Subject: Questions & Answers

I don't find separate NT energy sensible at all. Players have their energy as it is, they can't have two energies.
My suggestion would be to partialy reset their energy at start of WCH. Half way reset for example would raise energy 80 to 90 or energy 90 to 95.

we don't really like the fact that NT managers put pressure on owners to play on low importance and to save the players. It creates some unwanted situations. That is the main issue we want to address. When the energy will be separate, the NT manager will manage it as he wishes and everyone is happy.

I dont think that the competitiveness will be affected that much. Every team has a set of 50 players from which to choose players. Some are more tired than others. As a matter of fact, bigger countries have a larger pool of top end players to choose from. If someone is tired, they will find a replacement easier than a smaller country.

This is ridiculous. How can some put pressure on owners ? I don't understand it ..

it is happening, I can tell you that. In some countries at least. After all, the owner himself is aware of the fact that if he wants to gain benefits of having a player in the NT, he must save him and that puts him in a tough situation.

I don't like NT managers forcing owners so much to play on low importance also. That's why I suggested partial energy reset. Half reset was only an example, energy could be reset 3/4 or even more, so 80 would be reset to 95 (with 3/4 reset) or even more. But team tiredness would still have some (small) efect and I think it should have.

I 100% agree with you here.

It's "common" in Norway because we are so small. 65% off all the players in the Norwegian NT comes from only 4 clubs. If either one of us spend a lot of energy it impacts the whole NT. So this can create certain "friction" between owners and GMs.
I would think this is the situation in many other small countries as well, as there are not to many players to choose from.

In some way there are simillar problems in real hockey also. Some teams don't let their players to join NT preparations and some don't allow them to play for NT even for WCH. Then some players are too tired and they refuse to join NT etc. And all this affects small hockey nations the most.

situation in real hockey is a bit different with NHL colliding with WCH. Players playing in Europe usually get a few weeks of break to regenerate and get ready for the tournament. These rarely turn down the NT invitation (although I'm not saying its not happening). I never heard of a European team not letting a player play at WCH. NHL players are a different chapter of course.

Actually this affects mainly the big hockey nations because their best players play overseas. Countries with only a handful of NHLers (or none at all) usually bring something very close to the best team they can build at that time.

It's the same In Serbia as I was talking a bit earlier. Most of unpleasant situations in community, are coming through energy of players which are almost irreplaceable.
MAybe if energy spending could be bigger in world cup, or in some way unproportional (bigger for those who play in PP and PK), resetting of energy wouldn't contribute lack of tactical varieties.

This is a very delicate situation, but I don't like the fact that the game will have to change because some people use their position as national manager to pressure other players.

If all players in the national team were to receive a bonus, and not only the selected 28, the National team manager would not have any way to pressure managers except for maybe removing players from the national squad with the chemistry loss that came with that. Right now it's easy because the National manager can decide who will receive the bonus and who will not without any penalty.

It's completely unreal, but I think NT energy and club energy should be completely different things.

I suggest this because we will have the same problem in soccer if the WC qualifying matches are played during the season.
When it happen, we will see the opposite, with the club managers complaining with the NT coach for playing with high importance the Q matches.

I would much rather they fix the economic issues then worry over NT.

What exactly do you have in mind with economic issues?