The World Cup of Hockey is just around two weeks from beginning. Have a question about it? Check out the info below.
While the Dallas Stars’ season doesn’t start until next month, the World Cup of Hockey will be held in just a few short weeks.
The tournament will be a great way to preview the excitement of the NHL’s regular season, while also having a more playoff-like set-up. All in all this championship should be great entertainment to hold over hockey fans until puck drops in October.
When and Where is it?
Puck will drop on the games come September 17th with the tournament ending on October 1st. That gives players enough time to readjust to life at home before the regular season begins, but it will impact the preseason.
This year’s World Cup of Hockey will be held at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. While it may be the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, it will be the sight of a lot of recognizable names and faces for NHL fans.
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Who’s Going?
It will be an exciting time for fans to see their favorite NHL players on the ice representing their respective home teams. For Stars fans that means seeing familiar names like Tyler Seguin (Canada), Radek Faksa (Czech Republic), Ales Hemsky (Czech Republic) and Esa Lindell (Finland).
It’s exciting to see four Dallas players attending such a prestigious event. Captain Jamie Benn was selected for Team Canada, but cannot attend due to still being in recovery from surgery to his core in July.
Nonetheless, the fact that four players in the Stars’ system were deemed necessary components of their respective country’s rosters is something to be proud of.
What’s the Set-up?
Similar to Olympic hockey the World Cup will feature two groups with round robin play, meaning each team in the first group will play each other and so will the second.
Group A is Canada, the Czech Republic, the United States and Team Europe, which is a collective team consisting of representation from various European countries. Group B is Finland, Sweden, Russia and Team North America, which is a group of under-23 players from North America.
The two top teams in each group will then face-off in the knockout portion of the tournament, which features a semifinal match-up. The winners of the semifinals move onto the finals, which is a best of three series, for a shot at a World Cup victory.
Who Will Win?
With line-ups as skilled as the World Cup it seems as if each country is its own kind of dream team. Each group has its best players and then under them are still excellent talents, so it will be entertaining to see who comes out on top to say the least.
Regardless of how the tournament goes, in just over two short weeks hockey will be back in a big way and that is something to celebrate.
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