Toronto Maple Leafs: World Cup Back, NHL Oblivious to Problems

The Toronto Maple Leafs might be taking a fine siesta, but the NHL news never stops coming in.

Earlier this week, ex Toronto Maple Leafs Legend Phil Kessel signed with Las Vegas, which we talked about here.

Additionally, the NHL also announced the return of the World Cup.

This announcement hit with all the impact of a 2022 Limp Bizkit record.  That is to say, this major announcement by the NHL was not met with the excitement and anticipation they were probably hoping for.

The NHL’s World Cup Problem

The NHL has several problems here.

First, Hockey Canada, destroyed by the news that it’s been using registration money from minor hockey to keep rapists from being found out, has no credibility right now, and I’m guessing the appetite for International Hockey in this country right now is about as low as it’s ever been.

Deservedly so.

We just had the World Junior Tournament, and basically nobody cared.   It came out  earlier this week that Hockey Canada asked what it would take to get their sponsors back.  Myself and many others took this as them asking what the bare minimum they can do is.

It’s not for me to say what Hockey Canada needs to do, but I don’t know one person who thinks they’ve done anything to even begin to repair the trust they’ve ruined.

The other problems are not as significant, but they still exist.  The name World Cup is stupid because it means “International Tournament of Football/Soccer. ”  It is literally the biggest sporting event on earth.

Hockey does not call their end of season trophy the Super Bowl, and they shouldn’t call this tournament the World Cup because that name is taken.  There is a reason my self-directed straight to DVD movie staring Bruce Willis for seven minutes of screen time isn’t called “Citizen Kane.”

The World Cup of Hockey  used to be called the Canada Cup and it still should be, because at least that name was accomplishing the job of a name.

Another problem is that the whole thing just seems arbitrary because it hasn’t been held since 2016, and when it was held, it was filled with gimmicks that ruined it for many people.

The NHL also would clearly rather go to the Olympics even though they could host the same tournament with the same players and the countries, just it would be  called something else.  But because they’ve never made this argument, and clearly would rather be going to the Olympics, it just makes the World Cup seem  small and unimportant besides.

And finally there is the problem that they have scheduled this thing for the middle of their season.

It’s one thing if, in order to get to the Olympics, you pause your season because you have no choice.  But planning on interrupting your season instead of planning it for the summer has to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, other than the name.

You pay players millions of dollars, you hype up the Stanley Cup, you ask fans to spend hundreds if not thousands on caring about the outcome of the season, and then you pause it, ask all the best players to give their all to teams that don’t actually exist, for a made-up tournament that  anyone with an IQ over 25 can tell is a greed-based proposition.

And, most of all, you’re asking ever team to risk their best players and their season on this dumb tournament, that nobody really cares about.

Oh yeah, and I forgot the main reason international hockey is so bad:  Canada is so heavily favored that they could enter three teams and their second and third teams would likely be the fourth or fifth best teams.  If they balanced their three teams, they could probably win gold with any of them.

This means that if Canada loses, it’s a disaster but if they win, well it’s like the 2012-13 Miami Heat winning – i.e they are expected to win since their roster is so much better than everyone else’s it’s like cheering for a bully or the government.

Bottom line: The NHL is completely out to lunch here if they think there is an appetite for this tournament, at this time.  It’s not to late to just quietly cancel it.