There are 10 teams that participate each the World Junior Hockey Championship and that's two teams too many. There simply aren't 10 good nations when it comes to international junior hockey.
I agree with that statement but at the same time I love when an underdog makes a run in a tournament. It's like cutting the March Madness to 32 teams. Kazakhstan only had thirty players to choose from. That's a sign to the IIHF that they aren't ready for the top level.
Here's McKenize's proposed format.
Go to an eight-team tournament. There are six hockey powers in the world - Canada, Sweden, Russia, the Czech Republic, Finland and the United States. Then you have two other teams qualify. It could be Slovakia, Latvia, Kazakhstan or anyone else.
If it was ever to go to an eight team tournament, I would like to see everyone in one pool. It would be more exciting to see the four super powers play each other once and probably a second time in the medal round. The Medal round would go from six to four teams.
The only way that this doesn't happen is the money. Do the organizers care that Kazakhstan got smoked 15-0? No they only care how much money Kazakhstan brought in because they did play against Canada. Everything is about money and each year, the organizers want to top the last World Junior Championships.
The only challenge would be the argument that you would have to reduce the number of games played. You can't bring that number down because there's revenue involved. This is a 31-game tournament. As long as the International Ice Hockey Federation comes up with some sort of format that approximates 28, 30 or 31 games, then it can be done in an eight-team format.
If someone finds a way to get an eight team tournament to reach 31 games, we will see ten teams.
That's My Take
(Nathan also is a writer for Maineiacs Post to Post and the Maine Hockey Journal. He can be reached at fourniern@students.nescom.edu)
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