Ice Hockey World Championship as a third class event
And you also have to say: This World Cup format lacks perspective and imagination. It’s too long-winded and keeps slipping into summer. 16 teams in an eternally long preliminary round, while almost all national head coaches are secretly or openly eyeing North America for a top player from the playoffs Stanley Cup thrown out and can travel to the World Cup. The Ice Hockey World Championship remains in the third row and plays outnumbered year after year.
And so this final round swings from one embarrassment to the next in a long-winded, unemotional tournament. Nevertheless, the world association IIHF shows no signs of wanting to change anything in terms of mode or timing. And so ice hockey fans will always leave the World Cup cinema with the feeling that they have only experienced a B-movie, while the blockbuster was shown somewhere else.