4 Nations shows NHL was wrong to ditch international hockey for a decade

There are many good reasons to be skeptical of the 4 Nations Face-Off.

There's no history of these particular four nations facing off for hockey supremacy, no matter how much the organizers want the tournament considered in the class of great showdowns of the past. It's not Canada-USSR in the middle of the Cold War.

It's too short to be a proper test, but also comes in the middle of the NHL season, when players really don't need to be thrown into a handful of high-intensity games.

It's missing loads of great NHL players: Germans, Czechs, Russians, Slovaks.

Most importantly, it represents exactly what the NHL took away from hockey fans for the past decade: best-on-best competitions that are usually the pinnacle the sport has to offer. The 4 Nations exists at least in part because the league hasn't participated in an Olympics since 2014.

The new trophy unveiled for the tournament this week might as well have been named The Gary Bettman Cup. None of this would be happening if he hadn't turned his nose up at the Winter Games.

And yet, as Grinch-like as I might feel about the whole endeavor, it took about 56 seconds and a no-look backhand pass from Sidney Crosby to Nathan MacKinnon for Canada's opening goal against Sweden on Wednesday night for my heart to grow three sizes, so to speak.

Montreal's Bell Centre crowd was into it. The players were flying all over the ice. A new generation was finally getting the chance to play best-on-best hockey, and Canada looked like it was going to be the apex predator.

It was suddenly quite easy to forget the tournament's problems and just enjoy some damn fine hockey.

And fine hockey it was. Connor McDavid went full McJesus, tearing around at his signature 1.5X speed and looking to deke someone every time he touched the puck. Crosby looked like, if not quite Sid the Kid, at least Sid the 27-year-old, setting up three goals, including the game-winner. If, like me, you're not quite ready for Crosby to be approaching his 40s, here he was to prove that hockey smarts age well.

Sweden got steamrolled in the opening period, down 2-0 and barely managing a shot, but pushed back impressively, scoring twice in the third period to send the game to overtime.

And then the dazzling finish: Almost a full 10 minutes of three-on-three overtime, all gas, no brakes, until Mitch Marner ended it off a brilliant Crosby pass after Crosby pulled all three Swedish skaters toward him.

And I can admit it: Were we not entertained?

The 4 Nations could yet be undone by circumstance. If one of Canada or the United States wobbles in the lightning-fast round-robin portion of the event and fails to make next week's final, it'll make for an anti-climactic finish. If more players are lost to injury, as happened with Canada's Shea Theodore on Wednesday, the NHL - and its teams - may reconsider the wisdom of replacing the All-Star Game's casual silliness with what felt like the crash and bang of playoff hockey.

While Bettman and NHLPA director Marty Walsh kicked off the festivities in Montreal by announcing a plan for a 2028 World Cup to replace the 4 Nations, and with further tournaments to take place every four years beyond that, it's worth noting the NHL commissioner has pulled this rug out before.

When the 2016 World Cup - an exceedingly weird tournament that included a Team North America and a Team Europe - took place in Toronto, Bettman said at the time he was committed to making regular best-on-best hockey a thing, a position he was keen to defend because he was also trying to justify not sending NHLers to the PyeongChang Olympics. But it didn't happen, and instead of spending the past decade with McDavid and Auston Matthews spearheading a Canada-U.S. rivalry, the NHL let a lot of time slip by. Who's to say Bettman or his successor won't do it again?

But that's a question for later. For now, the McDavid-Matthews clash, in their national jerseys, will finally happen Saturday night, even if it may just be a precursor to a rematch in the 4 Nations final. It should be a thrilling game based on Wednesday night, especially since the Americans carry the kind of firepower that could do to Canada what Canada did to the Swedes.

The camera will cut away at some point to Bettman, grinning away in the stands. And it'll be worth asking, again: Why haven't we had more of this?

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.