Blowouts Galore at the World Junior Championship

Junior hockey fans are feverishly anticipating the New Year's Eve showdown between Canada and the United States. And with good reason.

Six days into the 2009 World Junior Hockey Championship, we might finally get a worthwhile game.

As of Tuesday evening, there were 14 results from the tournament, with the margin of victory averaging nearly six goals per game.

Among the classics: USA 8-Germany 2, Sweden 10-Latvia 1, Canada 15-Kazakhstan 0.

The World Juniors can be one of the great events on the hockey calendar, but the drama rarely begins before the medal round.

It's typical of international hockey - the round-robin exists only to punish the countries that don't belong.

The Kazakhstans of the world are invited to bulk up the schedule and boost the box office. Most tickets are sold in full tournament packages, so the seats to a Germany-Latvia game are bought and paid for whether anyone sits in them or not.

At any level of the game, there are six legitimate hockey powers - Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the USA. Add two more on the bubble - Germany and Slovakia - and maybe Switzerland in a good year. After that it gets ugly.

Eight teams should be the maximum at any world championship.

Yes, the little guys provide the rare historic upset. It doesn't happen often enough to justify the steady supply of blowouts.

Most sports have similar problems. Even soccer's World Cup, the biggest show of them all, invites a ludicrous 32 teams.

That's no reason why the international hockey community should force unwanted tickets on its paying customers and sanction a week's worth of garbage games.

Postscript: The Canada-USA game is broadcast by TSN in Canada and the NHL Network in the U.S., starting at 7:30 PM EST.