The international ice hockey federation came under review last week when it announced the cancellation of six tournaments in January, including the World Women’s Under-18 Championship.
For the second year in a row, the female U18s were canceled after the edition was also canceled due to the recent times.
The cancellation has raised questions about equality with the U18 and U20 men’s IIHF tournaments, which can continue.
The president of the IIHF, Luc Tardif, argues that the decision to cancel all six tournaments was due to concerns related to recent times.
“(On) December 23, when we made the decision, 62 games were canceled by the NHL,” Tardif said on the final episode of the Ray & Dregs podcast. “That’s why we organized a meeting with the medical community and they said that we could not hold these tournaments in January.”
The women’s U18, which was originally supposed to be held in Sweden, will be canceled instead of being postponed, which opens the door for other hockey associations to intervene and make a proposal for inclusion.
On Monday, USA Hockey released a statement calling on the IIHF to reprogram the female U18s.In response, Tardif asks USA Hockey to repeat what Hockey Canada did after the cancellation of the Women’s World Cup in Nova Scotia in April, before postponing it to August in Calgary.
“I saw a statement from USA Hockey to inquire and try to change the council’s decision,” Tardif said. “I said okay, I challenge you USA Hockey, because the work that Hockey Canada has done to move the tournament in August, it’s now time for USA Hockey to do this. I’m not just satisfied with a letter, I want to act.
“If you come with a proposal, I’m talking about June, because it’s not possible to do this in April. April, March we have 20 tournaments, in May is our [men’s] World Cup, so it can only be in June. If they come, I am sure that I will be able to convince the Council with the new facts and the new proposal to change our minds. We will do the same with the other five tournaments, we will try to find a solution if recent times (is) exempt.”
Recent times has been a problem at the World Junior Championship so far, as the USA canceled Tuesday’s match against Switzerland due to two positively controlled players.
The IIHF decided that no team will be relegated this year due to recent times-and next year’s tournament in Novosibirsk and Omsk, Russia, will be held with 11 teams instead of 10 regularly.
“I’m not going to say that we expected it, but you know, just a little before the arrival of the players here in the middle of December, on December 15 exactly, the wave of Omicron was already a little started, because we saw that the NHL game, some counts started slowly and what is happening around the world and in all sports,” Tardif said. “Even if we made a bubble, at least tried to make it more effective, you can see that it is really difficult to action this virus.”
