The World Hockey Championships were canceled due to COVID-19 games

EDMONTON – The continued loss of games due to the COVID-19 virus ended the men’s hockey junior world championship in Alberta after just four days.

The third game, lost in two days, left the International Hockey Federation, Canadian Hockey and the Organizing Committee with few options to continue the tournament honestly, and they suspended the 11-day, 10-country event in Edmonton and Red Deer. Wednesday.

The IIHF men’s under-20 championship kicked off on Sunday, but players who tested positive for the virus set to defend the United States, Russia and the Czech Republic into compulsory quarantine by Wednesday, when nine of the 31 matches were actually played.

“We saw that it was impossible to continue this competition in a fair way,” IIHF President Luc Tardif said in a video media conference.

The Americans and the Czechs were due to play in a row this week, leaving little time for additional tests to get the players on the ice.

“We had to do other tests after a positive test, but sometimes the results came two hours before the game,” Tardif said. “It wasn’t an easy situation for the two teams to know if the game was being played or not.”

Tardif did not rule out a reorganization of the Alberta Junior Tournament later in 2022, when all players will be eligible to participate, even if they are 20 years old.

“It’s unfortunate to see #World Juniors canceled, ”Prime Minister Jason Kenney wrote in a Twitter post.“ Thank you to everyone at Red Deer and Edmonton who worked so hard to host this tournament, especially the volunteers.

“I have told @Hockey Canada that Alberta would like to host a follow-up tournament when conditions allow.

The tournament, which was due to end with medal games on January 5 in Edmonton, had little room for maneuver for makeup games. It is against the IIHF’s sporting rules for a team to play games for three consecutive days.

Two Americans who passed the positive test forced the Swiss to lose their game of Red Deer on Tuesday. The Czech player and the Russian player positive meant the loss of Wednesday’s matches between these teams and Finland and Slovakia.

Canada were scheduled to play their third qualifying match on Wednesday night against Germany in Edmonton.

“We’ve done our best,” Tom Renney, CEO of Hockey Canada, said. – We faced an opponent who was not on the ice, but who was bigger than all of us, and unfortunately we had to cancel this event.

The 2021 Junior Tournament in Edmonton, the first IIHF tournament to be held during the pandemic, crossed the finish line when the United States defeated Canada in the final.

Minutes for the 2022 issue were drawn up before the rise of Omicron variants in December, which delayed more than 60 NHL games and caused the IIHF to cancel six January tournaments.

“We played a lot to catch up with the evolving situation here,” IIHF medical supervisor Matt Robins said. “We’re just playing with a very catchy variant.”

The teams had agreed to operate in a “protective environment” and had their own floors in hotels, Dean McIntosh, vice president of Hockey Canada, said.

However, officials were asked about the team’s accommodation in Red Deer, where public events were held at their hotel.

“We had a couple of small events that were supposed to take place at the hotel at the far end of the conference room that didn’t interact directly with the players,” McIntosh said.

“We gave the teams every indication that this was progressing, and we advised the teams on how to avoid it, so they didn’t have to go to that area.”

The teams arrived in Alberta on Dec. 15, were quarantined, and tested before skating.

Three players and two referees got a positive virus before the start of the tournament. The pre-tournament schedule was shortened to one match per team, as the Czechs and Swiss were unable to play any warm-up games.

The cancellation interrupts the IIHF Men’s Junior World Series for 44 consecutive years.

“We think suspending the World Cup is a sensible decision,” Lars Weibel, head of the national teams for the Swiss Hockey Federation, wrote in a Twitter message.

“In the light of the current situation, it is unfortunately no longer possible to guarantee a fair tournament at an athletic level.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on December 29, 2021.