Originally posted by ad hoc
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The IIHF hockey standad may have been intended as a compromise, but for all practical purposss, the "international" standard is European, unless you count Asia as an important hockey influence, which you shouldn't.
When the Olympics chose to feature hockey over bandy (which the Russians were more into, as I recall), they could have gone with the Canadian version already flourishing, relatively, but chose not to.*
There may have been very good reasons to do it that way but it's still the European style and not the North American style (and a load of American journalists who don't understand hockey think that it's superior to the NA version.) It slightly favors European teams, and nobody should pretend otherwise.
*It's not a given that every international sport has to be designed by an international committee. Baseball wasn't. Nor was football/soccer, or rugby. And that's fine.
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