2022 IIHF World Junior Championship cancelled amid COVID-19 concerns

The IIHF announced Wednesday that the remainder of the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship has been cancelled. The decision was made by the IIHF Council on the recommendation of the tournament’s COVID-19 Medical Group and the IIHF Medical committee, due to the ongoing spread of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant. The move was made to ensure the health and safety of all participants.

Sources told Daily Faceoff that an emergency meeting of the IIHF Council and tournament directorate was called for Wednesday afternoon to discuss the future of the tournament. Within the hour, a decision was reached and teams were notified that the remainder of the tournament would be cancelled. The decision came on the heels of multiple games being impacted due to positive tests among tournament participants.

Three games were cancelled and ruled forfeits due to players testing positive on Team USA, Russia and Czechia. The Americans went through further testing to attempt to play Wednesday night’s game against Sweden, but then one player on each of Team Czechia and Team Russia tested positive forcing the cancellation of their games Wednesday as well.

Each time a player tested positive, the entire team and staff were deemed close contacts and put into mandatory isolation. Per rules agreed upon by the IIHF and its member governing bodies prior to the tournament, the team unable to play would be forced to forfeit their game. The U.S. forfeited its game against Switzerland, Czechia’s game against Finland was forfeited and so was Russia’s game against Slovakia.

Upon having three games decided by teams being placed in isolation, the IIHF Council ruled that, in addition to the health and safety of the participants, the “sportive integrity of the event [was] compromised and the event must be cancelled.”

“Together with the teams, we came into this event with full confidence in the COVID-19 protocols put in place by the IIHF, the LOC, Alberta Health, Alberta Health Services and the Public Health Agency of Canada,” said IIHF President Luc Tardif in a statement. “The ongoing spread of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant forced us to readjust our protocols almost immediately upon arrival to attempt to stay ahead of any potential spread. This included daily testing and the team quarantine requirement when positive cases were confirmed.

“We owed it to the participating teams to do our best to create the conditions necessary for this event to work. Unfortunately, this was not enough. We now have to take some time and focus on getting all players and team staff back home safely.”

Hockey Canada also released the following statement on behalf of president Scott Smith and CEO Tom Renney:

“Hockey Canada has worked tirelessly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure it would be equipped to host world-class, international events in a safe and healthy environment. Despite our best efforts, and continually adapting and strengthening protocols, we have unfortunately fallen short of our goal of completing the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship and handing out medals on Jan. 5 due to the challenges of the current COVID-19 landscape.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have always made the health and safety of event participants and the community at large a priority, and given the news that we have encountered positive cases within the World Juniors environment, we understand and support the decision to cancel the remainder of the event. Although we know this is the right decision, we sympathize with all participants who have earned the opportunity to represent their countries on the world stage and that will not be able to realize that dream in its entirety.”

The uncertainty of the Omicron variant as well as the timing of its surge both had a significant impact on what happened at the tournament. It also immediately changed the protocols as teams had previously understood them prior to the tournament happening. That was especially true of people deemed close contacts to individuals that tested positive within the team cohort.

Sources from multiple teams on the ground in Red Deer had expressed frustration about how the protocols all countries agreed on prior to joining had changed seemingly regularly. After the U.S. learned two players tested positive, they isolated any close contacts including each player’s roommate and were told two negative tests for all players would need to be required before the game could start. However, there were changes that even the roommates of the players in question were told they’d need to isolate another day. That put the integrity of the roster in doubt as the U.S. team also had at least one injured player.

A source with direct knowledge of the protocols document the IIHF distributed said that prior to the tournament, the rules stated that close contacts that were fully vaccinated or had contracted and recovered from COVID-19 in the last 90 days, as well as not exhibiting any symptoms, would not be subject to isolation. If that were still the case, we may not have seen games cancelled.

However, because of the ever-changing understanding of the Omicron variant — that it is known to be more highly transmissible even among the vaccinated — those protocols shifted. It almost immobilized any team that had a player test positive for a day or two. With each team playing a maximum of seven games over 11 days, there wasn’t going to be an opportunity to re-schedule games that were cancelled due to positive tests.

The risks of transmission were always going to be greater in this year’s tournament as opposed to last year’s, which was played in a tightly-sealed bubble that only tested individuals and people tied to the tournament were allowed into. All teams played games in one site, stayed in the same hotel, no fans were allowed in the building and there was very minimal risk of the virus penetrating the bubble so long as those infected were immediately isolated.

This year’s event, however, was much different. Two different sites were used in Alberta – Rogers Place in Edmonton and WP Centrium in Red Deer. Additionally, the province of Alberta required that the tournament games be limited to 50 percent capacity in each building, a figure that attendance figures show most games fell well below anyway.

Additionally, teams were in more than one hotel, but those hotels were not closed off to the rest of the general public. Team sources on the ground in Red Deer said that because the hotel had other individuals not in tournament protocols staying in the hotel, interaction with the public was mostly unavoidable. In fact, sources from multiple teams said that there was a wedding reception planned in the hotel hosting the U.S. and Sweden during the tournament, something those sources felt increased the risk of spread within the hotel.

When the tournament was initially scheduled and the protocols put in place over the course of the last several months, those protocols were made with previously known variants of the virus, not for Omicron. Playing the tournament in a “protected environment” as it was called, was believed to be safe enough even though there could be some contact with individuals outside of the bubble.

Just days before teams were due to arrive in Alberta, local health officials made a number of changes to its health and safety protocols for residents, but still wanted to make room for an event like the World Juniors to be held. Capacities at both arenas were reduced by 50 percent, forcing Hockey Canada and tournament organizers to pare down its ticket-holder base. Additionally, concessions at both arenas were not allowed. Significant revenue streams for the tournament were already shut off.

All teams were required to arrive in Alberta on Dec. 15 and undergo a mandatory 48-hour quarantine period. During that initial 48-hour period, just one player and two on-ice officials tested positive according to the IIHF. There was optimism at that point that the protected environment would be enough to move forward with the tournament. The pre-tournament game schedule was pared down to just one game per team to limit risk and the integrity of the tournament appeared to be intact at that point.

However, one Swiss player tested positive during the lead up to the tournament, forcing a cancellation of one pre-tournament game. That player was isolated and unable to play in the tournament, while the Swiss team had to go through about 48 hours of testing to ensure they would be ready for the tournament. The team was cleared and the Swiss team played its first game against Russia.

An Austrian player tested positive just before the tournament, which put their team in isolation. But the rest of the team was cleared for participation and no games were missed as Austria was cleared in time to play their game against Finland.

Everything changed on Wednesday when two American players returned positive PCR tests. All players on the U.S. team were fully-vaccinated and asymptomatic, but the newer protocols required the entire team to isolate.

According to sources on the ground in multiple federations, they felt their players had adequately adhered to all protocols and were doing the best they could to maintain health and safety protocols. There was also frustration among those teams that their efforts would not be enough, especially after the U.S. team returned two positive tests.

Teams are now working to rebook travel to leave Canada. Additionally federations are working with local officials in order to find ways to help players that are currently in isolation and determine next steps. Canadian health regulations require individuals who test positive to isolate for at least 10 days.

The IIHF had hosted three World Championship events last season in successful bubbles where there was little to no spread of COVID-19 once players were in the bubble. The 2021 World Juniors and 2021 World Women’s Championship were both played and completed in Alberta. The 2021 World Men’s Under-18 Championship was moved from Michigan to Frisco and Plano, Texas and ended with no positive tests during the tournament that ended with no games postponed and all medals distributed. So there was evidence that bubbles can work. The 2022 event did not have the same protective measures, which coupled with the rapid spread of the Omicron variant and more stringent health protocols necessary to operate the tournament, things got to a point where there was no choice but to cancel the event.

It is extremely unfortunate for all parties, but especially the players who have now gone through multiple missed benchmarks most hockey players dream of. In addition to this World Juniors being cancelled, players from the 2002 birth year saw their World U18 Championship wiped out weeks before it was supposed to happen during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. That doesn’t even mention the many players who either did not play or had very short seasons last year.