I have such a hard time getting interested in the WC, probably because so many players opt out AND it's coming at a time where players have a full season of wear and tear on them. I think there's just too many tournaments, and I'd be ok with just the WJC and the Olympics.
I'm with you on the WC's. I used to look forward to this tournament every year. No one in the US would televise the games until a couple years ago, and even then, all we get are replays of the US games sometimes a day or two after the game actually happened. We don't have the TV exposure like you guys do for obvious reasons, but I would find a live stream or radio call on the internet so I could enjoy the WC's. It was one of my favorite tourney's as so many players we don't get to see on this side of the pond show up and play their hearts out. There really is a ton of talent over there that for whatever reason don't make the jump to the NHL.
However, this year has been a huge bummer. USA Hockey needs to make some changes, while I enjoy watching some of the young guns play for us, it sucks to lose games because our most "veteran" players are Matt Hendricks, Nick Foligno, Patrick Maroon, and our leader on defense is the ultra skilled Connor Murphy (to be fair he's played very well). Where are some of our young d-men like Seth Jones, Jacob Trouba, Torey Krug, Justin Faulk, Cam Fowler, etc? I won't get into the forwards, that would take forever, but shame on you Jack Eichel, you milked the USA Hockey system for everything it was worth and then turned down their invitation this year? McDavid showed up for his country, where are you?
So many of our "normal" guys turned down the invitation for a number of different reasons. The two biggest factors seem to be:
1. Just eliminated from the playoffs, need to recover
2. Sick of USA Hockey not really caring about this tourny and using it as an evaluation type process instead of trying to win
It certainly bums me out that certain players say no, especially those who didn't even make the playoffs or were bounced early in the first round. But, I guess I get it for the older guys, the timing is horrible after the 82+ game grind, and when you make millions of dollars, do you really want to head overseas and risk an injury when there is zero compensation to play in that tourney? My understanding is USA Hockey doesn't even buy them a plane ticket, the players all pay their own way for everything? If that's really true, I fully respect the guys who show up. Especially the one line we have who are all college kids from The Michigan Wolverines.
The US is nowhere near Canada in terms of available "depth" to choose from, but there's no reason for us to have the youngest team in the tournament unless they are doing it intentionally. If USA Hockey really doesn't care about this tourney or want to use it as some evaluation deal, I'd rather see them form a team with players from the US who are currently playing in a league overseas, or foot the bill and send the top college players to evaluate.
Rant over, I'm just glad they are finally televising the U18 World's here in the US, I just hope they start showing more games and not just the US matches. Yes, I'm one of those crazy guys who enjoys watching Switzerland vs Belarus, those kids play hard and are fun to watch. If someone in the US would televise the non-US games I'm sure I would enjoy the WC's more. I'd love to see the other teams play for a change.
It's funny hearing people (Canadians) on here say they will only cheer for Canadian teams in the playoffs, people only posting Canadian team-specific info, the whole mod team being Canadian......
