It's a happy time for hockey fans. The season is within sight, and to tide us over until then, the World Cup of Hockey is back. It has been a while since there was a standalone World Cup, but now it's back with an exciting format that's sure to have fans watching. It's an eight team field, with games being played in Toronto.

The Format

The eight teams are divided into two groups of four, and will begin the tournament by playing the other three teams. The top two teams from each group will then be placed into the semifinals, where the top team of each group will face the second place team of the opposite group. So Group A winner will face the second place team from Group B, and the Group B winner will face the second place team from Group A. The winners of those two elimination games will then face off in a best of three final.

The Teams

Group A - Team USA, Team Czech Republic, Team Europe, and Team Canada

Group B - Team North America, Team Finland, Team Sweden, and Team Russia

Most of these teams are self explanatory, but Team Europe and Team North America seem sort of counterintuitive. So for Team Europe, the team is comprised of players from European countries other than Russia, Finland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic. Team North America is comprised of players from the USA and Canada that are 23 or younger as of October 1, 2016.

Storylines

A lot of the top hockey analysts and announcers are Canadian, even here in the U.S., so they have all been praising their home country to no end. To be fair, Canada has to be considered the favorite, as the sheer number of top players is a huge advantage. The analysts need to stop slobbering over Canada for half a second and realize the other teams are all dangerous in this tournament as well.

Every team has multiple players that can change any game if they get going. For example, if Lundqvist gets hot for Sweden it's going to be very hard to score on Sweden. The same can be said for Jonathan Quick of Team USA. Scorers for other countries could take over as well, with Patrick Kane consistently one of the best in the world. Young guns Jack Eichel and Connor McDavid of Team North America could be scary dangerous once they get going.

With the top players in the world participating, this tournament already held a lot of promise to be entertaining. Based on the explosive nature of the USA-Canada exhibition game on the 9th, this tournament seems like it will have an intensive and playoff-like feel from the start.