How I'd fix the World Juniors competitive balance problem

Going back to fewer teams and a round-robin event would make each game more meaningful...but changing the relegation and promotion system is the key

Lucas Thaler and the Austrians were badly overmatched in this year’s WJC, just as they were last year and likely will be next year.

So, I received a lot of feedback when I tweeted a quote from Team Canada coach Dave Cameron after his team’s 11-2 win over Austria: “I’m not sure that game does either team any good in terms of getting better.” I used that to help support my opinion that there are at least two teams too many in the World Junior Championship, and the weaker hockey countries gain nothing from getting their lunches handed to them in the top division.

Some of the comments were supportive, most were not. Reactions ranged from disagreeing (healthy) to complaining it’s an annual hobbyhorse of mine (fair) to one observer who opined, “Sports will be so much more fun when all the old weird dudes are dead.” (A little harsh, I thought.)

The point, at least from this corner, is that this is a World Championship and the integrity of the competition is compromised when teams that don’t belong there from a competitive standpoint are playing. That doesn’t mean they never will be or should never have a chance to compete, but I’m not convinced that being hammered in the WJC by double-digit goal margins does the hockey programs in Austria, Denmark, Latvia and Belarus any good. The teams that have improved the most in this tournament – Switzerland and Germany – have done so because they have bolstered their national programs at home. Their domestic leagues are secure and well-financed and have a good mix of nationals and foreign players who raise the level of competition there. Many of them stay and become coaches and mentors. They’ve built solid programs from youth hockey to the professional ranks and have attracted great athletes.

Yes, the Swiss and Germans have improved, but has it been because they’ve played in the World Juniors? If that’s the case, why isn’t Kazakhstan any better? Since the World Juniors became a 10-team event, the Kazakhs have participated eight times, most recently in 2020. They have a cumulative record of 8-40-2 and have been outscored 305-95. Belarus, which has played in eight tournaments and will return in 2023, has an overall mark of 3-38-3 and has been outscored 233-86. Austria has twice avoided relegation and in four appearances (not including 2022), they’re 0-17-1 and have been outscored 114-20. Even Denmark, which has had its moments of competitiveness, is 6-33-2 and has been outscored 221-69 in five tournaments.

Based on that, there is no correlation between playing in the World Juniors and developing a better hockey program.

But the last thing I want to be is someone who complains about something and offers no solutions. So here’s how I would fix the World Junior Championship. I’d basically go back in time to the days when the World Juniors was an eight-team, round-robin competition. If you want to go ahead and believe that organizers increased the field to 10 teams only to grow the game globally, go ahead and believe that, but it was actually very much about money. After the financial windfalls that came in 1991 in Saskatoon and 1995 in Red Deer, the IIHF and Hockey Canada realized that they could make more money on the event in countries where hockey is popular if they had two groups of five teams playing in different cities. That way they could have two ticket packages instead of one.

But it makes for a lot of bad hockey and blowouts. Imagine if the top eight teams from the 2021 tournament played a round-robin event. You would have a field of Canada, USA, Sweden, Russia, Finland, Germany, Czechia and Slovakia. And you’d have a situation where every game and every goal for and against mattered, instead of relatively nothing games through the preliminary round and, in many cases, the quarterfinals. You have the highest-ranked teams play each other at the end of the tournament to increase the odds that those games will decided the medal winners. And then you sit back and watch the fireworks.

(And the best thing about it is that with eight-teams each playing seven games, that gives you 28 total games, which is the same number they have under the current format.)

You’d also have to change the relegation process, and this would be the key, because that’s the main reason why teams get walloped so badly in this tournament. Take Belarus, which won the IIHF’s Division IA in December and will be added as the 11th team in 2023. It’s great the Belarussians won, but the problem is that 14 of their players age out as juniors and won’t be able to play next year, including each of their top six scorers and their No. 1 goalie. They will be fodder in this event next year.

What I propose is that each year, you hold a mini-tournament in the summer featuring the bottom two teams in the World Juniors and the top two in Division IA, played only with players who will be eligible to participate in the next World Juniors. The top two teams from that event would go to the World Juniors, while the bottom two would play in Division IA. And with this format, you’d likely have the occasional year when a Big Six country has to earn its way back into the tournament.

These things cost money, but it would be a great investment, both for the top division of the World Juniors and the countries involved. That’s how you grow the game and develop programs, not by allowing a couple of teams that have zero chance of being competitive in the tournament year after year.