All credit to yesterday’s stars, but in the coming years, hockey’s top tournaments will see all-time hockey entertainment, writes Urheilu’s NHL reporter Tommi Seppälä.
Tommi Seppälä NHL reporter
After all, that’s where it came from, when I kicked a little. The owners of the NHL clubs have long viewed cooperation with the International Ice Hockey Federation with a skeptic attitude.
In practice, this has been reflected in the fact that no NHL players have been seen at the Olympics since the Sochi (2014) tournament.
The NHL clubs have not seen the forest for the trees.
As an eternally tired argument of age, the time has been used by the NHL in the matter. The NHL has not wanted to interrupt its season because of the Olympic tournament. There has been concern about the money taps drying up.
Perhaps you have missed the big picture and what kind of advertising window the tournaments open for the sport – hockey charms people across sport boundaries and makes lots of new friends.
That means growth and it should be a priority for the NHL as well. The season is interrupted due to the Olympic tournaments in 2026 and 2030, but in the long run the sport wins. The World Cups between the Olympics are their own chapter.
Especially when we talk about the kind of players at the top of the sport who operate on this wound. The Canada Cups in the 1970s and 80s were quite nice, but at the same time somehow far from the general public’s point of view. When the NHL appeared at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, Wayne Gretzky the machine was steaming no more Mario Lemieux was involved.
Now there is a never-before-seen hockey circus!
The new generation of superstars, who have been taking the sport to completely new levels for a long time, are finally being released. Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar at the forefront are players whose national team jersey is eagerly awaited in all hockey countries.
The United States also has the hockey generation of all time, and the same can be said about Finland.
What will be the situation in Russia in 2026 and 2030 remains to be seen, but it is certain that ice hockey will blow up the pot on international fields in the coming years.
Taking the lollipop out of players’ mouths in this regard for ten years also means that every country takes the future tournaments with the utmost seriousness. The desire to compete among one’s own generation in the best-against-the-best tournament is huge. For the players, the news of the NHL’s return to international hockey was a dream come true.
Of course, this also raises the level of competition to an unprecedented level. Canada could easily get two lineups that can be counted as winning favorites, which tells about the depth of essential player material in the country.
The USA was tough in Vancouver 2010, but now the star jerseys are operating with a completely different caliber team: Tkachuk too and of Hughes brothers, Austin Matthews, Jack Eichel and so on. Oh holy guns!
Also in Finland, a new generation has come to the fore and tasted the opportunity to squat with the best on international fields. However, it may be that in the new generation of tempo hockey, Our game will not save Finland, which has enough real top players for a couple of chains.
It’s a real shame that he’s not the lion pilot of all time Jukka Jalonen get to lead Finland to these top tournaments.
Read also: This is the significance of the big news for Finnish ice hockey – the expert reminds us of Jukka Jalonen’s harsh fate
Antti Pennanen replaces Jalonen, who is in the last year of his contract, in the coming season.
Either way, this is the news that hockey really missed. There is no reason to take anything away from the success of the Lions in recent years, but the C-level World Championships have had to be played enough, to the point of exhaustion. The World Cup is a nice holiday break, but it has nothing to do with top-class level measurement.
Starting in 2025, we will get to see where the top of the world really goes and what kind of hockey is used to win the top tournaments.
In the last few weeks, ice hockey has been hit by the truckload on this topic as a result of various scandals, so this extremely positive news was really useful. Now there was a real news treat.
It’s worth tasting while waiting for the top tournaments.