UNFINISHED PRODUCT
World Cup displayed hockey’s future promise, current issues
IT is no accident the three seminal international hockey tournaments — the 1972 Summit Series, the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics and the 1987 Canada Cup — were all conducted during the Cold War when the results resonated with geo-political meaning.
Neither is it a coincidence the celebrated 1996 World Cup — well, in the U.S., at least — was contested before the NHL first sent its players to the Olympics two years later in Nagano.
These were special events, the ’72, ’80 and ’87 competitions all fraught with cultural and aesthetic implications. Their way or our way. For even if the Cold War didn’t seem quite such a mortal threat in September 1987 as it had been for most of the preceding four decades, the glorious trifecta of 6-5, 6-5, 6-5 came two years before the first Russian-born player was permitted to play in the NHL.
Their way (of life, of hockey) or our way.
A World Cup in 2016 by definition cannot come close to matching the contextual significance of any one of its antecedents. The wall came down. Europeans have flooded the NHL, much to the league’s eternal benefit. Their way or our way? There’s only one way now, that’s the NHL way, and that means — unless you’re talking about a team of Under-24s — the patient, entertainment-killing way.
The World Cup isn’t and can’t be the Olympics. No one in the hockey industry ever was confused about that. But the recently concluded Toronto-based tournament provided little clarity in defining what exactly this supposedly scheduled quadrennial event actually is or can become. This was a small-scale event in which intensity and emotion seemed lacking from the get-go. If Team North America wasn’t playing, the hockey was not compelling. What should it tell the leaders of the industry that essentially everyone was taken by the magnetism and charisma of the one team that played the game the way literally everyone agrees it cannot be played in the NHL?
It should tell these leaders the product being presented during the regular season (and let’s not kid ourselves, through much of the playoffs, too) is defective. It is up to the leaders on both sides of the management/labor aisle to give the masses what they want. And that’s entertaining, creative hockey that rewards talent. That’s the critical takeaway from the tournament that was filled with uninteresting games.
Beyond the aesthetics, it is unclear what the World Cup can be in hockey’s global universe. If the NHL does not go to the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, the 2020 World Cup could be conducted on a grander scale that features venues in the U.S., Canada and Europe. If greater significance is going to attach to this event, it cannot remain the smallscale event it was this time.
But the 2020 World Cup likely will take place just before the early stages of the potential Owners’ Lockout IV on Sept. 15, 2020, which means it will be played under the same shadow as was the barely remembered 2004 tournament and the event would have to be backed up so it ends no later than Sept. 14, which is hardly the best time on the calendar for hockey to make an impact.
The NHL for the most part has failed miserably to capitalize on the European market. A best-offive Ryder’s Cup-style event played overseas in which North America takes on the world could be a winner, but that wouldn’t replace the Olympics, either, if the NHL tries to jam it in during the 2018-19 preseason.
The NHL/NHLPA did a first-class job in presenting the World Cup. Attendance actually was quite good
This World Cup generated a fair amount of revenue for the players and for the league. The level of hockey rarely surmounted its environment. The tournament wasn’t big enough to produce historic memories. But in this world, it is impossible to recreate history. Russians, Canadians, Swedes, Czechs, Americans: They’re teammates, not the proxies of cold warriors.
And so that begs the question of not only what the World Cup should be, but what — if anything— it could be — and, truly, if there is any clamor for another one?
The NHL and NHLPA are in ongoing discussions/negotiations on how to convert the league’s approximately 10 percent ownership of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (BAM) into defined value that is included annually in hockey-related revenue for cap purposes, Slap Shots has learned.
An agreement would come too late to affect this year’s cap, but the additional revenue for 2016-17 (and, retroactively, the portion of last year after MLB and NHL entered into a broad media rights partnership, should result in a significant escrow rebate to the athletes.