A story broken by TSN’s Dareer Dreger on Thursday, and now confirmed by a number of sources is that the IIHF has announced that the upcoming World Junior Championship will go ahead as planned and will be played inside the Edmonton hub.
The event be held without fans and will return to Edmonton and Red Deer with crowds in 2022. As well, the World Junior Championships set to take place in Gotherburg will be moved to 2024.
Hockey Canada tweeted about the news and wrote, “In response to today’s IIHF Hockey announcement, we’re not only grateful to host this year’s WorldJuniors (@HC_WJC) in Edmonton – albeit without fans – but we’re also excited to bring the Championship back to home ice next year!”
IIHF president René Fasel said of the announcement, “This is a tough decision to have to take, but ultimately we did not have a choice.” He added:
“The health and safety of players, officials, and fans is our top priority. We were impressed with the presentation from the local organizing committee outlining how a potential “bubble” scenario would operate within Edmonton, and we are confident that we can follow the NHL’s great example in creating a safe environment for teams to compete.”
Outside of this tournament, the IIHF has cancelled all other events that were scheduled to take place between now and the end of January 2021. Among them are the Olympic qualifying competitions, lower-divisions under-20 tournaments and all the women’s under-18 world championships.
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