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Originally Posted by cska78
82 games means the end of eurotour
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The EuroTour is highly discriminatory as it is, being restricted to 4 countries. Slovakia has now won 4 medals in 12 years at the World Championships, along with 4th place at the Vancouver Olympics (2nd best European team), but it's never invited to the EuroTour, being forced to play second-rate tournaments instead. I'd be happy to see EuroTour cancelled if it's unwilling to accept more than 4 teams.
In the old days around Christmas time, there was the very nice tradition of the Izvestiya Cup in Moscow. So there were 2 international highlights every year: a minor highlight of the Izvestiya Cup at around Christmas, and the big highlight of the World Championships in the spring to close out the season. That was a really good arrangement. To explode the former Izvestiya Cup into several smaller, 4-country tourneys spread across the entire season only does what Shalaev says: it damages the regular league.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cska78
no players released to WJC
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Why?
The KHL could easily make a rule that clubs
must release players for WCJ. I'd be all in favour of such a rule.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cska78
this is the end of European hockey's identity
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I don't see how playing only 52 games per season and ending the season in mid-February contributes in any way to "European hockey identity". A national team is just 24 players, but the all-too-short season adversely affects
hundreds of players. That's what can damage hockey in Europe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cska78
some talented kids will be eaten alive by the intensity and frequency of games
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Why should they be? No one says all young players must play all 82 games. Right now, Slovan has 4 young players on its roster, but 2 of those guys play like 40 seconds per game, or not at all. I'm sure they'd welcome an 82-game season so that the playing time can be more evenly split among young talented players. And if they're not ready to play in the big league full-time, they can spend parts of seasons in a lower league (farm team), as is already happening today.