The World Cup of Hockey could be perfect but it needs tweaks

The World Cup of Hockey could be perfect but needs tweaks

Gary Bettman today announced the long awaited return of the World Cup of Hockey which was last contested in 2004, 11 years ago. The return was greeted with optimism but there were two teams that have rightly struck an unhappy cord with some. Within the 8 teams that have been announced in the World Cup of Hockey to take place in 2016 are a Team Europe and a Team of Young stars. Forgive me if I shudder at this.

A Team Europe (Or Rest of Europe) as some have described it is an insult in my opinion to the European Hockey nations who haven't been chosen as an outright playing nation because they don't have a high enough number of NHL players to make a proportion of a team. Why should nations like Switzerland and Slovenia miss out in place of a gimmick such as above? Both nations have proved themselves somewhat at the recent Olympics in 2014 and another nation, Slovakia, did excellent at the most recent World Junior Championships. Not that it should mean an instant acceptance at the top table but it shows potential for growth in the game there. Co-incidentally, Switzerland and Slovakia are 7th and 8th in the World Rankings which would make a real "top 8 teams".

The World Cup of Hockey should be used to not only promote the sport through excellent on ice competition but to also help grow the game in its non-traditional or less prosperous areas. Giving Europe a team helps sure but do they really think that a Slovenian is going to be interested in that as much if Kopitar is playing than if there was an individual Slovenian national team? There is also the question of how you decide if a player should play in the Young Stars team or the national team for Canada or USA? For instance, by the time the tournament takes place McDavid could be one of the best players in the NHL yet be forced to play in the Young Stars team rather than the National one. There have been rumours that these teams will be one offs which is good but they shouldn't even be happening, there are teams who can take their place just waiting in the wings who will actually matter to people and interest more people.

Now, other changes or rather tweaks I make include the above removal of the two gimmick teams but also a change in the format of the tournament and how it will progress in the future. I'd like to see the tournament expand to 12 teams and have three groups of four. The top two from each go through to the knock-out and it is straightforward from there. How would I get those extra four teams? Well I would have the 6 nations mentioned for the 2016 edition along with Switzerland and Slovakia mentioned above. I would then have four qualification places to try and help make it a really true World Cup of Hockey.

Now, people are probably expecting me to say that teams from all four corners of the globe should be there but that'd be stupid as you'd end up with a team from Africa getting demolished. What the qualification places should be are for 3 European Teams and 1 Rest of the World team. By Rest of the World I mean a team from Asia, South America, Africa or Australasia. This would be likely be one of South Korea or Japan, which isn't terrible. 

The qualification would be fairly straight forward for the European teams and be similar to that used in Olympic qualification where it is in two stages. The first three European teams outside the top 8 would host the final qualification group stages which would consist of three groups of four. Next, 6 spots would be taken up by the next top 6 ranked European nations. This would leave a space in each group. To fill these groups the next 12 ranked European nations would take part in a tournament in a similar format to above (Three groups of four) with each group winner advancing. The Rest of the World qualification would be two groups of four with the top two winners facing each other for the right to play in the World Cup. If teams from the Rest of the World improve then you could give them two places and take one from Europe or increase the number of teams that take part.

In all, the World Cup of Hockey could be great and it has the potential to be a brilliant way to grow the game and create some of the best hockey seen. The NHL or whoever the organising body ends up being should look at the original Canada Cup's and look to try and replicate that in this tournament if they truly want to make it memorable and a tournament worth having in pre-season before the start of the season. I look forward to it but I'm not enamoured with the idea of the two gimmick teams.