Czechia forfeits Wednesday’s WJC game to Finland after positive COVID test

One day after Team USA forfeited its Preliminary Round game against Switzerland at the World Juniors, the same fate befell Czechia on Wednesday.

The IIHF announced that a player on Czechia’s active roster tested positive for COVID-19, which will result in a forfeit to Finland in a game that was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

IIHF

@IIHFHockey

·Follow

BREAKING: @narodnitym to miss game against @leijonat due to a mandated team quarantine. More at iihf.com/en/events/2022… #WorldJuniors

4:58 PM · Dec 29, 2021

240

Reply

Copy link

Read 100 replies

The game will go in the record books as a 1-0 win for Team Finland.

Finland’s record improves to 3-0-0-0, which moves it past Canada for first place in Group A; Czechia’s record falls to 0-0-1-2, which means zero wins, zero overtime wins, one overtime loss and two losses in regulation, which is fourth in Group A.

After the Preliminary Round concludes on Friday, the top four teams in each group will advance to the Playoff Round.

If Czechia will have the opportunity to try to qualify for the Playoff Round remains up in the air. According to the IIHF, the entire Czech team will now enter a full quarantine as a result of the positive test and have its status reevaluated in coming days. It remains uncertain if Czechia will be able to play its next scheduled game on Thursday against Austria. The Czechs would require a victory against Austria to advance to the Playoff Round.

This quarantining of Team Czechia comes one day after Team USA placed its entire roster in quarantine following two of its players testing positive on Tuesday. As of this writing, there has been no announcement about whether Team USA will be able to take the ice for its next game tonight against Sweden.

There have not been any positive tests with any of the other eight teams.