World Cup rising above the early negativity

There seems to be a fair bit of negativity surrounding the World Cup of Hockey, as there is heading into most big sporting events these days.

The tournament, being held for the third time — and the first time in 12 years — feels like a made-up event with a pair of Frankenstein teams wrapped in a strange tournament structure.

And there were numerous stories of players developing the WCoH flu just to skip the event.

It has been hard to miss the overthe-top marketing with the silly “Who owns hockey?” tag line, although that’s miles better than the initial commercial that ended with Sidney Crosby uttering the cringeinducing “Hockey invented Canada” kicker.

All that said, this is a showcase tournament that may eventually be able to carve out a space as one of the best times of the year for sports fans, although it will have to com- pete with baseball pennant races and the start of the NFL season.

For Canadian hockey fans, the broadcast team will effectively be a preview of Hockey Night in Canada’s new pared-down team, which will see the familiar face of Ron MacLean back in the main hosting chair in place of George Stroumboulopoulos.

David Amber, coming off his excellent showing at the Olympics, will also have an expanded role in this year’s NHL regular-season broadcasts, hosting the late Saturday games. He is currently hosting the 12 pre-World Cup games, and will shift to shooting features during the tournament’s 17 games.

“I am actually pretty excited and I say that genuinely after seeing the first batch of games,” Amber said, when asked about some of the early criticism.

“I understand if there’s some level of skepticism — ‘It’s still the summer, why are we playing hockey’ — I get all of that, but it’s a great opportunity for hockey fans. When are you going to get a chance to see Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and Jack Eichel all play on the same team? And maybe all on the same power play at the same time? This is your opportunity for that.”

Beyond the intensity of the pretourney games, he knows the players who are here are into it.

“For all the naysayers, I can tell you, having talked to the players, they are not messing around. They are here voluntarily and want to do well because they are representing their countries. In talking to Connor McDavid, and Auston Matthews, they want to sort of emerge on the NHL scene to some degree and show that they are right there with the best players in the world. It’s a great opportunity to do that.”

The NHL might be looking at the World Cup as a replacement for the Olympics, as it is very clearly a way to wrest power away from the International Ice Hockey Federation. This tournament is a joint production of the NHL and NHLPA, and beyond being a new source of revenue, it may help the growth of hockey, particularly in the U.S., simply because it will air on ESPN.

Hockey has not been on the self- described “worldwide leader in sports” for almost 12 years, and while it is only going to be a short three-week tournament, the network will surely put its massive resources behind the new property.

“I think it’s great,” says Amber, who previously worked for ESPN for eight years. “They are a very hardcore group of enthusiastic broadcasters at ESPN, and the ones who are into hockey are really into hockey.

“They’ll do a great job, and they have no shortage of resources. So for them to get hockey back, even if it’s just for a short window, there will be some casual fans that may get caught up in this.”

The pre-tourney games are already in full swing, and with the remaining games airing on Sportsnet, Sportsnet One or Sportsnet 360.

The tournament officially gets under way with round-robin play starting on Sept. 17, with games daily at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Sportsnet.

CBC takes over Sept. 24, showing the two one-game semifinals and the best-of-three final that starts Sept. 27.