Jumptheshark
Rebooting myself
Many people in this thread do not understand what games are about.
The iihf is doing more to grow the game than the nhl is.
The iihf is doing more to grow the game than the nhl is.
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A couple of things...
1) The "smaller" nations being this awful is something that has only popped recently, so cutting the field by close to 40% might be a tad reactionary. Of the teams you are singling out all you have to do is go back to last year and you'll see that Denmark beat Finland and entered their last prelim round game with a chance of make the QFs. If you go back two years you'll see that France beat Finland & Switzerland, and played competitive games against Canada and the Czech Rep. The same year Norway took both Finland and the Czech Rep to overtime. France ended up missing out on the QFs by a single point, and as far as I can tell Norway entered their last prelim round game with a chance to advance to the QFs.
2) There is definitely a recent trend with the bottom end teams being less competitive and getting blown out more often, and I think the IIHF should be concerned about it, but reducing the field to 10 teams only masks the root of the problem, it doesn't address it.
I love watching Canada destroy teams
I guess its mostly because weve seen teams like Italy yo-yoing back and forth from Elite to DIV IA for 15-20 years now with no tangible benefit
Pretty sure I read we are the first country to win gold in back to back years in 1B and then 1A. Teams like Italy, France, Kazakhstan, Belarus, etc. can match the growth rate we're currently on.
Should make for an interesting tournament next year because we should be able to beat Belarus and Italy.
Italy and GB between them have probably ~10 or so players at MAXIMUM who could hold their own at ~AHL level right now, and some of them are tenuous. (Bernard, D. Kostner, Morini, Bowns, O'Connor, D. Phillips, Mosey, Hammond, Dowd, Perlini) Yet both managed to stay up...
I guess its mostly because weve seen teams like Italy yo-yoing back and forth from Elite to DIV IA for 15-20 years now with no tangible benefit
I like your last idea.Here are some terrible ideas:
They could do what the NHL does in the playoffs and make the refs tilt the game as much as they can to keep things close. If Canada starts to pull away from Italy in a game, the refs can start making a ton of calls on Canada, while ignoring everything Italy does, no matter how obvious. Its harder to pad a lead when your team is constantly killing penalties.
Or they could start combining lower ranked nations into a few better teams like Team Europe at the last World Cup. Perhaps putting random age restrictions only on the top 6 teams will help too. Canada can only send players under 25, USA can only send players 0ver 25. Russia has to send players between 23 ad 33, and Sweden has to send their junior team.
Or they could ban NHLers from competing, like at the last Olympics. Honestly, the NHL would probably prefer not to have their players risking injuries at the World Championships. If things are still lopsided, move on to removing KHL players next.
Dude, I'm Italian and I can truly say Bernard would maybe be a backup/3rd goalie in the AHL. Although he was left out to dry facing 50+ shots in most games, he let in some pretty woeful goals.Andreas Bernard is a legit good goalie though... and Morini is a good Euro league player. But the problem in Italy is it is literally just South Tyrol and parts of Lombardy and Veneto who play hockey. Such a small group of people to draw from.
Belarus can't be relegated next year and on paper they are far ahead.Should make for an interesting tournament next year because we should be able to beat Belarus and Italy.
Many people in this thread do not understand what games are about.
The iihf is doing more to grow the fame than the nhl is.
Dude, I'm Italian and I can truly say Bernard would maybe be a backup/3rd goalie in the AHL. Although he was left out to dry facing 50+ shots in most games, he let in some pretty woeful goals.
but push it back until the NHL playoffs are over
I can't for the life of me understand why people dislike the 3-2-1-0 points format.
Those comments about Bernard are a great example how Italian hockey players and coaches earn more respect abroad than in Italy. Yes, Bernard was all the time under the focus and if you absolutely want to find something wrong he did during the WC, you will find it. But as Italian to denigrate one of the best player Italy has is totally counter-productive for me.Dude, I'm Italian and I can truly say Bernard would maybe be a backup/3rd goalie in the AHL. Although he was left out to dry facing 50+ shots in most games, he let in some pretty woeful goals.