One of the most exciting hockey tournaments on the globe has sadly been cut short. The 2022 World Juniors were axed on Wednesday after just three days due to the rapid climb of COVID-19 cases.
The United States had to forfeit their matchup with Switzerland on Tuesday because of the virus then on Wednesday, Russia and the Czech Republic couldn’t suit up either for the same reason. At that point, the IIHF made the call to cancel the tournament.
The World Juniors, which were being held in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alberta, reportedly had minimal protection for players and coaches against COVID-19.
Basically, both venues failed to provide the proper contamination and clean facilities since a lot of different teams were using the same locker rooms and such. The last game of the World Juniors ended up being Canada’s 11-2 thrashing of Austria on Tuesday.
More importantly, this is a real blow to these young players who had a chance to showcase their talents in front of NHL scouts ahead of the draft next July. Once again, we’re reminded of just how serious COVID-19 is. It’s causing postponements across the sports world as a whole, with the NHL even pausing play for a few days around Christmas to try and get various outbreaks under control.
Now, we look ahead to the 2023 World Juniors. We’ll likely see some of these same players in Russia at that time.
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