IIHF 2012 World Juniors

Huberdeau and Dougie Hamilton make it 5-1

 

Huberdeau seems to have recovered from his broken foot.

 

As an American hockey fan, I find this the most obnoxiously overhyped event of the year. I don't care how the US does. I might watch a few minutes to get a first-hand look at the kids I know were drafted by my favorite NHL squad. But I have absolutely no interest in a youth tournament, even an international one. FWIW, I don't have any interest in the WCs either since it's not best-on-best.

It's obviously a great experience for those kids, but it's like the junior Olympics on my scale of things that are meaningful in sports.

 

Love that the Finns have a goalie named Gibson and a forward who is going to be Pokemon to me for the duration of the tournament.

 

I don't feel quite as strong as this, but I am getting closer year after year.

 

Does a tournament with the best 19 year old hockey players in the world qualify as a "youth tournament"? Don't think so. Quite a number of the kids will be professionals in the next year or two.

And the IIHF World Hockey Championship for most Canadians is about as important as the Spengler Cup.

The most obnoxiously overhyped event of the hockey year is the Winter Classic. It takes a false premise and turns it into an unwatchable hockey game.

In the non hockey world the WJC doesn't even come close to the godawful hype of March Madness, the Super Bowl and the LLWS.

In the US, since it's hockey and they've only won twice since the tourney began, it's not even on the radar, let alone overhyped. And next year it's in Russia so it'll be mostly non-existent

Is it overhyped in Canada? Yup. But it's still some of the best hockey you'll see all year.

 

It's a uniquely Canadian phenomenon created almost exclusively by TSN. In a sense it's like the Little league World Series which ESPN took from a small event watched only by curiosity seekers and parents into a multi-day event in which many games are shown involving 12-year-old children. ESPN hypes like, well, a little World Series.

It'll play in front of empty arenas the next two years overseas but when the tourney is in Canada - or in a border city like Buffalo - tickets are insanely difficult to get and ratings are through the roof when Canada plays.

JR is right, it is among the best hockey you will see all season, NHL rosters are littered with guys who played in it. Biggest problem facing it is the lack of competitive teams: you have Canada, USA, Sweden, Russia. Formerly strong contenders like the Czechs, Slovaks and Finns are also rans.

 

Bad news for Canada.

Devante Smith-Pelly is out of the tournament with a broken foot. Tough for the Canucks. He was arguably one of the most physical guys on the team.

 

I see the Winter Classic as a made-for-TV event, I guess, so I expect the overhype and underwhelming result. Plus it makes for an excellent HBO series. But as an event, I'm decidedly meh on it. I guess I just feel the "hockey media" I follow/watch/read spends far less time on the Winter Classic than it does the WJCs.

And yeah, to me, an under-20 tournament is a youth tournament, just like the U-20 FIFA World Cup or, to a slightly lesser extent, men's soccer in the Olympics. An interesting way to evaluate individual prospects, a fun experience for the kids participating but utterly meaningless in a larger question of "who has the best hockey team in the world" sense, especially when the development systems are built so differently across the pond.

The LLWS is probably the best comparison in my mind - a made-for-TV event built upon national pride, nostalgia and an idea of getting a look at the future and heavily driven by a single network that most benefits from the attention. March Madness isn't bad either, but I find that tournament considerably more payoff because of the single-elimination format and semi-regular upsets that make most games worth turning on for at least a little bit.

And I don't consider 8-1 or 11-3 (or whatever that final was) some of the best hockey I'll see all year. Even in the early rounds of the Olympics, you at least have the potential for upsets on the men's side that makes those games fun. Unless Tommy Salo shows up in net for one of the power teams in this tourney, I doubt any of them are competitive until the knockout stages.

One quick question, though, and I will leave this thread to those of you who enjoy the event - I flipped on the end of the Canada-Finland game because nothing else was on TV, and at the end, it appeared they a.) gave away framed game MVP awards and b.) did a flag raise and national anthem for Canada as the winning team. Is that because it was the opener or is that normal procedure? Because if it's normal, it seems fabulously arrogant. National anthems happen before the game and at the end of a tournament, not after a meaningless group win.

 

Just out of curiosity, why do the czechs, slovaks and Finns struggle so much? Obviously they've had success in the olympics and have a bunch of NHLers.

 

Grrr...no TSN for me..just a SD CBC.

Guess it's to the web to find my Yanks

 

It's no more ridiculous than March Madness. At least you don't have morons clogging a news feed with updates on the state of their brackets.

Playing for a Canadian national hockey squad, at any level, is a bigger deal than balling for the Murray State Racers in the NCAA Tournament. Sorry, it just is.