IIHF World Junior Tournament Cancelled
After a few games already being cancelled due to CoVid cases/mandatory quarantines, the IIHF has decided to cancel the remainder of the tournament.
Especially noteworthy for the 5 Michigan hockey players who were at the tournament, likely the last opportunity to play in the tournament for at least 3 of them, and Thomas Bordeleau as well who missed last year and this year’s tournament due to a positive CoVid test.
December 29th, 2021 at 4:03 PM ^
Some or all of those guys may wind up playing in the Olympics. This is an interesting season.
December 29th, 2021 at 4:07 PM ^
Best decision before they got to the playoff round which would have been dominated by 1-0 forfeits.
December 29th, 2021 at 4:14 PM ^
Gotta wonder if any of our guys are the positives. Selfishly I hope none of our guys go to Beijing
December 29th, 2021 at 4:19 PM ^
I'm quite selfish about this, too; I don't want them to go, and it's really because of how it would affect the Michigan Hockey team in a season that has the highest expectations.
But if they were asked to go... hard for me to expect guys for whom winning an Olympic medal is lifetime dream to say "no."
December 29th, 2021 at 4:34 PM ^
I haven’t heard of any positives for Canada (ruling out Power and Johnson) and the two positives I heard about from the US team were both goalies. So as far as I know, the three US players are in quarantine but haven’t tested positive yet.
December 29th, 2021 at 4:33 PM ^
Disappointing but unsurprising.
One positive note for Wolverine fans. In the one game Canada played, Owen Power broke a record as the first defenseman to score a hattrick at the juniors. He was impressive.
December 29th, 2021 at 4:48 PM ^
A bummer, as it was shaping up to be an exciting tournament with great goaltending, a couple exceptional 16-year-olds (Bedard and Michkov), and so many Michigan players.
December 29th, 2021 at 4:53 PM ^
i’d hazard that most people here hadn’t heard of this tournament until now.
December 29th, 2021 at 4:56 PM ^
What tournament?
December 29th, 2021 at 4:56 PM ^
Everyone who follows the hockey team knows about this tournament because we lose 1-5 guys for the GLI every single year because of it.
December 29th, 2021 at 5:27 PM ^
And last year was especially devastating to the roster because the US had national camps a few weeks prior to the tournament so Michigan was without a few top players for some key series instead of just the GLI weekend (though it wasn’t played last year)
December 29th, 2021 at 6:55 PM ^
Been watching it forever.
December 30th, 2021 at 1:37 PM ^
IDK. You'd prolly be right if we were talking about just football fans. But, anyone who follows hockey would have at least heard of it.
December 29th, 2021 at 5:34 PM ^
Fu## Canada
December 29th, 2021 at 7:43 PM ^
The IIHF has an itchy trigger finger on cancellations and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they don't play the world championships again this year. (Last year they cancelled all but the main tournament.)
The NFL has flat-out stopped testing vaccinated, asymptomatic players (AKA "healthy people") and hopefully 1) that's just a first step and 2) the rest of the world follows suit.
December 29th, 2021 at 8:11 PM ^
Best story I heard is not only were there people staying in the team hotels other than the players, there was at least 1 wedding. The anti-bubble.
December 29th, 2021 at 11:40 PM ^
Apparently the hotel housed around 100 guests for the wedding. I think it was in the hotel that the US and Sweden stayed in?
December 30th, 2021 at 12:21 AM ^
Should've held the tournament in Russia.