Just to add to the previous post about only having round robin games...
So far this years tournament ranks 12th in average goal differential per game out of the 45 official tournaments that have been played. Of the 11 that rank higher, all but three were played under the aforementioned format. So if you don't like blowouts, the old format wouldn't be that appealing.
Of those three tournaments not under that format
1981 - Teams were in two groups of 4, played a round robin top 2 from each group would move on to the Championship round, bottom 4 would go to the consolation round. Then another round robin was played in each group. Last place in the consolation group was relegated (Austria), First in the Championship won gold (Sweden) The tournament ended in anti-climactic form with a 6-6 tie between Czechoslovakia (4th) and Finland (Silver)
1978 - Same format as above, except it wasn't called Consolation round, it was called "Group B" in the Championship round.. last place still got relegated (Switzerland), after the round robin for Group A in the Championship round the top two teams played in a gold medal game with the Soviet Union beating Sweden 5-2 (Sweden beat them 6-3 in the first round robin, Soviets won 5-0 in the Championship round)
2009 - Two groups of 5 teams each. The tournament was expanded to 10 teams for the 1996 tournament, presumably to accommodate for the fall of the iron curtain and thus there were more teams. Teams played a round robin with the top 3 teams from each group advancing to the Final round and the remaining 4 teams moving to the relegation round. The top team from each group received a bye into the semi finals in the final round. Canada won their 5th straight gold after beating Sweden 5-1, but they had to beat the Russians 6-5 in overtime to get to the goal medal game. The bottom two teams in the relegation round were sent down to the Division I for 2010 (Germany/Kazakhstan)
This years tournament is less about the offence, and more about the defense. So far this year the losing team is averaging 1.15 goals per game. The lowest in tournament history
Year | Games | GF | GA | Dif | Avg GF | Avg GA | Avg Dif |
1987 | 27 | 211 | 59 | 152 | 7.81 | 2.19 | 5.63 |
1991 | 28 | 200 | 52 | 148 | 7.14 | 1.86 | 5.29 |
1984 | 28 | 209 | 62 | 147 | 7.46 | 2.21 | 5.25 |
1982 | 28 | 214 | 68 | 146 | 7.64 | 2.43 | 5.21 |
1993 | 28 | 191 | 50 | 141 | 6.82 | 1.79 | 5.04 |
1981 | 20 | 153 | 54 | 99 | 7.65 | 2.70 | 4.95 |
1986 | 28 | 192 | 54 | 138 | 6.86 | 1.93 | 4.93 |
1989 | 28 | 195 | 59 | 136 | 6.96 | 2.11 | 4.86 |
1978 | 25 | 184 | 63 | 121 | 7.36 | 2.52 | 4.84 |
2009 | 31 | 195 | 46 | 149 | 6.29 | 1.48 | 4.81 |
1983 | 27 | 186 | 59 | 127 | 6.89 | 2.19 | 4.70 |
2021 | 20 | 116 | 23 | 93 | 5.80 | 1.15 | 4.65 |
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