In the modern world of professional sports, nothing screams "important event!" like a media day.
Media days (the World Cup of Hockey's was on Thursday) attract a mix of traditional news-gatherers and modern-day information dispensers – sure signs that the circus is in town.
All eight teams, starting with Finland in the morning and ending with Sweden late in the afternoon, turned up at the Air Canada Centre, making it arguably the largest gathering of hockey movers and shakers ever in one space at one time (169 players were in the building).
Just how well the tournament does – on the ice, at the box office and in television numbers recorded here and abroad – will go a long way in shaping the NHL's international policy in the years to come.
Ideally, the league and the players association want to schedule World Cups every four years, with the possibility of adding a Ryder Cup-style tournament into the mix as well.
The latter concept – the brainchild of former NHL executive John Collins – would feature a best-of-seven between North American and European all-star teams. If adopted, it would eventually become a once-every-four-years fixture on the calendar as well.
Where that leaves the NHL's Olympic involvement is anybody's guess. The league's commitment to the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, is still up in the air. Prior to the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, the NHL let its collective arm be twisted by the wishes of Russian players who wanted to play at home. (At media day, superstar Alex Ovechkin again vowed to play for Russia's Olympic team in Korea, no matter what the NHL decides.)
But the International Olympic Committee says it won't cover NHL players' 2018 travel and insurance expenses, as it has in the past, and if it holds fast to that position, then it becomes an easier decision for the league to say no.
If there was one overriding theme at Thursday's massive availability, it was that, for the players, the appetite for best-on-best competition doesn't ever seem to wane.
Any time the game's elite talent get together, highly motivated to play, good things usually happen.
The decision to put together an under-24 team North American might be the most inspired aspect of the tournament. There's a palpable curiosity about them – how they'll play and how they'll come together. Fans in Toronto are happy to glimpse Auston Mathews for the first time, and get a longer look at emerging star Connor McDavid as well.
The young guns were only supposed to be a one-off concept, for this event only. Now, they could become fixtures.
But the desire to play games against their high-end peers isn't limited just to the NHL's Generation Next. The Anaheim Ducks' Corey Perry is the perfect example of the lengths even an established player will go to in order to participate.
Anaheim went into last season's NHL playoffs as a Stanley Cup favourite and lost in the opening round. Soon after, Perry received a pro forma invitation to play for Canada at the world championships, even though organizers understood that players aged 30 and over coming off a bitterly disappointing playoff result rarely say yes.
But as soon as he figured out how to move his family (and dogs) back to their off-season home in London, Ont., he jumped on a plane for Russia. And even after he was originally passed over for the World Cup team and wasn't picked as the first injury replacement either (Logan Couture replaced Jamie Benn), when a second opening came up, he happily agreed to play.
"You want to play with the best and against that best, and see where you rank with the best," said Perry. "I think at any point in your career, when you can do that, you want to be a part of it."
There are only two players remaining from Canada's 2004 World Cup win – centre Joe Thornton and defenceman Jay Bouwmeester – both of whom cut short their summers and eagerly embraced the chance to play despite their respective ages (37 and 32) and experience levels (33 combined NHL seasons).
So Thornton is here and, along with his San Jose Sharks' teammate Brent Burns, is in full playoff-beard mode, ready to go. The fact that the tournament is being held here in southern Ontario, not far from his hometown of St. Thomas, was one of the deciding factors in Thornton's decision to say yes.
"If it was in a faraway place, maybe not," said Thornton. "But being here, close to home, it was a no-brainer."
Demand for games involving Canada and North America is high and, while World Cup fever hasn't exactly gripped Toronto yet, a best-of-three final between the aforementioned Canadian and North American teams would send fan interest skyrocketing. If different teams inconveniently get in the way, the World Cup would do less well.
But based on what we've seen so far, the hockey should be exceptional. Even the exhibition games were watchable – and when was the last time you could say that about any sport?
"We got on the plane after that first game [against the U.S.] and we were laughing about it," said Canadian forward Matt Duchene. "We couldn't believe what we'd just done. It was insane."
"That was like a Game 7 playoff game out there, and it was only an exhibition," added the Boston Bruins' Brad Marchand, "and it's only going to ramp up in the actual tournament.
"It's going to be fun, it's going to be intense – and it's going to be a battle out there."