Gary Bettman assures us there will be an international tournament “relatively soon”.

How long have hockey fans been waiting for an international tournament featuring the world’s best players?

It’s been a while. Good thing there’s the CMJ…

As for the NHL, it hasn’t been to the Winter Olympics since 2014. That year, Canada won the games in Sochi.

In the meantime, the world’s best players competed in an international tournament, a competition that didn’t go down too well. In 2016, Canada beat Team Europe in two games. Our favorites would like to defend their titles of recent years.

Since then, the players have been calling for an international competition, but to no avail.

But today, on TNT, Commissioner Gary Bettman said that an in-season tournament is coming relatively soon.

“We’ll get to announcing something relatively soon about best-on-best international” -Gary Bettman pic.twitter.com/fDFt07AJGc

– B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) January 1, 2024

Here’s hoping his definition of “soon” is the same as ours…

In view of an international tournament, Canada, like many teams, would have an excellent club. Adam Proteau took part in the exercise a few months ago.

At 28 and 26 respectively, I’m sure guys like Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid would have enjoyed playing on the international stage a little sooner.

In 2016, they had played in the tournament, but were competing with the North American Under-23 team. Not that it was a bad team, but the lack of experience was glaring.

Now imagine Team Canada in 2016 with MacKinnon and McDavid…

In recent years, leagues like MLB and the NBA have made us accustomed to innovative changes. In baseball, major new rules were implemented to make games shorter and more exciting. It worked.

In basketball, commissioner Adam Silver set up an in-season tournament between teams, which changed the dynamics of the regular season.

But in hockey, it’s a little more conservative. But recently, Bettman has realized that to attract profit and/or a new fan base, he has to move.

A season-long tournament featuring the world’s best players would be a step in the right direction.

Oh, and I forgot, we’d also have to send the circuit’s players to the Olympic Games… The next ones will be held in Italy, in 2026.

I also wonder if Russia will be involved. It’s not ” best on best” if one of the most dominant countries in ice hockey doesn’t take part in the tournament.

In brief

– The Golden Knights always do things right.

The Kraken players arrived in a fisherman’s costume, which is nice…

But nothing beats the Golden Knights pic.twitter.com/Lbx4PcHTCU

– DansLesCoulisses (@DLCoulisses) January 1, 2024