WJHC Day Two: The beatings will continue until the bubble teams improve
Allow me to begin this quick look back at yesterday's games with a brief aside on the nature of competition in the World Juniors. Put simply, Ryan Lambert is right and Bruce "saskhab" Peter is wrong on the subject of blowouts: they serve only to remind us how bad everyone is outside the top six or seven, and the only ones who gain from the experience are the teams with little to gain anyway. What did Canada gain from their Day One victory over Latvia? Cohesiveness. Discipline (only two minors against all afternoon). Good habits, in the form of meeting Coach Desjardins' goal of not giving up a single odd-man rush in the third period. What did Latvia gain from getting skullfucked 16-0? I can tell you from personal experience, having been in net for an 11-0 rout in intramural soccer, they probably only gained a keen sense of their own woeful inferiority and a fiery resentment of the whole process. The IIHF n eeds to get their heads out of their asses here and do something about this, because these early games are senseless: it's bad hockey, it's bad sportsmanship, and it's no fun for either team. Somewhere around Goal #14, they showed the Canadian "celebration," and Brandon Kozun, who was working on a five-point night, looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there. The kid looked guilty. But it was necessary, because of the IIHF's asinine goal-differential tiebreaker.
On Twitter yesterday, Bob MacKenzie suggested a new format for the ten-team tourney that I like from a competition standpoint:
- Teams ranked 1-5 play in one bracket, teams 6-10 play in the other.
- The A bracket is seeded 1-5 based on round robin play, and the winner of the B bracket is given the #6 slot
- The quarter-finals proceed essentially as usual: 1 and 2 get byes, 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5; winners face 1 and 2 in the semis. Teams 7-10 play for relegation, as before.
The problem MacKenzie himself noted in this format is, of course, that no one's going to pay good money tickets for the B pool, because unless they're the host country, there aren't enough people who give a crap about Latvia or Switzerland for it to be worthwhile. I'm looking at my bill for the 2012 tourney: the non-Canada pool games plus the medal round is $2,100 for the reds at the Saddledome. Now imagine if that was for the 6-10 pool instead of a pool that'll include two gold-medal contenders. I already have no interest in watching Sweden bludgeon Belarus on TSN2: why the hell would I pay triple my Hitmen season ticket price in order to watch it in person? Why the hell would I pay that much to watch a bunch of games between also-rans destined for relegation?
If the IIHF really wants to grow the sport of hockey outside its traditional hotbeds of North America, Scandanavia, and Eastern Europe, this is not the way to do it. You want to see Belarus, Latvia, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, France, Germany, and Kazakhstan become even half-way competitive with Canada, the US, Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia? Send experienced coaches from those countries over there to build the game at the grassroots level, promote hockey as a winter sport for soccer players, and make the handful of NHLers, KHLers, and SELers from those countries prominent figures in the marketing campaign. There are 0.67 junior hockey players per thousand in Latvia; there are 9.59/1000 in Canada. Do something about that and the competition will improve.
All of this is inspired by Team Austria, who have put forth a hell of an effort here in order to look respectable. They'll probably get relegated, when all's said and done: Switzerland and either Slovakia or the Czech Republic will overpower them in the relegation round, and their tournament will end up a series of moral victories. But the fact that they haven't been blown to kingdom come like their fellows in the host bracket is admirable. Losing 6-2 to Russia on Saturday and 7-3 to Sweden yesterday, on paper, is still no good, but when you consider the disparity between those countries in terms of hockey participation, NHL players produced, and overall skill, it's pretty damned impressive. It looks like they caught Sweden napping in the second, and scored three times to tie the game, two of them on the PP, before Sweden scored late in the second and pulled away late in the third. According to the TSN game report, though, the Regina crowd got fully behind the Austrians, rooting for them as they kept it close through a four-minute penalty kill early in the third. Of the Oilers prospects on the ice, Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson was held pointless and even on eight (!) shots and took one penalty (tripping), while Anton Lander scored two assists, had five shots, and was even.
The other Oilers-related game, Finland vs. Slovakia, was much closer and probably more entertaining. The Czechs jumped out to a 3-0 lead, taking advantage of four penalties by Finland in the game's first 25-odd minutes. After that, though, Finland came roaring back. As Derek previously noted, Teemu Hartikainen scored the first of four unanswered goals, including two beauties by Ducks prospect Sami Vatanen, as Finland won by a 4-3 score. Your final stat lines: Hartikainen with one goal on seven shots and a +1; Toni Rajala with no points, four shots, and a +1.
Coming up today: Canada-Switzerland (it's 2-0 Canada after one as I type this; I'm taking a miss in favour of a tub and a magazine), and Finland-Russia, which should be legitimately interesting.
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Damned skippy. I can finish an IEEE Spectrum in two tubs over two Sundays.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
My favourite blowout story: in my youth soccer days in St. Albert, we were taking on the Morinville team. We weren’t very good. The Morinville team was, but they needed goal difference in order to set themselves up for a provincial spot.
The final score was, I shit you not, 20-0. It was the most one-sided beating I’d ever heard of, and it had an odd effect on us. At first it killed us. We were down something like 5-0 and we were pissed off, but we tightened up and got scorched and again and again (the run of play wasn’t as bad as 20-0 makes it sound; that would be pretty much impossible, but it was still awful).
Eventually, we started to loosen up. We started to loosen way the hell up. I started the game in my then-traditional position as the left fullback but made way too many lumbering runs into the middle to try and cover complete breakdowns and I was pretty gassed by the hour mark. But the coach, looking for things to do, put me into midfield and made me run even more. I was not the only one in this boat, either. And, in a bizarre way, it became a good time.
The Morinville kids had no interest in humiliating us, but the standings made it necessary. They were shooting the breeze with us, and after every goal as we walked the ball to centre there’d be a couple good-natured jibes here and there. Soccer is an unusual sport like that: you can have a few pretty animated conversations while you were playing it. The opposing midfielder and I were talking about setting an over-under, and I was warning him that come the ninetieth minute I was going to skin that bastard alive and get a thundering consolation goal (while bent over at the waist and sucking wind). We were not unique. We kept playing, but not really hard. When the twentieth goal went in, St. Albert cheered louder than Morinville did.
Then the ninetieth minute came and we cheered again and I got the ball and I tried to go on a Cristiano Ronaldo run up the flank, like I promised. I played fullback for a reason: I come from the “fat bull in a china shop” school of soccer players and much preferred just pounding guys’ faces into the grass than silky-smooth offense. But the Morinville guys weren’t playing any harder than we were, and I got more position than I would have in a real game, and I actually managed to cut to the middle and got a shot off that just flitted wide.
And everybody laughed. Oh, that would have been a perfect finish. Alas.
by Benjamin Massey on Dec 28, 2009 4:23 PM PST reply actions
Then the ninetieth minute came and we cheered again and I got the ball and I tried to go on a Cristiano Ronaldo run up the flank, like I promised. I played fullback for a reason: I come from the "fat bull in a china shop" school of soccer players and much preferred just pounding guys’ faces into the grass than silky-smooth offense. But the Morinville guys weren’t playing any harder than we were, and I got more position than I would have in a real game, and I actually managed to cut to the middle and got a shot off that just flitted wide.
There is video, right? Please let there be video?
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
You want video of a fat kid exhaustedly jogging past defenders who had no reason to care any longer and skipping a ball wide in a blowout when even the parents were probably going home?
To my knowledge, none exists. I think I’m happier with this.
by Benjamin Massey on Dec 28, 2009 6:17 PM PST up reply actions
With that kind of alleged determination involved? Oh yes.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Simply put – eliminate the goal differential as a tiebreaker and use goals against as a tiebreaker.
If you’re unwilling to do that, go with the mercy rule. It exists in many other formats.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
This is the right track
… although too much emphasis on defence.
I would have voted for e) Other, meaning some upper limit on the goal differential of any game regardless of its actual score. Say 5 goals max. Play the game straight up, keep a real score on the scoreboard, but remove the imperative to run up the score. Canada could have overwhelmed Latvia just as convincingly at 8-0 as 16-0, and if the net result for tie-breaking purposes is +5 either way, they’d likely be happier that way. For sure the visitors would be.
Otherwise, they need to cut this puppy down to 8 teams that can more or less compete. One thing I’m not sure of is, do the “promoted” teams gain their elevated status in the current season, or is it based on last year’s B pool? The latter is a recipe for disaster, as the successfully promoted team might lose heavily to key players graduating. This used to be a problem that they talked about fixing with an in-season qualification tourney, I just don’t follow the minnows close enough to know how it actually goes down in 2009.
I still say watch the Spengler Cup for the first few days. :)
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
by Bruce McCurdy on Dec 29, 2009 1:16 AM PST up reply actions
… although too much emphasis on defence.
How so? Do you think Canada is gong to play a trap against South Boogeravia?
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
No, the tiebreaker applies to results from all games. If you reward GA only, then there will be an added emphasis to limit offence not just in the Boogeravia games but also the more competitive ones. There needs to be a reward for offence too, just a limit to how much offence in any one game.
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
by Bruce McCurdy on Dec 29, 2009 1:42 PM PST up reply actions
I would consider those all “tournament modifications.” And yeah, the promotions do happen the previous year, which makes all kinds of no sense at all. Have the Division II tourney in 2009 decide the placement for the 2010 tourney, i.e. the one that starts Boxing Day ’09, not Boxing Day ’10.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
I don’t like the tournament structure modifications. Let the kids play – let them travel. Just change the tiebreakers.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Oh agree with letting the kids play and travel and all that. I just think there’s better ways within the 10-team tournament structure to do that; that’s what I meant by “tournament modifications.” Changing the GD rule or changing who plays whom in the round robin would both accomplish that.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.

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