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The NHL should follow the WBC’s lead and focus on making its upcoming World Cup of Hockey a truly global event.<\/p>\n
The NHL should take a cue<\/a> from the World Baseball Classic (WBC). The premier best-on-best baseball event wrapped up on Tuesday night with Venezuela upsetting the United States in the final.<\/p>\n In hockey terms, it would be like having Czechia dump Canada in an Olympic final. While Czechia is a good team, it\u2019s not quite on par with Canada or the United States, for that matter.<\/p>\n That said, the WBC was a truly global event. And that\u2019s something the NHL should pay attention to with the World Cup of Hockey<\/a>. Like the NHL, baseball didn\u2019t have a premier, best-on-best global event. Baseball doesn\u2019t even have the Olympics, as it\u2019s not a sanctioned sport. Baseball will be back in 2028 in Los Angeles as a demo to see if it would work again.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why the WBC means so much to baseball\u2019s global audience. And because of that, MLB<\/a>, which organizes the WBC in conjunction with baseball leagues around the world, spread the tournament out around various venues as much as possible.<\/p>\n The WBC had four pools playing in various locations: Tokyo, Japan; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Houston, Texas; and Miami, Florida.<\/p>\n The two US locations made sense geographically. Likewise, the Tokyo venue was completely reasonable for the Asian squads, including Australia. The San Juan venue was reasonable for Caribbean-based nations.<\/p>\n The knockout stage moved to Florida, with the final played in Miami.<\/p>\n While the NHL did a good job of including Prague as a host city in 2028<\/a>, it has to do better. Prague is a good start, but having Calgary and Edmonton as the other two sites is not good enough. The NHL should have considered a US site and an additional European site to make the tourney truly global.<\/p>\n NHL Must Make World Cup of Hockey Truly Global<\/p>\n Like the WBC, the World Cup of Hockey must embrace a truly global outreach. Therefore, having various sites host round-robin games allows for that purpose. Even FIFA, whose World Cup is arguably the world\u2019s most-watched event, has begun spreading out the tournament across various sites and countries.<\/p>\n Yes, there may be logistical issues. For example, European-born NHLers in North America would have to travel to other countries to play for their national teams. But that\u2019s something MLB was comfortable with during the WBC. As such, it shouldn\u2019t be an issue for NHLers, at least it wouldn\u2019t seem so.<\/p>\n The ultimate payoff is much greater for hockey and the NHL. Having fans see local stars play in truly meaningful international games is something that should tantalize the league and its owners.<\/p>\n 2028 World Cup of Hockey Making Off to Good Start<\/p>\n While the 2028 World Cup of Hockey isn\u2019t exactly perfect, it\u2019s off to a good start. Including Prague was a savvy move. It would have been better if, instead of both Calgary and Edmonton, one American city had been included.<\/p>\n That\u2019s something that the NHL may consider for another event, say, in 2032. By then, the league would have had enough time to figure out how spreading the tournament around the globe could work.<\/p>\n Heading in that direction stands to benefit the NHL, players, and fans.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tNestor Quixtan<\/a> Seasoned NHL analyst and baseball writer focused on covering clubs across each league with news, analysis, and insights. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Nestor’s singular experiences and background have enabled him to bring a different take on the sports world as a whole. Nestor’s fondness for baseball and hockey set the tone for his love and passion for writing about sports. More about Nestor Quixtan<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Maple Leafs\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty The NHL should follow the WBC’s lead and focus on making its upcoming World Cup of Hockey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-548621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}