Anze Kopitar Helps NHL Announce the Return of World Cup Hockey
Yesterday, Saturday January 24th, the NHL and the NHL Players Association announced the return of the World Cup of Hockey at a joint press conference at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
The World Cup returns after a 12-year hiatus, and is scheduled to start in Sepetember 2016, before the start of the 2016-2017 NHL regular season.
The World Cup of Hockey format is a tournament that starts with a three-game round robin. Eight international teams will compete in two groups. The groups each have four teams, that will face-off in intragroup play to decide group qualifiers. The top two teams, from each group, quilify for a single-game semifinal. The winners of the semi-final will play in a best-of-three games final for the World Cup.
The eight teams set to compete in 2016 are: the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, and the Czech Republic. The other two teams are All-Star teams. One of the All-Star teams will be comprised of the top 23-and-under North American players. The other All-Star team is made up players from European countries that are not participating individually, such as: Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Norway, Denmark and Latvia.
The World Cup of Hockey is exciting because it’s an event that sets up matches of the best players in the world against one another.
“A two week, best-on-best international tournament that promises to be one of the best competitions in hockey history,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said at the press conference. “Everything we’ve been focused on has been to make this a great exciting tournament. A North American Youngstars team and a team of the best NHL European players from outside the ‘Big Four’ European countries enables us to include more of the very best players in the world who might otherwise have been left out of the competition.”
The World Cup of Hockey is scheduled to start on September 17th, 2016 and run until October 1st. The city of Toronto will be the host, and all games will be played at the Air Canada Centre.
Ambassadors for the game Chicago Blackhawks star and team USA forward in the Olympics Patrick Kane, Boston Bruins and team Canada center Patrice Bergeron, and Los Angeles Kings All-Star and team Slovenia lead Anze Kopitar were at the announcement to answer questions.
Kopitar responded about concept of the All-Star European team:
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“Well to start it’s probably going to be a little bit different than, you know, the normal atmosphere around the international teams. But, you know, we’re all athletes, we’re all competative and I’m pretty sure, pretty much, whoever’s going to come together for the tournament, we’re going to go out and play hard.”
Kopitar was also asked his opinion on how talented he believes Team Europe’s roster can be:
“I think, you know, the countries that I guess were left out, you know, who are potentials to be eilgible to make Team Europe is, um, I think we have a lot good players from Switzerland, Slovika, Denmark, Norway, you name it. So I think it’s going to be competative. I think to start it might feel a little bit weird, just because, you know, you’re bringing everyone together. But I guess one similiar thing would be in golf, when they bring together, you know, the Ryder Cup team: Team Europe. So I think we can kinda draw on that maybe, and I know like I said before the guys are always professional and we’re competators and it will be a hard tournament.”
Commissoner Bettman is hoping to hold the tournament every four years, two years removed from Olympic play. Bettman believes that kicking the tournament off in Toronto will help get the ball rolling for a number of reasons.
“We wanted to be in a central place where we could take advantage of everything the city had to offer, whether it’s on the tail of the International Film Festival in Toronto, the ability to do other events like concerts, reducing the wear and tear on players as we started the season with less travel, having to dress and operate multiple buildings,” Bettman said. “We wanted to get the first one right. We expect every game to be sold out and we expect there to be an incredible buzz in the air. So being in one place, at least out of the box, made the most sense.”
Which leads to the next point, it’s not all about fun games and competition. It’s a big move and there’s money to be made.
“We’ve [the NHL] grown to a $4 billion business; the question now becomes, where does the next billion come from?” said NHL Chief Operating Officer John Collins. “We have a partner in the NHLPA that is just as focused as we are. We’ve seen it with the World Cup, which is just the next step. There are so many more opportunities.”
Nonetheless, for fans and for the game of hockey, it’s an exciting time.
The Tournament was formerly known as the Canada Cup. Started in 1976 the tournament was every 3-4 years. The Canada Cup allowed the best players in the world to compete regardless of their professional or amateur status. The Canada Cup came out after the praise and success of the 1972 and 1974 Summit Series, a similar tournament, hosted by Canada. It was changed to the World Cup of Hockey in 1996 when the United States upset Canada.
Since 2004 the tournament it was difficult to step up a World Cup because of labor disputes between the NHL and the NHLPA. Here’s the reaction from Tim Wharnsby, a Canadian hockey lover and hockey writer for CBC Sports:
“The NHLPA and the players, who direct the NHLPA in terms of what we do, have long been in the forefront of trying to create the best, most competitive, most compelling internation competitions,” said NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr. “We think that this has the capacity and believe it will prove to be not only a spectacular event, but as Gary suggested, the most competative tournament of its type ever played. When you look at the quality of the rosters on all eight teams, as we get there I think that will be apparent.”
The games will be played on an NHL sized rink, under NHL specifications. The rules will be consistent with NHL rules; games are to be officiated by NHL officials.
Just for a little fun, here’s some highlights of the Team USA vs. Team Canada Game 3 Finals match in 1996:
The names you’ll hear read like the list of a Hall of Fame inventory.