Happy Tuesday!
I’ve finally put the finishing touches on a pretty exciting project over at Elite Prospects. I’ve alluded to it before, but basically I was in charge of creating and developing a new magazine for Elite Prospects that will come out in either late November or early December.
It’s going to be an annual project, but like any big project Year 1, where it’s never existed before creates some challenges and hurdles which, frankly, have been pretty fun to tackle.
As part of that project though, I’ve been able to have some really awesome conversations with people throughout the hockey world, both in North American and in Europe. I had a chance to speak with new IIHF President Franz Reindl soon after his election, notably before the ruling on Russia by the CAS, and it was fascinating to learn more about the long-term goals of the IIHF and what that might look like.
I’m gonna save that Q&A for the magazine, which I will make sure to link to when it’s public, but one thing that really stood out to me from our conversation, beyond some of the other obvious questions about best-on-best competition, was the upcoming push for more 3-on-3 hockey at the international level.
In Reindl’s mind, there’s a real opportunity for the IIHF to do something similar with 3-on-3 hockey that FIBA has done with international basketball, where both 5-on-5 and 3-on-3 basketball are both Olympic sports.
For Reindl, there’s a goal that by 2034 3-on-3 hockey is a viable option for Olympic inclusion. There’s quite a few hurdles for that to happen, including the IIHF normalizing and standardizing more 3-on-3 competition, including a potential world championship in the sport so the IOC can adopt it, but it’s something that’s high on the new administration’s radar for international hockey.
According to Reindl 3-on-3 hockey also presents an opportunity to close some gaps for smaller hockey nations, it’s a smaller roster, and it can create more touch points for potential players around the world.
The IIHF pictures a full 3-on-3 league and international schedule for the league, which will ideally be played on smaller surfaces, with free-flowing game where after goals are scored the team that conceded simply starts the puck with a new breakout.
I’m personally fascinated to see where it goes. One of the problems, if you could call it that, with other 3-on-3 efforts in the past have been the fact it’s done at full 5-on-5 ice without the sudden death implications. Three-on-three is a blast in the NHL because of it’s rarity and the stakes, but when you go 3-on-3 on a full-sized sheet, it becomes a bit of a forced concept, in my view.
On a smaller rink, however, it becomes more of a shot-for-shot competition, without the lengthy re-groups or teams trying to spread it so wide that they burn out the clock.
Just something to think about as we move forward in the hockey world. Hope everyone has a happy Tuesday and we will be back with more later this week.