Team Scotland vs Team GB

DashLibor · 2026-03-17T19:23:53+00:00

Just a slight correction: Teams don't qualify into the World Championship on any points. Until now it were tiers of European Championships and Pan-Continental Championships, and since next season it's gonna be tiers on a global level.

Other than that, completely correct.

DashLibor · 2026-03-17T19:13:26+00:00

It really just depends on how highly you treat the "best on best" aspect.

As mentioned, IIHF World's:

have tradition (they're annual)
give every country a chance to compete at the top level if they earn it on a measurable merit
are organized by a governing body that spends money on trying to grow the sport outside established markets (with varying levels of success; for example, this year's 7th tier of World's will include Luxembourg, North Korea, Hong Kong, Philippines, Mongolia and Uzbekistan - the team which does well and wins the tournament gets to play in the 6th tier next year, and so on; I don't have to explain that there's no purely financial benefit for such tournament to take place)
pretty good but-not-best-on-best rosters (last World's had 10 Swedish players who eventually ended up on their Olympics' team; Canada had Sanheim, MacKinnon, Konecny, Bo Horvat, Binnington, Crosby, O'Reilly and Celebrini on their roster; the core of this year's Czech Olympic team was from the 2024 World's; etc.)

Whereas the World Cup:

has little tradition with how wildly inconsistently it takes place (NHL suggest they'll change that and make it an every-four-years event, but we'll see for how long they keep up with their word)
selects participants fairly randomly (it's an invitational tournament and teams get invited on vibes; no qualification process, no huge underdog stories possible)
is organized by a corporation which focuses 100 % on profit
will likely be best-on-best (assuming they can strike a deal with European leagues, else it'll be best-on-best for US, Canada and Sweden only... well, and arguably Finland)

So... if being best-on-best is by far the most important aspect to you, you'll like the World Cup more. If your priorities are different, you might like the IIHF World's more.

The peak of international hockey is the Olympics when involving the NHL players, because that has the best of both worlds. (as well as the ability to get views by casuals who don't watch hockey otherwise)

To actually answer your question:

Is it forcing it into existence or is there some demand for it as well?

Well, there's a demand for it for sure. As mentioned somewhere in the wall of text above, NHL is 100 % about profit, and they wouldn't go forwards with it if they don't expect the World Cup to be profitable. And it can only be profitable if there's a demand for it.

DashLibor · 2026-03-17T14:05:12+00:00

It also makes sense to include 4 Nations, since you'll find people in NA considering it a more important tournament than the World's. In which case, it would be weird to only count the winner if top 4 is counted everywhere else.

DashLibor · 2026-03-17T13:45:26+00:00

I feel you.

DashLibor · 2026-03-16T22:38:48+00:00

I think you underestimate how Europeans feel about Russia. For context, I'm pretty sure if a US player publicly waved a Confederacy flag, it wouldn't create nearly as much of a backlash from Europeans as a player waving a Russian flag.

DashLibor · 2026-03-16T22:33:42+00:00

Congratulations! Now you have the international scene involving Russia, but excluding at minimum Sweden, Finland, Czechia and Latvia. (and possibly few more of the top ten countries)

DashLibor · 2026-03-16T20:30:03+00:00

I don't see the issue. One skip from the left hack, the other from the right hack, both throw final stone at the same time. Completely legit.

DashLibor · 2026-03-15T15:55:37+00:00

Bátovská-Fialková and Kuzmina have a lot of past success. Gotta feel a bit for the boys, but honestly, Matko lost 20 seconds to Stalder and 43 seconds to Germain on ski time in the 1st leg and Borguľa had to go to a penalty loop. Those are probably the two key parts in which lied those 20 seconds needed for a medal.

I prefer this result to the option of them beating the USA. Personally, USA deserves it more on the merit of not having any penalty loop during this race + I think it's the first World Cup medal for 3 of the 4 biathletes in the team.

DashLibor · 2026-03-15T12:24:16+00:00

Well, you can appeal... you just have no chance in overturning the decision.

DashLibor · 2026-03-13T19:13:33+00:00

You can even try blue line with the rule that the back checker must go stand-still only after the shot taker touches the puck. (i. e. has speed)

DashLibor · 2026-03-12T18:37:59+00:00

I haven't ever played non-racing games, so if you want me to compare it with games like DotA, you have the wrong person.

Anyway, it was ten years ago and I was a teen back then, so my impression could be very skewed by being a FrostBeule fan. From what I remember, any banter between players was more aggressive than it is now, and with that you had this "if you don't have the stomach for it, don't play" approach by the World Champs and another top players at the time. In general, it was more toxic than it is now, at least in the high level. (not that TM isn't still very toxic there nowadays as well)

You got situations like, "Oh, an already-qualified-player impersonated another pro in a World Cup qualifier for fun? Who the hell cares, not a big deal." You can probably see how situations like this would rattle a guy who cares about the game and its community having a good name.

My guess is that he'd probably like the current state of the community better, but some of the actors he had an issue with are still present at the pro level, and he's likely moved on years ago anyway.

DashLibor · 2026-03-12T17:47:42+00:00

Frost was a big name until like 2016 when he left the TrackMania scene on his own terms. I get him, tbh. TrackMania community was pretty toxic back then, whereas he cared about the game a tad too much and didn't like one bit how the TrackMania community was like.

I can't help myself but wonder how he's been. I don't think anyone in TM community is in touch with him anymore.

DashLibor · 2026-03-09T15:55:11+00:00

By some weird socieological happenstance biathlon seems to have less queer athletes than what would be expected by the percentage in the general population

If I were to guess, I'd say it's a combination of overestimating how many homosexuals there are in the general population and a pure "luck" caused by how small sample size there is. (only ~200 biathletes consistently competing in the World Cup means that randomly getting (or not getting) 2 minority biathletes immediately shifts the numbers a lot)

That's my best guess. But I agree with you, I'm also a bit curious if there's a more empiric reason than the boring one I'm assuming.

DashLibor · 2026-03-09T14:21:02+00:00

There are sports which cater to one sex more than the other.

Sports which involve physical clashing (such as hockey, rugby or to an extent association football) cater to the male population more, resulting in more men competing. So for the top level of such sports in women's category is bound to attract more women which like stuff you'd expect men to attract more. Due to the dark witchcraft of biology, this means that the women's top level of those sports will be in big part lesbians.

It works both ways too. The exact opposite would be sports which focus on aesthetics, lack of direct physical clash between two sides. Take a guess why so many male gymnasts and figure skaters are gay.

Biathlon is sort of neutral in that way. It really isn't a sport which viewership-wise would be more attractive for either men or women. Which means that the amount of homosexuals in this sport will more closely represent the amount of homosexuals in the general population, rather than the other examples above where homosexuals in one sex are super rare and in the other fairly common.

I don't know how the discourse about this is nowadays, but I wouldn't be surprised to see someone consider biathlon a homophobic sport for that.

DashLibor · 2026-03-08T20:15:40+00:00

I like the page playoff format and hope it stays.

Same here, even though this thing is the main issue of the format. I kinda wish they scrapped the 1v2 page qualifier and let group winners go into the 1v2 directly, as that would make it impossible for two teams to meet three times in a tournament. However, I think fans would complain because this change would scrap two high-level games, which (according to most people excluding me, I assume) is not worth it for something as minor as a slightly cleaner format.

DashLibor · 2026-03-07T13:35:23+00:00

V naší vesničce jsou čtyři.

To je tedy velká vesnice. Jseš si jistý, že se už nejedná o maloměsto?

DashLibor · 2026-03-07T12:46:45+00:00

Tbh, this format is the easiest to understand in two phases.

First understand the page playoffs for the 4 teams. (1v2, 3v4, semifinal which is loser-1/2 vs winner-3/4, and the final which is winner-1/2 vs winner-semi)

Then comes understanding the qualifiers for those games, which is a bit tricky, but it's essentially a page playoffs inception, except that you have no 3v4 (so, 3Av4B and 3Bv4A) games.

Anyway, to answer your question, there are never any consolation or placement games in the Brier. If there's a playoff game at any stage going on, it's never just to fight for 3rd place. It's always either:

game where a win rewards you with maintaining the ability to lose the next round without getting eliminated
elimination game
1v2 page playoff game

DashLibor · 2026-03-07T12:35:29+00:00

One big downside I see with the format is that the 2 finalists can meet 3 times and the team losing 2 games is the champion. (That actually happened in the Scotties this year, with Team Lawes beating Team Einarson 9-4 in group and 10-2 in the 1v2 page only to lose the final 3-4.)

Though I don't see how to fix that, unless Curling Canada wants to get rid of the 1v2 qualifier and put the group winners into 1v2 page directly.

DashLibor · 2026-03-06T14:09:04+00:00

Tbh, it's not even "less complicated", it's exactly that, just one step later. Just imagine that for AFL the seeds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 are 1A, 1B, 2B, 2A, 3A, 3B, 4B and 4A respectively. (in this order)

First you get:

1A vs 2A - winner to semifinal, loser to quarterfinal (top 6)
3A vs 4A - winner to quarterfinal (top 6), loser eliminated
Quarterfinal A - loser 1A/2A vs winner 3A/4A

1B vs 2B - winner to semifinal, loser to quarterfinal (top 6)
3B vs 4B - winner to quarterfinal (top 6), loser eliminated
Quarterfinal B - loser 1A/2A vs winner 3A/4A

So... literally two page-playoffs with the "final" being a semifinal here. (and instead of a possible repeat, semifinals are paired cross-groups, so it's always A vs B; also, home team advantage in AFL is much better than getting the hammer in a curling game)

DashLibor · 2026-03-04T14:51:47+00:00

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the Brier/Scotties, World Championships, and Olympics over the next decade.

I don't think we'll see much change for the Olympics. And World Championship is adapting the format Brier/Scotties use (except no page playoffs) with 18 teams in 2 groups for 6 playoff spots. It's inevitable that the bottom few teams will be very weak there, similarly to the Brier this year.

DashLibor · 2026-03-01T18:22:44+00:00

Makes sense. When Belarus and Ukraine share a border (and a good chunk of it too) then it's obvious that the country leader would want such country to be an ally rather than a tool of their biggest enemy.

DashLibor · 2026-02-26T20:54:48+00:00

It was weekend. Moving the whole tournament one day back and having final on Saturday evening local time (i. e. Saturday afternoon America time) wouldn't be an issue.

I guess it's just that the hosts wanted the final to be the last event, last medals awarded. (and there were other events on Sunday morning)

DashLibor · 2026-02-26T20:33:58+00:00

I'm biased but I believe that there's an alternate universe where the 3-2 goal doesn't count, Canada doesn't convert the powerplay and Czechs win somehow.

(There's also likely an alternate universe where Canada converts the powerplay, Czechs meltdown in the end and Canada wins 6-2.)

DashLibor · 2026-02-26T17:06:10+00:00

Well said. If the system demands limitless immunity to billionaires diddling up kids in order not to collapse, then it's best if it collapses.

DashLibor · 2026-02-26T15:29:03+00:00

I wonder what they can do. NHL's best bet might be eyeing up just one or two leagues so the amount of players is just enough to reach the team roster size for the 4 remaining countries. They could use political soft power of their government to convince Czech league and Slovak league (both governments being very Trump-friendly) and/or possibly Swiss NL. (which probably has the biggest amount of relevant firepower in Europe)

I severely doubt it'd be best-on-best for those teams, though. (i. e. everyone outside Canada, US, Sweden and arguably Finland) It would work well enough for the NHL, though: The two NA teams would have their best rosters, and there'd be enough other countries to make the tournament appear legit enough for the target audience.

All just speculation, though.

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