WJC: What does the IIHF need to do to make the World Juniors more popular in Europe?

[Zine]

So, many Canadians look at this as a bunch of scrubs without star power playing in a tournament against nobody they ever heard of before. The stars that they want to see are largely playing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. So Canadians tend to follow that.

If a big hurdle to WC success is the lack of star power/name recognition, why doesn't this also apply to WJC?
I doubt the average sports fan has even heard of 99% of WJC participants.
In fact, the vast majority of WJC participants won't ever be good enough to participate in the WC.

 

[nutbar]

If a big hurdle to WC success is the lack of star power/name recognition, why doesn't this also apply to WJC?
I doubt the average sports fan has even heard of 99% of WJC participants.
In fact, the vast majority of WJC participants won't ever be good enough to participate in the WC.

Yep. It's not as if the Czech Republic's WJC team, for example, is full of superstars and their WC team is composed of amateurs.

 

[Mathradio]

The Worlds and the WJCs are like day and night in regards of North America vs. Europe. That being said, there isn't much the IIHF could do, unless if, somehow, the media in the nations that can consistently take part in the WJCs hype the damned thing as the best hockey at that time of the year...

 

[LeafsNation75]

In fact, the vast majority of WJC participants won't ever be good enough to participate in the WC.

Jonathan Toews and Jordan Eberle are two Canadians that first played at the World Juniors then the World Championships. In fact both Towes and Eberle played at the World Championships before even playing a game in the NHL.

 

[LeafsNation75]

I forgot that Rick Nash, Ryan Getzlaf, Danny Heatley, Roberto Luongo, Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, Luke Schenn and Drew Doughty are others who played for Canada at the World Juniors and then the World Championships.

 

[mattihp]

If a big hurdle to WC success is the lack of star power/name recognition, why doesn't this also apply to WJC?
I doubt the average sports fan has even heard of 99% of WJC participants.
In fact, the vast majority of WJC participants won't ever be good enough to participate in the WC.

The WC players don't have the Dustin Rose complex

 

[Paxton Fettel]

relocate Canadians to Europe

 

[Shootmaster_44]

When exactly did Jean-François Damphousse play at the Worlds? Or even in Europe for that matter?

My bad it was J.F. Jomphe (sp?) he played very well and I think it may have earned him an NHL shot the next year. But every year Canada tends to put out a couple European pros.

 

[Shootmaster_44]

If a big hurdle to WC success is the lack of star power/name recognition, why doesn't this also apply to WJC?
I doubt the average sports fan has even heard of 99% of WJC participants.
In fact, the vast majority of WJC participants won't ever be good enough to participate in the WC.

What I mean is that many, many Canadian WJCs are stars in the CHL. Plus they are highly touted prospects for NHL teams. As of late the majority of Canada at the WJCs are drafted the previous June or even earlier. So they are well known by ardent NHL fans. Likely, many of Team Canada's WJCs will play at the Worlds (unless their NHL team is consistently good).

I was strictly referring to Canadian attitudes regarding the Worlds. Perhaps Sweden, Finland, Russia etc. this is different, but in Canada this is the case.

 

[nutbar]

My bad it was J.F. Jomphe (sp?) he played very well and I think it may have earned him an NHL shot the next year. But every year Canada tends to put out a couple European pros.

I think that was in 1995; NHL players weren't able to participate in the worlds in that year.

 

[Epsilon]

The Worlds and the WJCs are like day and night in regards of North America vs. Europe Canada vs. the rest of the world. That being said, there isn't much the IIHF could do, unless if, somehow, the media in the nations that can consistently take part in the WJCs hype the damned thing as the best hockey at that time of the year...

Fixed. In the United States almost no fans care or even know about either tournament, and the mainstream sports media cares even less. My guess is that if the USA did win the World Championships, the media would treat it as the bigger deal simply because of the name and the fact that the team would be made up of NHL players.

 

[jekoh]

My bad it was J.F. Jomphe (sp?) he played very well and I think it may have earned him an NHL shot the next year. But every year Canada tends to put out a couple European pros.

He indeed played at the Worlds, see http://www.eurohockey.net/players/show_player.cgi?serial=15071 but that was a full three seasons before he signed in Europe. The top European pros are not any worse than 3rd or 4th line nhlers, in fact it is often the very same players moving back and forth, Jomphe being an example.

The 1995 team Jomphe was on was a bit different from the previous and following ones: that was the lockout season and they did not ice a single nhl player. By comparison the 94 team has players like Rob Blake, Brind'Amour, Corson, Robitaille, Sakic, Shanahan, Verbeek, Kariya or Ranford, obviously much bigger names than anyone at the WJC.

 

[J17 Vs Proclamation]

I forgot that Rick Nash, Ryan Getzlaf, Danny Heatley, Roberto Luongo, Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, Luke Schenn and Drew Doughty are others who played for Canada at the World Juniors and then the World Championships.

Still a significant minority.

World Junior hockey will never be popular in Europe. Considering mens hockey can be somewhat regional and can be considered a niche sport to a certain extent, Junior hockey doesn't stand a hope in hell. Junior events in football are not big in Europe, so why this change in regards to hockey? Casual fans simply are never going to want to watch and why should they?

But what does it matter if the event is popular in Europe? People often make the mistake of correlating the popularity of the event with success of the Junior teams/programmes. This event has the simple function of highlighting the strength of each individual nation at a certain point in time. It's the players which are important ; the popularity of this event has absolutely no bearing on hockey success at any level or future participation by people and the health of junior hockey programmes.

 

[Yakushev72]

Yakushev 72

I forgot that Rick Nash, Ryan Getzlaf, Danny Heatley, Roberto Luongo, Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, Luke Schenn and Drew Doughty are others who played for Canada at the World Juniors and then the World Championships.

The WJC will likely never be noticed much outside of Canada. Buffalo is considered a pretty good hockey town for the US, but there was very little local interest or support for the WJC. TSN and CBC made the WJC big in Canada by televising all of Canada's games local audiences, and the fact that Canada has had a lot of success in the tournament is probably the most important ingredient in Canada's fixation with the WJC. For the most part, Canada's youth programs are far better funded and much larger than those of the rest of the World, which gives Canada a big edge in youth tournaments.

On the other hand, Europe, particular the Soviet Union/Russia, has fared much better at the senior level. At the senior level, European players start to accumulate the years of experience that Canadians have at a much earlier age, and the results show. Prior to NHL involvement, the WC's were strictly a European event - Europe's Stanley Cup - so there is a lot more interest in the WC's in Europe. Success breeds success, which is why Canadians stopped discounting the value of winning the WC when they started winning a few in the 1990's.

Which team is usually better, the Stanley Cup champion or World champion? Most years, the World Champion is likely to have more talent. Its all speculation, but I would love to see them play each other.

 

[Uncle Rotter]

The latest issue of The Hockey News states that the TV ratings for the December 31 Canada-Sweden game were about the same in Sweden as in Canada. For the 2008 Gold Medal game (according to the IIHF) 2.22 million Canadians (afternoon) & 995,000 Swedes (prime time) watched (population of Sweden is one third of Canada's).
http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/...ecord-tv-ratings-for-u20-final.html?tx_ttnews[backPid]=313&cHash=0eee18f5d8

 

[Belenos]

In Switzerland the biggest sports are football, alpine skiing and hockey. We're quite a small country, but still fill stadiums like in Basel in football (30'000) or Bern in hockey (17'000) and football (23'000). So the TV stations report about every football game, most of the hockey games of the NLA but also about every ski race, every match of Roger Federer and Wawrinka, F1 races and so on. There's not much space for junior sports. They started to show some images of the WJC games of Team Switzerland in the "short news" (About 20-30 seconds per game). That's it.

The only junior tournaments they show are the football-WJC and european championships. If Switzerland participates, the games are normally shown on TV. Last year the Under 17 Team of Switzerland became world champion and there was a huge hype around the team. Everybody was watching the games and it was in the headlines everywhere in swiss media. At the home tournaments they even can fill a stadium with 25'000 like in 2002...but in hockey that wouldn't be possible.

 

[Jussi]

The latest issue of The Hockey News states that the TV ratings for the December 31 Canada-Sweden game were about the same in Sweden as in Canada. For the 2008 Gold Medal game (according to the IIHF) 2.22 million Canadians (afternoon) & 995,000 Swedes (prime time) watched (population of Sweden is one third of Canada's).
http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/...ecord-tv-ratings-for-u20-final.html?tx_ttnews[backPid]=313&cHash=0eee18f5d8

In Sweden's case it helps that they've had excellent age groups for a few years now and that the games are on free tv on their national broadcasting company SVT. Plus that match was in practically prime time in Sweden IIRC. Finland don't have such promising prospects and the games are on pay-tv.