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This content was machine-translated from the French version.
The American World Cup devoured its own sport
The 2026 World Cup closed on Sunday at MetLife Stadium in New York with Spain's second title, victorious over Argentina at the end of a choppy extra time (1-0). A month of competition on American soil, forty-eight nations involved, one hundred and four matches played in sixteen stadiums: the specifications were the most ambitious in history. Yet, beyond the honors and the numbers, this World Cup will leave the persistent memory of football relegated to the background. Gianni Infantino and Donald Trump displaying an assumed complicity in the stands, rule changes announced mid-tournament without consultation, a diluted format where the best third-placed teams advanced without a sweat, ticketing at several thousand dollars per ticket. The biggest sporting event on the planet turned into a machine for generating revenue, influence, and storytelling calibrated for North American markets. The game itself served as a pretext.
This drift, dissected with biting wit by columnist Philippe Ducarroz in his "Puck Off" column published Monday on Planète Hockey, concerns not only football fans.
The Swiss mirror of world hockey
This drift, dissected with biting wit by columnist Philippe Ducarroz in his "Puck Off" column published Monday on Planète Hockey, concerns not only football fans. It directly challenges other disciplines, ice hockey first and foremost. The comparison with the IIHF World Championship held last May in Zurich and Fribourg is instructive. Switzerland delivered a human-scale tournament: sixteen teams, packed arenas, fervor without artifice, an undisputed winner and a valiant finalist. No halftime shows, no hundred-million-dollar opening ceremony, no sponsors imposing their tempo. Hockey players on the ice, fans in the stands, and between them that alchemy that neither money nor staging can manufacture. Sport in its raw state, the one that speaks to everyone.
Hockey is not immune
The hockey must not believe it is protected by its modest size. The National League is methodically pushing its pawns in Western Europe, attracting private capital, selling nights in Las Vegas like promotional boxing matches. Rules are already evolving at the whim of broadcasters, the calendar is densifying, franchises are relocating to follow the money rather than their original communities. Ducarroz's warning serves as a roadmap: every sport that accepts being dictated the time, place, and staging ends up losing control over what makes its value, namely sweat, uncertainty, and fan loyalty.
Keep the match at the center of the game
With the 2026 World Cup closed, the next window of opportunity for the hockey family will be the joint France-Switzerland organization of the 2027 tournament under the current IIHF formula. Rather than mimicking American pomp, there is an opportunity to re-anchor hockey in what made it unique in Zurich and Fribourg: a short format, sold-out arenas, offensive and readable hockey, standing fans. The real question posed by Ducarroz's editorial is not whether hockey can grow, but whether it can grow without ceasing to be itself.