In the semi-finals of the World Hockey Championships, we will see the matches between Canada and Latvia and USA and Germany. With all due respect to the Latvians – their fighting spirit and underdog story is inspiring – this feels like the least interesting semi-final I can remember.
Canada and the USA have not taken the World Championships very seriously for years, and this time too they sent selections from which hardly anyone would make it to the strongest possible Olympic nomination – the author’s estimate is that only Alex Tuch will make it to the American one.
The Germans are also playing without their two biggest NHL stars Leon Draisaitl and Tim Stützle in the tournament, and the Latvians have no star in the NHL.
This continues the trend of poorly filled international tournaments, which intensified after the pandemic. From the point of view of an unbiased spectator, not one of the four quarter-final matches this year really impressed.
Let’s briefly recap what we saw in them:
- The Czechs gave an unworthy performance against the USA, when
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