Quoting: mondo
completely unrelated to any of the above discussion, how does everyone feel about nhl players returning to the olympics?
Quoting: Rangsey
I'll believe it when I see it. But the lack of a true best on best tournament hurts the growth of the game.
Quoting: A_Habs_fan
The problem is how do you fit it into the middle of the NHL season, and do teams actually want some of their players to participate, hence why I think World cups during the offseason makes more sense
Personally, I would love to see a permanent agreement/structure to have an Olympic ice hockey tournament held every 4 years and a World Cup in the years in-between. Logistically I know that there are many challenges to this.
1) Incorporate more of the "series" type scheduling into NHL travel to minimize the days on the calendar needed for the NHL season.
For Example: it took 189 calendar days for the Nashville Predators and 188 calendar days for the San Jose Sharks to complete their 82 game seasons. Most teams were around 182-183.
An 82 game schedule should be able to get completed in 168 calendar days (taking 14 days off for the international tournament) or less.
2) Increase more intra-divisional games to 6 per season, intra-conference to 3, and inter-conference to 1.
Helps achieve #1 and promotes more rivalries. This would allow for at least each team to host one set of B2B nights at their home arena against each divisional opponent.
3) Host the international tournament during a 2 week break at the end of February.
Basically collapse the All-Star break and all of the team's "Bye Weeks" into a 2 week period AT THE SAME TIME.
Winter Olympics could slightly alter this schedule but it will be close enough.
Host the GM meetings during this break as well.
4) Remove the actual NHL All-Star Game (not the honor, just the game and the skills competition, etc).
How does this help the game anymore (at least compared to an international competition?)
5) Remove the International series games played outside of North America. I'm OK with exhibition games/pre-season games but not real games.
-Unless the World Cup or Olympics host site is in Europe of course but those would not be "NHL games".
6) Expand the countries represented with 1-game "play-in" games at the early stage of the tournaments.
This would help expand the audience and exposure for ice hockey. In some ways I don't mind a "collective World team" if there are parameters around it so that we can maintain the spirit of "best on best" and with the view of expanding the audience of the game but I don't know how to do that without making arbitrary decisions that would not work long-term.
Nations like Norway (Zuccarello), Denmark (Ehlers/Bjorkstrand/Andersen), Latvia (Blueger/Balcers/Merzlikins), Austria (Rossi/Kasper), Slovenia (Kopitar), and even Ukraine (conflict aside), Poland, France, England and Italy could make great cinderella stories if given a chance. Not to mention growing the audience. Think about in reverse with Canada at the 2022 World Cup of Soccer recently; just qualifying and getting to play makes a huge difference in the attention and exposure in that country.
7) Alter the format, so there are 8 locked in seeds from the previous international rankings + 16 "play-in" games and no round-robin; just straight to the knockout tournament. This makes every game matter and reduces risk of injury to NHL players and allows for the tournament to be completed within a 2-week window.
For example in 2024 we would have:
Locked seeds (Ranked in order): Canada, Finland, Russia, USA, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Czechia.
Play-in games: Slovakia vs Lithuania, Latvia vs Romania, Denmark vs Poland, Norway vs Korea, France vs Great Britain, Belarus vs Hungary, Kazakhstan vs Italy, Austria vs Slovenia
re-seed after each round.
8) NHL/NHLPA and the IIHF co-host the tournament (tickets, etc) and the media rights for these tournaments from a profit-sharing perspective AND the 50% share counts towards Hockey Related Revenue for the salary cap sake.
9) Simultaneously host a women's World Cup (during non-Olympic years) at the same host city and play their games during the "breaks" in competition and aired on the same media outlets as the men's tournament. It might only be an 8 team tournament to start but it can expand from there in the future.