Apparently, Only Players from Four Nations Play Hockey.
Other nations need not apply.
I admit, I may be the wrong demographic for this tournament. But also, I’m not sure who is.
On Feb. 12th, hockey players* from around the world** will be gathering at Montreal’s Centre Bell and TD Garden in Boston for an international** hockey tournament that will conclude on Feb. 20th.
* - Only players from the NHL are represented in this tournament. ** - Only players in the NHL from the United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland are represented in this tournament.
My jackassery aside, the NHL is marketing this tournament about as well as they market anything else, which is to say, poorly. And I’m not entirely sure what the point of a tournament that completely pauses the NHL regular season at about the 2/3 mark is.
For some countries, international hockey is very popular, with Canada being chief among them. And don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the international game. The larger rink and slight differences in the rules highlight speed and finesse more than the NHL game does…..oh…checks notes…this tournament is being played with NHL rules and in NHL rinks. Ok.
In 2016, Toronto hosted the World Cup of Hockey in another international tournament sanctioned by the NHL. It was a sort of return to ESPN for the NHL, as they had long since moved to NBC by this point. All I remember about that was the horrible commercials, such as this one:
Seriously, Patrick Kane has the charisma of a wet tube sock.
The tournament featured more than four nations, because it may shock you dear reader to know that people from other countries also play hockey! And some of them are pretty good at it.
It however was poorly marketed and there didn’t seem to be much interest in it. At least if the TV ratings are to be believed:
It’s probably not good if your hallmark international tournament is being watched less than Forged in Fire and Chrisley Knows Best.
Flash forward to 2025 and we await this year’s attempt at international hockey. A best-on-best tournament featuring the best players around the world sounds fun. But when it’s limited to four countries out of the plethora represented in the NHL, and cuts into the middle of the NHL season, it makes no sense to me. It doesn’t “grow the game” like so many want to believe, since it is only being played in Montreal and Boston.
Looking at the rosters of the teams, there are many glaring omissions (seriously Canada, Jordan Binnington and Sam Montembeault over Logan Thompson?). It also makes me wonder what international players not in the NHL could be on these rosters to make them even better. But of course, why only four nations? Granted, a large portion of the players in the NHL come from these four nations, but then again, we just saw Latvia dramatically upset Canada in the World Junior Championship this past year. Even the 2016 WCoH had teams for North America and Europe, where TNA had players 23 and younger on it from both the U.S. and Canada, and Europe had players from all other European nations not represented in the tournament.
Of course, then there’s the talking point of the NHL pausing its season to put this show on. The 2016 WCoH was played prior to the start of the season at least, but this makes no sense whatsoever. Teams going into the break with a lot of momentum will find themselves scrambling to get back into gear when games resume after the 20th. And players nursing injuries won’t have the benefit of an all-star break to recover.
To its credit, the NHL seems to be letting players sit out if they desire (Alex Pietrangelo being one such example) without punishment. But it does make me wonder what the mindset behind such a tournament is. I am fully in support of the global series games that get played across the world, as those will legitimately grow the game and give fans across the world a chance to see the stars play. But this tournament seems like a silly marketing idea that the NHL can’t even turn into a proper cash grab at the moment because they’re not releasing official merchandise until Feb. 4th!
I guess that may be ok, as the jerseys are receiving mixed reviews anyway.
I’m truly convinced the NHL could screw up literally anything. I mean, surely they won’t try to do this anymore without IIHF involvement, right?