Peter, I'm sure that people
benefiting from the apartheid enjoyed that regime, too. It was worse if you happened to be on the other side, among the non-privileged ones.
Yeah, I'm sure if I was Russian, Czech, Finnish or Swedish, I might enjoy the tourney. But not like this -- I find it offensive. At least in a typical KHL or NHL game, you can see players from (potentially) all countries of the world. But in that tourney about to start, you need to be a citizen of 4 select countries in order to participate. I give that a big
Slovakia has been forced to play second-rate international tourneys for 2 decades now during these international breaks. I assure you most Slovak hockey fans don't give a damn about these tourneys. Slovan coach Čada has requested that no Slovan player be nominated for the upcoming tourney in Switzerland. That's how "prestigious" the tourney is for Slovakia -- that Slovakia's current top team will send no players to it. Slovan prefers to focus on the European Trophy club-level competition during the break.
I sincerely hope the Euro Hockey Tour will be cancelled 2 years from now, as has recently been rumoured. I would be all for renewing the former, full-fledged Izvestiya Cup, which was not just 3 games, and not just 4 teams.