Before we dig in, this will not be a hit piece against the players, instead we will only praise the individuals who stood out with good performances on Team World.
 
Last WJC, Team World managed to get 4th after losing in the bronze medal match. No team has fallen harder than Team World in results. Sure, the team selection was swapped with Team Ice, but that is still no excuse when Team World had a plethora of good goaltending and the best player in the round robin on their team. The main problem that we can see is with the management. New General Manger Jack Ster has rightfully come under fire for his decisions, particularly the decision to select Coach Poot Mehin. Coach Poot Mehin failed to make adequate tactical and line changes over the course of the tournament which led to many of the best players on Team World failing to achieve what they are capable of. Jack Ster made the controversial decision to sit veteran Goaltender Five-Hole Sieve for the majority of the latter round robin matches. While Sieve did not record a win in any of their four games (0-2-2), it cannot be stated that it was entirely their fault with a save percentage of .903. Both Sieve and Stun Gun (3-4-1) were under heavy bombardment in all of the games they played with Team World giving up an average of 39.5 shots against per game while only getting 28.92 off. These tactical blunders and lineup mishaps are the main problems that led to the failures of Team World in this go around.
 
With an average goals for of 2.92 and a goals against of 4.08, not much was going right for Team World as a team. Only 7 of the 18 team world players managed to attain PDOs above 100 during the tournament. A few like Cracker Pizza and Jean-Francois Bokassa were very close, but no cigar. Only one player had a positive plus minus (Brandon Gilleyes) while three players failed to score goals over the twelve games. However, the overall talent on the roster indicates that this was a failure in deployment of personnel.
 
What went well for Team World? There were shining individual efforts with the round robin best player of the entire tournament in Sunrise van de Schubbekutteveen who recorded 8 goals and 9 assists in 12 games and a shooting percentage of 23.5% on 34 shots. Their shooting percentage was only beaten by Valerija Serapin who had 3 goals on 7 shots for a 42.9% shooting percentage. Serapin’s shooting percentage was the best in the round robin. As a team, Team World had a faceoff percentage of 51.6% with Bean Beanman Jr. leading the centers of the team with a percentage of 59.6%. Unspeakable Horror and Serapin put their bodies on the line with 48 and 39 blocked shots respectively. The special teams for Team World were remarkably solid with a 22.2% power play and an 81% penalty kill.
 
Again, most of the team played as well as the poor tactics of Ster and Mehin would allow them to. Having never coached on any big stage before, Coach Poot Mehin is now known for his unconventional and often counterproductive coaching methods. One of his bad ideas is his insistence on favoritism, showing blatant bias towards certain players, regardless of their skills or performance on the ice. This led to in correct pairings and jumbled lines. Coach Mehin also refused to look at any data or advanced stats in relation to player or team performance or sports science and modern training methods. He dismisses data-driven analysis and insists on relying solely on his gut feeling and intuition when making critical decisions. This refusal to embrace advancements in sports science puts his team at a disadvantage compared to more progressive and informed coaches. Meanwhile, Ster’s laissez-faire approach to the tournament in allowing Mehin full reign must be held as negligent to his duty to put together a competitive and coherent team. Ster was often unreachable and unresponsive to the questions from Media and players alike, unable to fully engage his roster (aside from accidentally pinging them 7 times while making an announcement post). Coach Poot Mehin declined to comment for our article, but Ster told us to shove our article quote “where the sun don’t shine” so they were not overly helpful.
 
Maybe we are overreacting because somehow this team was not the worst in the entire WJC with UCORCAL finishing with a record of 2-8-2. We welcome all criticisms wither constructive or hurtful. Please forward all criticisms of the Team World WJC team to HFFO. (DO NOT, otherwise he will call me Finnish again.)


WC: 803