Money is the key to these summer world junior hockey championships

The official theme of this summer's World Junior Hockey Championships is Something "I'm sorry. We have to do this, otherwise it will cost a lot of money for everyone."

This is about the spirit of competition No one even pretends to be doing the right thing by the poor children who were deprived of the opportunity to play in Team Canada when the original tournament was closed. Down at COVID-19 in December last year. Many of those poor kids don't even come back for summer remixes.

We will be holding a make-up tournament in the middle of the off-season. Four months after the next World Junior, players who have not played the game for two months will join. About getting paid for everyone. IIHF, Hockey Canada, broadcasters and local hosts all have to meet their contractual obligations or face financial implications.

Sure, it's not far from normal behavior. You don't have to dig deep into the romance and patriotism of the World Junior Tournament in Canada. You can see huge business ventures that generate huge amounts of money. As a result, it is held almost every two years in Canada.

But when they play in December, it's a special holiday tradition built on a solid foundation. Best in the middle of the season before the draft (not a month). After that), when everyone peaks, everyone aspires to answer the phone.

This is not the case. Many of the best players haven't come. August 9-20 is central to the off-season training schedule, and of course you should spend some time recovering from the season that didn't end until late June and strengthening your training camp in September. I feel it.

Cole Perfecty (10th overall in 2020), Shane Wright (4th overall in 2022), Owen Power (1st overall in 2021), Oilers outlook, etc. , Nine players have not joined from the original roster in December. Kaiden Guhle, captain of Xavier Bourgault and Team Canada.

When were the last nine top players to decline Team Canada?

Give credit to the coming player. Playing in Team Canada is thrilling, but abandoning most of the summer for this is a big sacrifice. That is the kind of dedication and passion that led to the success of World Junior in the first place.

There is no doubt that they will step in and raise the flag with pride and vitality, but their day is not the hot summer of August in Edmonton against the backdrop of the rise of Hockey Canada. , It should be December in the actual World Junior. An increasingly dirty pile of laundry.

You have to feel for these kids. Without their own negligence, they are now the public face of a deep-seated scandal, left to answer questions about ugly incidents they have nothing to do with, and everyone is a spokesman for the failed Governing Body. ..

When Mason McTabish was appointed as the new Canadian captain at a training camp in Calgary last week, it should have been an opportunity for pride and achievement. Instead, his referral media conference was a barrage of codes of conduct and sexual assault seminars, and questions about what Hockey Canada and the World Junior Team must do to restore their tattered reputation.

It wasn't what all of those kids applied for.

And if the timing of this tournament doesn't work for players heading to the NHL camp and the question becomes unpleasant for players returning to play, imagine how annoying this is for the top men. please look. .. If Hockey Canada wanted things to settle down a bit as a result of disturbing reports of sexual assault and similarly disturbing hearings to their own slimy reactions, the big World Junior Showcase would make it happen. We guarantee that there will be none.

This is the advantage. It's good to keep hockey Canada enthusiastic until you find out why hockey didn't play a more active role in exploring the truth about the people responsible for mass rape in 2003 and 2018.

At first glance, the sponsors who withdrew support because they didn't want to have a relationship with Hockey Canada now mean to you the big names Tim Hortons, Scotiabank, Canadian Tire and Tellus. Give. How realistic the fallout is.

But the show must continue, whether it's a donut or not. Whatever the reason for performing this, no matter how unpleasant the inside story, the World Junior Hockey Championships in August are being held.

For fans, the choice is easy. Turn your back on it or make the most of it.

There is no wrong answer here. It's great if people are hungry for summer hockey repairs and want to support their kids who have realized their dreams and provided everything they need to represent the country. Free hockey in August. What I hate.

Others can't waste sitting on a cold hockey rink in the short summer, but for a variety of reasons, ranging from legitimate moral issues that haven't been fully resolved yet. I don't want some. .. That is also fair.

Whether you like it or not, whether you support it or not, the pack will drop on Tuesday.

Twitter.com/rob_tychkowski