Awful news from Sportsnet:
The International Ice Hockey Federation has cancelled the remainder of the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship because of rising cases of COVID-19, according to multiple reports.
Daily Faceoff’s Chris Peters was first to report the cancellation.
The tournament, being held in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alta., has seen a recent increase in infections that have led to game forfeitures caused by positive test results on the Russia, Czechia and United States teams.
After the Czechia-Finland game was forfeited, the IIHF announced that referees and linesmen would have to wear masks during games until further notice.
The cancellation comes on the heels of the IIHF’s decision late last week to cancel all events that started in January, including the women’s under-18 world championship, a decision that was heavily criticized.
The U18 championship was scheduled to take place Jan. 8-15 in Linkoping and Mjolby, Sweden. It’s the second straight year the tournament has been cancelled after the 2021 event, also scheduled for Linkoping and Mjolby, was scrapped due to the pandemic.
The IIHF said the tournaments were cancelled because of the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.
Update: Here it is:
Official Announcement: The 2022 #WorldJuniors have been cancelled due to Covid-19.
Full statement at https://t.co/TNNT2FHecn pic.twitter.com/xnPs9nDWli— IIHF (@IIHFHockey) December 29, 2021
I get it, but boooooo!
Sad news but it had to be done. Three teams should take a look at the holes in their Covid protection of their teams. Maybe there is some good in this news. The other teams were able to stay Covid free, good for them.
Russia, USA and the Czechs must insure they find out what went wrong. I would not be surprised if this WJC is questionable for next year.
There are far too many people in this troubled World not following the rules/guidelines/health/etc advice to at least bring the number of infections down. Many teams seemed to have done something right. The anti Vaxxers are missing something in their heads.
All in all tough news for the players/teams as a whole who look forward to this event for a long time. I should point out that only player is required from each group to ruin the event for others. This is a World Wide problem not just sports.
That is my opinion, I know others will have differing thoughts which is certainly the way it should work and mine may wrong!
The cancellation could have been avoided!