My best-on-best hockey does not need to be the Olympics! To hell with the IOC!

World junior tournament has fans yearning for a men’s best-on-best. To me it doesn’t have to be under the umbrella of the 5 rings of arrogance, deceit, corruption, bribery and scandal.

Look, I love the Olympics as much as the next guy. And every single person who has competed and especially those that set personal bests or won medals, I salute you. But, for hockey purposes, I could care less if the NHL players ever participate in the Olympics again.

Five times the NHL has shut down to compete as part of what is supposed to be the top sports competition of the world. Maybe it is for bobsledding, kayaking, rhythm gymnastics and a host of other sports but I don’t need to see Kazakhstan or Belarus in a true best-on-best hockey tourney. Nor am I a fan of the games played on Olympic size ice nor am I a fan or IIHF rules dictating results, IE shootouts to determine a winner!!

The Canada Cups gave us Orr/Sittler in 1976, Gretzky, Lafleur, Perreault and the Soviets in 1981, Mike Bossy in 1984, the greatest hockey show on earth ever, Wayne and Mario in 1987; Steve Larmer in 1991, Theo Fleury and the Americans in 1996, Shane Doan in 2004 and honourable mention to Keith Tkachuk’s four goal performance in the same tourney.

I get that many of you have zero memories of some of these events, they are decades ago and that the World Cups in 2004 and 2016 especially the latter were aberrations to many on the hockey scene. Which is a shame. Here’s a small sample size of some of the names that played in 2004, an event Canada went 6-0 including one of the greatest games ever, a 3-2 OT win over the Czech’s in the semi-finals with the winning goal scored by Vinny Lecavalier. By the way this tournament had venues in Canada, the States and Europe. It was a true global affair with almost all of the best player’s available suiting up. As a result the fans that watched were treated to some of the greatest hockey ever. Not an Olympic ring in sight!

Canada; Mario Lemieux, Joe Sakic, Jarome Iginla, Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Martin St. Louis, Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Scott Niedermayer, Ryan Smyth.

USA; Chris Chelios, Doug Weight, Mike Modano, Keith Tkachuk, Tony Amonte, Bill Guerin, Brett Hull.

Russia; Pavel Datsyuk, Andrei Markov, Alexei Yashin, Sergei Gonchar, Alexei Zhamnov, Sergei Samsonov, Alexei Kovalev, Ilya Kovalchuk, Darius Kasparaitis and a very young Alex Ovechkin.

Sweden; Daniel Alfredsson, Peter Forsberg, Nick Lidstrom, Henrik Lunqvist, Markus Naslund, Danny and Henrik Sedin, Mats Sundin, Henrik Zetterberg.

Finland; Teemu Selanne, Saku and Mikko Koivu, Sami Salo, Teppo Numminen, Jere Lehtinen, Mikka Kiprusoff, Olli Jokinen.

Czech Republic; Jaromir Jagr, Martin Havlat, Patrick Elias, Milan Hejduk, Robert Reichel, Martin Rucinsky, Jiri Slegr, Roman Hamrlik, Tomas Vokoun.

Slovakia; Zedno Chara, Pavol Demitra, Marian Hossa, Ziggy Palfy, Miroslav Satan, Richard Zednik, Peter Bondra, Marian Gaborik.

And Germany, the weakest link of the eight teams. They had eight NHL’ers on their roster including Marco Sturm, Olaf Kolzig, Jochen Hecht, Christian Ehrhoff and Sasha Goc.

I get there’s this romantic notion that the Olympics present something special and Canada carved off a slice of that in 2010 with Crosby’s golden goal. The Czech’s will celebrate that win in 98 forever and Sweden’s biggest victory on the global stage is their gold in 2006 by far. I get that. All I’m saying is give me the 200x85 ice surface, NHL rules, the 6 ( or 8 if need be) best hockey countries in the world, no shootouts in medal round games and have at ‘er! My best-on-best does not require Olympic participation and I defy anybody to tell me when there were three better games played than the 1987 Canada Cup final. You can’t. Because there weren’t. The absolute biggest farce facing hockey is hovering over us like a black cloud. There is a very small window left to have a hopefully healthy and competitive Sydney Crosby team up with Connor McDavid. Yes, that’s a Canadian bias but the hockey world deserves to see this. Figure it out NHL. Screw the five rings, the IOC will not acquiesce on anything so to hell with them and give the fans what they want, a true best-on-best featuring the top teams, a mid-season tournament with NHL rules.