World Cup of Hockey: A primer
Canada favoured to win revived tournament
September is once again the time for international, best-on-best hockey.
In the old days we had the Summit Series in 1972 and five Canada Cups between Bobby Orr's masterful swan song masterpiece in 1976 and Steve Larmer's tournament-clinching short-handed breakaway goal in 1991, with Mario Lemieux's famous 1987 tournament clincher against the Soviet Union in between.
Now here comes the third instalment of the World Cup of Hockey, revived by the NHL and the NHL Players' Association after an absence of a dozen years. This revamped tournament, which opens Saturday in Toronto, features some interesting twists.
Here are a few things you need to know:
The teams
Unlike at the 1996 and 2004 World Cups, there are no teams from Slovakia or Germany. Instead, there is Team Europe, composed of European players from countries other than the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia and Sweden, which have their own teams.
Another team is made up of 23-and-under talents from Canada and the United States. Sure, it would be neat to see 19-year-old Connor McDavid speed up and down the wing for Canada, but this is a way to get more of the best players involved in this 15-day, eight-team event. And after a week of exhibition games, Team North America (dubbed the "young guns") has garnered plenty of interest.
The new teams are expected to be more competitive than Germany and Slovakia, which went a combined 1-11-0 in 1996 and 2004.
The format
The eight teams are divided into two groups: Canada is housed in a group with the Czech Republic, Team Europe and the United States; Russia, Team North America, Finland and Sweden make up the other group.
After each team plays three round-robin games, the top two in each group advance to the semifinals, to be played Sept. 24 and 25. The winners of those go head-to-head in a best-of-three final that opens on Sept. 27.
The favourite
Canada enters as the favourite after winning each of the last two Olympic tournaments. While there is still plenty to be worked out in order for the NHL to participate in a sixth straight Olympics in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the question at the World Cup is whether Canada can continue its dominating ways.
The defending World Cup champions, who open against the Czechs at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, have won the last two world titles in addition to their pair of Olympic gold medals.
Since Canada lost in the 1996 World Cup final to the United States, the Canadian men have won three of five Olympic gold medals, the 2004 World Cup and six of 20 IIHF world championships, which is more world titles than any other country in the past two decades (the Czech Republic is next with five).
Canada has been particularly unbeatable under the watch of head coach Mike Babcock. He has exhibited an ability to get his superstars to check their egos at the door and has established clearly defined roles for each player.
Babcock also has been able to get his group to buy into a relentless tight-checking system that surrendered just three goals in six games in Sochi in 2014 and no goals in the final eight periods.
"What Canada has done is to try to put as much skill and talent on the ice and allow our character to emerge," says Hockey Canada president and CEO Tom Renney. "We haven't deviated from that blueprint, maybe with the exception of 2006 [when Canada lost in the Olympic quarter-finals].