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2016 World Cup of Hockey |OT| World Cashgrab of Who Cares - Sponsored by SAP

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Kazerei

Banned
They are really playing up the USA/Canada and Finland/Sweden rivalries with that pre-tournament schedule. Those match-ups happen twice, in Columbus and Ottawa, and in Helsinki and Gothenburg for the local crowd. And then they play again in the round-robin. So we get to see USA/Canada and Finland/Sweden at least three times over the next two weeks. Amazing.
 

Madness

Member
I'm not used to watch Hockey but "World Cup" , only 8 teams , some of them don't even represent a country lol It's kinda sad

I don't know, I mean you have the 8 best teams in the world. Ice hockey is a limited sport that unless you live in a northern country, one affluent enough to have ice skating rinks, you are limited.

There are more teams out there like Belarus, Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark and others that improve and get better. But that is what Team NA and Europe are for. All the talent that cannot fit on Canada, USA and under 23 goes to Team NA which seems like a real threat and the other European teams not represented as well or deep enough to have a roster can join and be a sleeper against teams.
 

Quick

Banned
We might be really pessimistic about this now, but I'm sure that'll switch to reserved acceptance once games start up in a couple of days.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Seems like many people in here are under the impression that this is the world championship. It's not. That's held every year in May with a lot more teams, unfortunately without many of the best players because it's during the NHL playoffs. This is a separate cup with a much higher concentration of NHL players. It's been played a few times before, but not since 2004.

Anyway, go Sweden!
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
I'll try to make it out to a game, probably team NA... But tix will prob be ridiculous.

The tickets for the Sweden - Finland game in Gothenburg are around $30-$100 depending on the seat. But they're all sold out already, so I'll have to watch it at a bar.
 
Ovi named captain of Team Russia.

I'm mostly just interested in Team NA. Even bought a Matthews shirt.
I'm sorry, Bettman won.
 

Robert807

Member
I can't wait for this tournament. Unlike the world championships tournament in May , this tournament has the best players in the world. Canada vs USA play 3 times in the next couple of weeks. USA team really wants to beat Canada badly this time. They still hurt about the 1 to 0 lose in the Olympics. The players was talking about it on tv yesterday about that lose. Good hockey coming up in the next few weeks. I think it's safe to say Canada going to win this tournament. 3 golds out of the last 5 Olympics. They won the last World Cup in 2004. I'm sure they also won some world championships too in the last few years.
 

RC

Banned
I've been thinking, rather than having a World Cup which is just a lesser Olympic tournament with a few gimmick teams thrown into the mix. They should instead revive the Canada Cup but the change the format to province vs province.

Granted a tournament like that would only appeal to Canadians, but it would be nice to have a have something other than country versus country all the time.
 

Reckheim

Member
I hope everyone gets injured and the Czech team wins.

I hope everyone gets injured except for Matthews and Europe and Czechia are in the finals.

What a dumb money grab tournament.

Apparently Russia applied to host the next tournament in 2020, wonder if NHL will allow that ...
 

zroid

Banned
I've been thinking, rather than having a World Cup which is just a lesser Olympic tournament with a few gimmick teams thrown into the mix. They should instead revive the Canada Cup but the change the format to province vs province.

Granted a tournament like that would only appeal to Canadians, but it would be nice to have a have something other than country versus country all the time.

That actually would be interesting
 
I've been thinking, rather than having a World Cup which is just a lesser Olympic tournament with a few gimmick teams thrown into the mix. They should instead revive the Canada Cup but the change the format to province vs province.

Granted a tournament like that would only appeal to Canadians, but it would be nice to have a have something other than country versus country all the time.

A Canada Cup would be fun
 
Ontario has Stamkos, Tavares, Giroux, and Perry at forward; Subban, Burns, and Doughty on defence. Goalies are weaker (Mason, Elliott, Murray).

You'd have to combine all the Maritime provinces and even then it would just be Crosby, Mackinnon, Marchand, Killorn, and Purcell. Their defence would be McQuaid and MacDonald, and Jake Allen would be their starter.

Quebec would be competitive with Bergeron, Huberdeau, Brassard, Duclair, and Drouin. Defence is quite strong with Letang, Vlasic, Demers, and Scandella. Goalies are Luongo, Fleury, and Crawford.

Looking at the prairie provinces, Manitoba has Toews, Sharp, Steen, Keith, and Reimer. Saskatchewan has Getzlaf and Holtby. Alberta has Hall, Little, Bouwmeester, and Green, but their goalies are Scrivens and Johnson. You could combine them into a fairly good team.

BC could probably field a team of its own with Benn, RNH, Johansen, Ladd, Weber, Seabrook, Barrie, Price, and Jones.

But since this is 5 teams, have a 6th International team made up of the other countries. :p
 

Kazerei

Banned
You could have a separate Team GTA and Team Ontario and they'd both still be pretty competitive, I think. If you include Newmarket and Whitby in Team GTA, they'd have McDavid and Seguin in addition to Stamkos and Tavares. Defense would be solid with guys like Subban, Pietrangelo, and Giordano. And I think Team Ontario would do fine with Doughty, Burns, Ekblad, Giroux, Perry, Spezza, Nash, Duchene, etc.
 

zroid

Banned
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JFC. Just stop playing anthems at sporting events already, this is dumb.
 
I get your point, but seems hockey is not widespread as other sports are , they could use this world cup as an incentive to other countries to invest on the sport i guess

As much as people like to shit on Worlds championship it has directly led to more competitive international hockey. I mean countries like Belarus, Latvia, Denmark etc still of course are rather far away from the top but they are good enough that you can't half ass the games and win easily like back in a day. KHL has also helped to spread hockey more in eastern Europe especially.
 
Exhibition games begin today!


Wooooo!

It's Team Czech Republic vs. Team Russia - VTB Arena; Moscow
12:30pm - ESPN3, Sportsnet, TVA Sports

Team Sweden vs. Team Finland - Hartwall Arena; Helsinki
Noon ET/7 p.m. local - ESPN3, Sportsnet, TVA Sports

Team Europe vs. Team North America - Videotron Centre; Quebec City
8 p.m. ET - ESPN2, Sportsnet, TVA Sports

Wooooo!
 
I wonder if Hartwall Arena is full today. They priced tickets insanely high (compared to next game in Sweden). At least week ago there was still pretty high amount tickets unsold.
 
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