Hockey World Cup All-Star teams would be a bad idea
When Belarus defeated Sweden at the 2002 Olympic Games, it was David vs. Goliath revisited. It was a second Miracle on Ice. Fans always love the tale of the underdog upending a powerful country in international competition.
But would fans have the same emotional response if a team of younger North American players defeats Team Canada or Team USA at the 2016 World Cup?
Of course not.
Fans are not going to know how to feel if World Cup organizers follow through on the proposal to add two special teams to the mix for the 2016 World Cup.
Nothing has been finalized, and we are being told there are still several issues to be settled, but the NHL and NHL Players' Association are discussing a World Cup tournament field that would include USA, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic, plus a European All-Star team made up of players from other countries and a team made up of top young players from North America.
The intent is noble. The NHL, and particularly the NHLPA, prefers to give as many NHL players as possible a chance to play.
This plan would allow us to see Slovenia's AnzeKopitar, Switzerland's Roman Josi, Austria's Thomas Vanek, Norway's Mats Zuccarello, Germany's Christian Ehrhoff and a legion of Slovaks led by ZdenoChara.
Out-of-the-box thinking is also how we landed on the idea of patching together a team of rising young stars to compete as the eighth team. Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon probably won't make the Canadian team, but he will be the No. 1 center on this team. Florida's Aaron Ekblad could be the top defenseman and Anaheim's John Gibson could be in net.
It's a creative plan to be sure, but would it make the World Cup a better tournament?
Of course not.
The public's love for country vs. country competition is well-established. Could you imagine soccer's World Cup embracing this idea?
Of course not.
Soccer doesn't need to do anything like this because what it does now works. Sometimes not all of the world's top soccer stars play the World Cup because their country doesn't qualify. Sorry about that.
If you listen around the NHL community, the preference would be to keep the World Cup format as country vs. country. If you base it on the current IIHF standings, Slovakia and Switzerland would get in as the seventh and eighth teams. How could anyone argue with that?
It's not that we should not ever be open to fresh ideas, but we have been waiting a long time for a return of the World Cup of Hockey and this has the makings of an entertaining tournament. We don't need to spice it up with a couple of contrived rosters. We know what it means if Switzerland knocks off Canada. But we would have no idea what it mean if the leftover European All-Stars defeat Canada.
To be fair, most of us could learn to live with a European All-Star team concept in the spirit of experimentation.
Maybe it would be intriguing to see how the United Nations team comes together.
But there is no love in the hockey community for the young guns concept. It has the feel of someone quilting together a makeshift team to fill out the brackets in a city softball tournament.
We are not scheduling opponents for a barnstorming tour. We are hosting an international tournament.
Wouldn't it be better if Slovakia, with 12 players in the NHL, is invited as the seventh team and the rest of the countries form the eighth team? Even with the Slovaks competing as a country, the European All-Stars would still have Kopitar, Josi, NinoNiederreiter, Zuccarello, Frans Nielsen, MikkaelBoedker and Mark Streit, among others.
That tournament field would be more palatable and less confusing for fans than a field that includes tomorrow's international stars trying to compete at a high level today.
The World Cup of Hockey doesn't need to be tricked out, or gimmicked up, to become an entertaining event.