2014 World Championship must change format or can be cancelled

2014 World Championship, which will be held in Minsk, can be played with a new format, according to Evgeny Vorsin, the Chairman of the Ice Hockey Federation of Belarus
" We already raise the question at last IIHF Congress after the last IHWC of a possible change in the system of this tournament. This was done on the basis of the 2012 championship in Finland. It was a series of matches that have not been the interest of the spectators. We discussed the possibility of reducing the number of teams in the elite division from 16 to 14 and a return to the old formula: 4 groups of 4 teams" said Vorsin

Federation Executive director Valeri Fesyuk is worried abou the proximity with Sochi Olympics:"The interest for the IHWC in 2014, held in May, just three months after the Olympic Games in Sochi, can be extremely low. The issue was discussed at IIHF but solutions, as a new, more interesting formula, is still an open issue, and no changes were made or decided. Some countries proposed to cancel the edition in 2014 or to replace it with a the tournament with just European teams because, for example, the U.S. and Canada is unlikely to send players" said Fesyuk.

 

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