World Junior time: Canadian holiday tradition

It’s that time of year again, TSN’s bread and butter, that being the World Junior Hockey Championships. It’s a Canadian Christmas tradition, and it’s something that I’ve made sure has been a point of interest for myself personally since 1995. Throughout that time, I’ve had the luxury of witnessing pure domination, ala the 2005 dream team that Bob McKenzie pinpointed as the greatest team in world junior history. I’ve also had the misfortune of tuning into the 1999 heartbreaker where the Russians edged the Canadians in overtime where Roberto Luongo had his coming out party. Everybody has a favourite memory from the tournament, and frankly there are a plethora of possibilities to choose from. Being from Regina, it’s an obvious choice for me, that being Jordan Eberle’s heroics, or as Pierre McGuire so eloquently put it, John Tavares’ magical hands in the 2009 tournament. Remember people, destiny doesn’t panic with 5.4 seconds left. So exactly at what state is the tournament at right now? I will entail below.

The World Junior Championships, as discussed above is an instant view for the majority of Canadian hockey fans. It’s considered religion in this great country. Unfortunately however, if it’s considered religion here, it’s an afterthought everywhere else. The million dollar question is what can be changed or improved upon to make this a holiday tradition anywhere else in the world? I think first and foremost, the competitiveness of the tournament can be a little lacklustre. Every year, we approach the tournament knowing that the four main contenders for the elusive gold medal are the Canadians, the Russians, the Americans, and the strengthened as of late Swedish U20 program. Hockey Canada, the capitalistic giant that they are, would be wise to dip some of that revenue into the developing programs such as the Danes, and the Latvians etc etc. The more teams that truly could go into this tournament and contend for a medal, the more compelling this tournament becomes. I fear that the World Juniors is heading down a path that is eerily similar to that of Women’s hockey. There was a point where up to six teams had a chance, and that number continues to drop to a point where I have to pose the question if we’re heading to a point that we’ll see the same final four for many coming years? From an internal perspective, I also ponder whether team’s constant need to run up the score(I realize this is a tie-breaking criteria) is discouraging the players on the lesser teams, and the programs from strengthening and evolving. Beating teams 15-0(Canada France 2002) does no team any favours. This can be simply rectified by the IIHF ridding themselves of the goal differential tiebreaker. I won’t get into too much of the formatting, as this will be looked into in a proceeding paragraph. The other point I wanted to divulge in terms of competitiveness is that of player availability going into the tournament. To use this year’s tournament as a blue print, how can the IIHF possibly expect to field a competitive event when the Ottawa Senators among other teams elect to not make Europeans available.  The player in question was Swedish sensation Mika Zibanajed. You know for a fact that Zibenejad was Canadian the Senators would of made him available yesterday. On a personal level, I believe it should be mandated that if a player WANTS to play, which Zibanajed reportedly does, and the player who is playing pro hockey should have the choice and not have to rely on their respective club team. This isn’t the first time North American professional teams have chosen not to release players for the tournament, with Adam Larsson and Gabriel Landeskog being two prime examples.  The common denominator is that they are all Europeans, specifically Swedes. The Czech Republicans take it to a completely different level as in the past they have elected to not invite players playing in the Canadian Hockey League as if to enforce a penalty for that player deporting to Canadian major junior. This has to stop for tournament fairness and for player development.

The second point that needs to be analyzed is the tournament format. Throughout the years, the IIHF has tinkered with the format making subtle changes. The most recent change will take into effect for the 2014 tournament. They are going back to the no-bye format. In the quarterfinals, the one seed in the “A” group will play the fourth seeded team from the “B group” and vice versa. Is this format reversion really for the better and does it actually penalize top teams? I most certainly think it does. Why is it right that a team that goes 4-0 throughout the round robin could be out of a medal game after one loss to team that hypothetically may have went 1-3,2-2 during the preliminary stage? In the current format that will cease after this year, the one seed got a bye directly into the semi-finals which in turn guaranteed them a spot in a medal game. This format promotes strong play through the preliminaries while the proposed new format renders the round robin pointless. This is hockey, and on any given day the fourth seed could EASILY knock off the top dog. Now, media pendants will argue that this format is T.V friendly which each game being a knock-out event. I suppose from that point of view it’s a  sensible idea however the tournament is a cash cow for the main television provider, that being TSN and I’m pretty sure they’re not going to gain ratings just because the quarter-finals have now gained two games. The format I propose, to be different from the original is and to completely innovative is to have two groups. The “A” group would consist of the top five ranked teams with the “B” group  consisting of the bottom five teams. Each team in the group would play each team  in the round robin with the last place team in the “A” group playing the second place team in the “B”group in a one game knockout. The top team in the “A”group would directly advance to the finals. The winner of the last place team in the A and second place team in the B would then play the team that won the B group. This gauntlet style format would then see the winner of the previous game play the 2nd place team in the group with the ¾ seeds playing one another in the other quarter. The two winners would play-off with the winner earning the privilege of playing the top horse in the final derby. Different? Yes. Innovative? Yes. This format could captivate the David v Goliath story as networks can build up the fact that a bottom feeder could run the table with the chance to meet Goliath in the final.

Before I sign off, enjoy this special time of year as the world juniors is something I know can be celebrated  by all us Canadians.

 

P.S,  can TSN please bring back Paul Romaniuk??

That is all, hope you’re enjoying these entries!!!