-TSS-

Chicago, Detroit, Boston, neither of the New York teams are not the problem. The problem is the plastic teams such as Anaheim, Florida, Tampa Bay in each of which people would probably be surprised to be told that hockey was originally aqn outdoor-game, which required certain circumstances for an outdoor game to be possible.

There are only two relevant questions you should ask any wannabe immigrants: 1) How much money have you got? 2) What can you do?(What skills do you have?) Depending on answers to those questions you should easily be able to decide whether to let someone in or deny entry.

I understand that the tournament is going to be played next time in 2020 and no more gimmick-teams. Perhaps Germany and Slovakia or whatever teams happen to be good enough to make it top eight.

Maybe in four years time we will think differently but if one had to decide now I would say bin this whole competition. It's never going to take root.

There are some occasions when you must take into consideration that people coming from different parts of the world have different customs. Child-marriage is not one of those occasions. Child-marriage is 100% wrong and there are no excuses. Zero tolerance for such a thing is needed.

Perhaps it's a good sign for the sport that a combination-team of the countries which themselves weren't good enough to have a team of their own in the competition is so strong that it had such a good tournament. I personally detest all these kind of team Europe-things as that is just what the EU would love to have.

I've seen some photos of Iran in the 70's. They were magnificent! Nothing short of any Western-European country.

In the 70's Sweden was probably the best country in the world; a paradise on earth. Since then they have managed to ruin and spoil it.

To Canada hockey is like baseball is to the USA; there just isn't international competition. There are barely 4-5 decent international teams in hockey. How many decent international teams are there in baseball?

Freedom will spoil Cuba. Much to the disappointment of 50's cars fanatics the Cunans may even start having modern cars on their roads.

I guess Canadians will never forget the final in Vancouver in 2010. The final of this tournament will probably be forgotten next week.

I guess this competition will be binned for good after this tournament is over. It has not been a commercial success and its only purpose was to generate money. Failing to do that it is a useless competition.

On another forum someone made a humorous and perhaps accurate comment saying that the lady selling tickets at any Moscow metro-station has as much power and influence on Russia's politics as an average Duma-member outside Putin's inner circle.

A one-off match gives the chance for a surprise as even the best teams can have a bad day.

Too bad for the NA-team but I think it is better advertisement for the tournament to have a Canada-Russia semi-final than Canada-NA. Would the NA-team even have been allowed to beat Canada?

I understand that the NA-team is quite popular in both countries; not because they represent"North-America" but because they are young guys and familiar from their clubs.

If Russia beats Finland today they are through because they would be tied with NA and won the match between them.

Perhaps when a tournament like this is played in North-America people who watch hockey know very well these players which make up the Team North-America, which couldn't have been said had there been teams like Germany or Switzerland players of which I guess North-American hockey-fans know nothing about. Btw, the latest result tells that Team Europe has beaten the Czechs, so they are almost certainly through.

I was surprised how good the NA young guys were. Have to also admit that Finland were appalling. I'm not saying that I was surprised how good the NA were that I didn't know that they have very good players but I thought those good players wouldn't make a cohesive team.

State and church should be separated here in Europe as well. It is unbelievable that there is a so-called state-church or "recognised religion". Having said that in the USA there is no state-church as there are so many religions and no other western country has as many religious nutjobs as the USA.

If there is God I don't think he (or perhaps she) is so vain to demand the ridiculous grovelling in front of him.

If this wasn't so serious this would actually be funny.

The USA had presidential elections even in 1944 during war-time but is it theoretically possible for an incumbent president to declare a state of emergency and cancel presidential elections "until further notice"?

The group-division is no co-incidence; Canada and the USA just must proceed to the semi-finals. Hence the Czechs who are just a shadow of their former selves and the European team which is a joke. The other group is a real group of death with Finland, Sweden, Russia and North-America. I have very little confidence for Finland making it to the top two of that group. They may even finish last.

This is the stuff the rest of the campaign will be about instead of real issues. Planned or not.