuf-Giordano Seabrook-Wisniewski Lindholm
Bishop Schneider Bernier/Crawford/Anderson
Thanks for reading.