Get Ready For Another Senseless Slaughter

If this was women's international hockey, there would be no shortage of opinions this morning that it was a joke, that the scores and the nature of competition was making a mockery of the sport, that only a few of the teams involved really have a change to win it all and so the entire competition should be scrapped.

Watching Canada romp to victories of 8-1 and 15-0 in its first two games at the world junior championships over the weekend has been, to be charitable, anything but interesting. You can expect more of the same tonight against the Germans, with a New Year's Eve tilt against the Americans likely to be Canada's first confrontation with a meaningful opponent.

Throw in the three pre-tourney games Canada captured by a combined score of 18-5 over Sweden, Finland and Slovakia, and you have a gap between the world's top junior teams and the lesser countries that appears to be growing.

Not unlike the women's game.

Really, we're back to where we were about 15-20 years ago with the world juniors. Back then, it was countries like Switzerland and Germany taking one-sided beatings at the hands of Canada, Russia and Sweden. Both those countries got better, and the Swiss even captured a bronze medal a decade ago in Helsinki.

But now the Swiss aren't even in the A Pool any more, and the Germans don't seem to be making signficant progress. Ditto for Slovakia, which appeared a few years ago to be a country on the verge of joining the top echelon of teams, and now the Czech program seems to have dipped since last winning gold in 2001. The notion that former Soviet republics like Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine would quickly develop into modern hockey powers based seems to have been ill-founded.

Instead of his regular Thursday hockey mail bag, Damien Cox is taking your questions and comments about junior hockey and will answer a selection all week in his blog. Whether it relates to the Maple Leafs, Team Canada, or any European hotshots, send a note to Damien and check back every day for the answers. Click here to send Damien a question.

Canada or Russia (in its various forms) have won 16 of the past 20 world junior tournaments, which some might argue makes essentially this a two-team competition. That said, both Sweden and the U.S. appear to have gold medal-worthy squads in Ottawa this year, and the Swedes were in the final last year, so a four-team competition is probably more accurate. By the time this competition gets to the playoff round, it should still be well worth watching.

Sadly, the advent of under-17 and under-18 world championships, rather than helping other nations become more competitive with the major world powers, has instead had the unintended effect of making the better nations even better.

It's time for Canada, and the IIHF, to start figuring out some answers to this problem. In fact, with the tournament not set to return to Europe at all until 2013, there's a danger that this competition will lose its lustre as an international event - in some countries it never had it - and instead come to be seen as a tournament that can only be sold in Canada or U.S. cities bordering on Canada and is filled with lopsided scores and uneven competition.

This much seems clear. Expanding to 12 teams from the current format of 10 teams is not the answer. Can't imagine the folks who bought tickets for yesterday's 15-0 demolition of Kazakhstan feel like they got their money's worth.

Since the Open Ice Summit of 1999, Canada has re-focused its hockey efforts on skill and skill development, and the results have been impressive. A decade ago, Canadian junior organizers would never have dreamed of icing a team like this year's that has little size and few bangers but is dominated by smaller, faster and highly skilled players. Where once Canada was all about the dump-and-chase, it's clear Canadian teams have as much skill as any other country now that the game has been able to breathe a bit in this country.

The dinosaurs aren't gone, of course. But they're a little less dominant, although now you can hear them beating their chests, saying that critics who ever said there was anything lacking in Canada's approach to the sport have been proven wrong.

Nonsense. The Open Ice Summit marked a change in Canada's attitude to the game, and now we're developing more high-end skilled players than ever before. NHL teams looking for players to run their power play no longer have to hunt down a group of Europeans - Canadians can do the job nicely. Junior teams around the country are less reliant on imports for skilled players than was once the case.

Changes in the sport and its rules have also opened the doors for a different approach to the game, and Canada, by being willing to admit 10 years ago that it needed to rethink its approach, has benefitted enormously, particularly at the junior level.

Problem is, what the world junior championships did not need, really, was for Canada to get better. It needed a bunch of other countries to catch up, and that's just not happening.

Comments

[Walt Webb]

Yes I understand that it is a bit of a catch 22 for the IIHF, but what do you do, you still need the other teams to fill out the tourney. I guess the only alternative is to put the B pool into a C pool and have the lesser lights in the A pool play each other in the B pool. Then only Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Czech and the USA would be in the A pool. That being said it would not solve the problem. Canada could put two teams into the world junior and very likely those to teams would battle for the goal medal. Should we apologize for being better? Truth be told if Canada plyed any nation in a best 4 of 7 at any level, the money would be on Canada. The only reason the other countries stand a chance is that anything can happen in a one game format. Lets see how the medal rounds go before jumping to the conclusion that things have to be fixed.
Walt AKA All Sports on the Web
All Sports on the Web

[Gene]

I watched 2 periods of the game against the Czechs, would not watch the Can/Kaz game, and under no circumstances will I watch the Can/Ger game. Every year games like this are forced on us and it sucks!

As far as I'm concerned, Can/USA will be the first real test that our WJC team will face and then it's off to the elimination rounds. This makes for a terribly insignificant first half of a tournement!

In the other division, we have the Russians, Finns and Swedes (the rest don't matter!). We may only play one of them and no more than two of them. This format is flawed and needs to be fixed. We should be playing every team in the tournement! There are years where we don't get to play some of the top teams but we have to see Can/Kaz and Can/Ger?? Thanks for nothing!

In my opinion, they should go back to eight teams where each team plays each other once(the old way):
-The two teams with the best records play in the gold medal game and the 3rd and 4th seeds play for the bronze. That would give us the Gold Medal game at the end of the WJC and still play all the relevent teams.
-Not having a semi-final round also makes each game important through the eight team round robin. Taking a game off could land you in the 3rd seed and no chance for the gold!
-NO BYES! For all intents and purposes, the winner of one game, CAN/USA, will get a bye. That's too much reward for just winning a game. Also, that's one less game we get to watch our team play.
-The bottom TWO teams(7th and 8th seeds), play the top TWO teams from this year's "B" pool in a four team pre-WJC tournement in August two see which teams go to the "A" pool(two) and to the "B" pool(two). Right now, teams are relegated based on a teams performence the year before. How much sense does that make considering that many of last year's players are too old to polay in this year's WJC??

Comments?

[Mike Ritchie]

I have to agree with this assessment. While I cheer mightily for Canada to win, it's just not the same buzz against inferior squads. I felt badly for yesterday's opponents, the Kazakh's. No one wants to see someone embarassed, but this tournament, as well as most interational tournaments, make's one teams ability to humiliate the opposition important. Run up the score because goal differential may be important down the line. It penalizes good sportsmanship.

Yesterday's game looked like a 60 minute powerplay. Basically is was.

[Gus Bradley]

I was a ticket holder for the 06 tourney in Vancouver. I bought the package to watch Canada but couldn't give away tickets to the 6 vs 7 or 8 vs 9 games. As long as TSN bucks up for the TV rights and we buy ticket packages worth over $1000.00 each (in Vancouver they sold out) to see Canada win the championship, Hockey Canada will continue to promote the status quo. And the World Junior Tournament goes as Hockey Canada wants.
One of the big issues is that teams are seeded based on the performance of 19 year-olds from the previous tournament who no longer are available for the present tournament. I think the under-18 finish should dictate seeding in the next under-20 tournament. I feel that the pools should be 8 teams instead of 10 to reduce the number of also-rans. Maybe there should be 3 pools instead of the two so you could have 6 team groups, playing a round robin format with one team promoted or relegated.
There's a couple of quick fixes I just came up with. I'm sure HC could solve the issues if they wanted to. Unfortunately, given the momentum of tournament interest, they won't change until well after the damage is done.

[Spence]

It certainly can't be good for the WJHC if none of the fringe teams ever improve. But I just don't think the focus is there. Take for example the Spengler Cup, it's a big deal in Euro, but here, the women's team would draw more interest and we'll send anyone to that tourney to represent Canada. Heck, we'd send a bunch of TTC bus drivers to lace 'em up if no one else was available.

Maybe it's time to allow for/encourage countries like Khazakstan, Belurus, France, Germany, etc., to hire Canadian coaches to run their junior national programs as they do in FIFA u-20 soccer.

[Duncan Macintyre]

The Canadian team is refreshingly free of would be NHL thugs. Many of these young, skilled,players will not play in the NHL.
I look forward to the 'World Junior Tournament', it's the best hockey on the planet. The European teams will get better, they will realize that speed and skill is what hockey is all about. Thank God Canada is leading the way. Maybe the NHL will come to the conclusion that hockey is not synonymous with 'roller derby and wrestling'. The end of the franchise in Nashville might be a good start.

[Jake]

In Gretzky's early days of stardom there were a lot of heavy hands in the NHL. Juniors had speed and power but little finese. Coming to the bigs they still had a lot to learn.
That has changed over many years.
The Rocket was asked if Wayne would win the scoring title in his day and the wise MR said yes but not by as much as he did. And today he would win it but not by as much as he did in some years.
Canadian kids are learning finese. Speed and power is understood. Look at the top 15 scorers in the NHL. Many are Canadian.
I went to an exibition game many years ago when Salming and Hammerstrom tried out for the Leafs. The papers asked can they make it? hahaha make it?...after seeing them myself the only question was how good would they be.

[Dan]

One of the problems with the current format is that for teams like Canada, these first few games are still exhibition, and it's very difficult to tune up for the games that really matter. How many REAL games are there for Canada? Three. Against the U.S., then semi-final, then final. That's a tournament? What they should do is invite only the best 4 or 6 teams, and have best of 3 series. I personally would rather see a best of 3 series for a semi-final AND final, than Canada win 15-0. Further, it must be hard for Quinn to keep his players focused in games like this. Invite the top 4-6 nations, and have best of 3 series. That also validates the winner a bit more, rather than this "soccer match" mentality of playing only one game for all the marbles. Anything can happen in a single game, and it's an unfair way to determine a champ.

[Para]

I too feel bad for those who got beaten horribly by Team Canada. I hope Canadians can reach out to the teams that were beaten and show them its not the end of the road. The IIHF should work on boosting the spirit of all hockey teams.

[RCA]

I think this article underlines what many Canadians don't like to admit...that hockey, globally, is declining in popularity. Kids in Europe aren't playing it, it has no chance to catch on in other nations, it is an expensive sport to play, it's global marketing has been terrible; it is getting destroyed by basketball all over the world. It's only a matter of time before we see a return to the old "six countries at the top, the rest treat hockey the way we treat skiing" mentality. Either that or the NHL and the IIHF need to do some serious grassroots efforts to raise the profile of this sport outside of Canada, Russia, and Michigan.

[jboy]

Let's package the Junior tournament with the World Curling championship and the women's hockey championship and we can have a grand old time.

Give us a sheet of ice and we can rule the world.

Come on Canada, wake up, this is just terrible stuff. Nobody else in the world really cares.

[Tabber]

Jboy, why should we care that nobody else cares? It's our sport, or are our sports, so we can celebrate them. There are "sports" out there in other countries that you haven't even heard of that those people care about, are you going to tell them to stop playing hurling, or elephant polo, just because you and billions of others don't care? If you don't want to watch, fine, don't, but there's no need to spoil it for others that do enjoy it.

As far as the number of teams, the idea for the IIHF is to make money, and the more games, the better the chance of making that money that makes the world go round (not saying it's right, just saying). That said, some suggestions about the qualifying being more timely or based on Under 18s would help, but countries' interest will only go down if their teams never make it to the A pool, and that's no way to "grow the sport".

And Duncan Macintyre, many of these youngsters WILL play in the NHL, for me this tourney is great for seeing these kids before they get to the NHL.

[jboy]

Hey Tabber, if you enjoy a 15-0 hockey game, you must enjoy pounding the crap out of your 75 year old granny too.

Real entertaining stuff.

As for hurling, and elephant polo, you miss the point. Do you see us sending teams to their tourney? So we can get crushed?
No, we don't.

We don't play in the world cup of soccer because we shouldn't be there. If you are going to have a sports event, then include only the teams that can compete,,,,,and if you can't find any, then you can't have "international" cometitions.

[kushiro]

The reason Canada "doesn't play" in the World Cup is not because there's no point, but rather because the team has not been able to win a spot via the CONCACAF tournament. The Canadian team would very much like to participate in the World Cup again; it just hasn't happened yet.

Canada also continues to send teams to cricket, rugby, and basketball world competitions, despite poor showings in those events. To use your words, they "get crushed", but it doesn't seem to deter them.