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World Cup

JaysCyYoung said:
But why is there a Team Europe in the first place? If the point of the competition to you is to have the best teams, do away with the national teams entirely and just create an all-star tournament.

That way you would have far more parity and much stronger teams than limiting players based on their country of origin, right? That's essentially what you are arguing for here.
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No I am arguing for this exact format. It has been amazing. It's been the best combo between quality and having rooting interests.
 
leafman101 said:
No I am arguing for this exact format. It has been amazing.
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I think the long hockey lay-off is clouding your mind a bit. I've read some of the articles on the tournament and seen a bit of footage and it doesn't appear to be any more amazing than any other hockey I've seen.

But again, why have national teams at all? You seem to just want to see glorified all-star squads go at it. Ditch the international component and just have rosters filled with the best talent.

That's cool too, and I wish the tournament would be a little more honest and transparent about its intentions here.
 
JaysCyYoung said:
The West Indies are currently ranked eighth in both the ICC one day international and test match rankings. They haven't made a Cricket World Cup final in 33 years. The two times they won were with rosters largely comprised of British expats and players who had grown up in the United Kingdom.

Let's not make this as disingenuous as you're attempting to frame things here.

And reality is not a buzzword. The fact that you don't understand basic political and sociological concepts really makes sense, because you have a clear inability to understand the purpose of international competition. You've never liked it, you've never appreciated it, you've stated numerous times on here throughout the years how you don't care how Canada does in any tournaments, etc. So just come out and admit it.

And any little boy growing up in the Caribbean would absolutely choose to play for their individual countries over a geographic conglomeration. The same can be said anywhere else in the world.

Most people outside of North America actually have STRONGER attachments to their countries than we do here, not weaker, which might strike some observers as odd given how patriotic a lot of Americans are, but it's not even comparable. They care.
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Summarizes things really well Jays but i don't think you'll be able to get that through to them because they simply either don't get it(unlikely) or don't want to on purpose because it's easier to keeping going with same lame argument(most likely). Either way, it's why i don't care for arguing over this any longer.
 
JaysCyYoung said:
But why is there a Team Europe in the first place?
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Because they rightly wanted to include elite hockey players in a major international tournament on a competitive team. Like leafman said, it's about the hockey. This whole "legitimacy" thing is just manufactured made up garbage. Why is this less legitimate than anything else? It's just teams playing hockey, stop acting like the legitimacy police.
 
JaysCyYoung said:
I think the long hockey lay-off is clouding your mind a bit. I've read some of the articles on the tournament and seen a bit of footage and it doesn't appear to be any more amazing than any other hockey I've seen.

But again, why have national teams at all? You seem to just want to see glorified all-star squads go at it. Ditch the international component and just have rosters filled with the best talent.

That's cool too, and I wish the tournament would be a little more honest and transparent about its intentions here.
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The international aspect creates rooting interests that people love. You love it. It's pretty obvious why. Even asking the question seems silly.
 
Preston_Mizzi said:
Because they rightly wanted to include elite hockey players in a major international tournament on a competitive team. Like leafman said, it's about the hockey. This whole "legitimacy" thing is just manufactured made up garbage. Why is this less legitimate than anything else? It's just teams playing hockey, stop acting like the legitimacy police.
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If it's about the hockey, again, why the faux-national team hybridized format? Just go straight all-star squads and divvy up the talent evenly. That would be awesome to see Crosby play with Matthews, no?
 
leafman101 said:
The international aspect creates rooting interests that people love. You love it. It's pretty obvious why. Even asking the question seems silly.
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You can't have it both ways. You can either embrace a true international format or go the all-star route, not both. That's why so many people were upset at the outset.
 
JaysCyYoung said:
If it's about the hockey, again, why the faux-national team hybridized format? Just go straight all-star squads and divvy up the talent evenly. That would be awesome to see Crosby play with Matthews, no?
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But why the need to do it that way though? There is no legitimate reason.
 
leafman101 said:
But why the need to do it that way though? There is no legitimate reason.
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You can't claim to have national teams and then not allow countries like Canada or the United States to pick all of their players, or to combine two random continental squads (one of whom is restricted further by age group) into a tournament with other national teams.
 
JaysCyYoung said:
You can't have it both ways. You can either embrace a true international format or go the all-star route, not both. That's why so many people were upset at the outset.
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But the whole basis of this argument is just wrong. We have it both ways right now. And it's great.

I'm not a fan of arbitrary rules of what can and cannot be done. Push the boundaries. Think outside the box. Strive for greatness.
 
Yeah, I think we've re-hashed this article enough times. To me the litmus test would be how you felt if your team lost in the final. If Canada lost in the Olympic final I would be absolutely devastated. It would probably upset me for a month (or four years!).

If Canada lost in this tournament I would not care one bit. It doesn't prove anything.

There's just zero emotional investment or attachment to the thing. It just feels entirely artificial and manufactured to me. Rogers doing their absolute hardest to push this on everyone has only made me resent it more.

They're even forcing all of their poor radio personalities to pimp the shit out of it I've noticed.
 
Artnes said:
Shut your brain off and enjoy it for what it is.
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+1

No need to twist yourself into a pretzel trying to justify your love or hate for it. Probably won't see anything quite like this again anyway. I'm enjoying the competitive hockey. Can't wait for for the next NA game.

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It's not a true international tournament, and should not be held in the same regards as the Olympics or even the previous versions of the Canada/World Cup.

It's a manufactured NHL tournament, that benefits the league and it's players. It's been brilliantly marketed, and the quality of hockey has been top notch.

It's appeal is hitting a lot of sweet spots that the league hasn't been able to tap into, and from an ownership perspective brings another high-level event that can be held in a different NHL city every 4 years (or whatever time-frame they determine).
 
Really I can't help but believe this all comes down to Bettman. For Euro fans its more of a generalized NHL hate/jealousy, though they're not immune from the Bettman hate either.


I mean this is nothing new - everytime Bettman's NHL tries something new, they get crushed for it at first.

- expansion? horrible.
- instigator rule? horrible.
- salary cap? horrible.
- shootout? horrible.
- 4-on-4 OT? horrible.
- world cup? horrible.

every single time.

and in retrospect, the hate looks so silly.
 
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