It started on Tuesday when word that the scheduled game between Team USA and Switzerland was on the ropes due to a pair of American players testing positive for COVID in Red Deer, Alberta.
Soon, it was official. Per protocols and procedures established by the International Ice Hockey Federation before the start of the 2022 World Junior Championship, USA-Switzerland was not merely postponed, but canceled. With two positive test results (a goalie and forward were asymptomatic), USA forfeited the game against the Swiss, going into the books as a 1-0 loss.
Suddenly, the next game against Sweden on Wednesday was in jeopardy. Even though the entire team was tested and quarantined, any more positives would result in another forfeiture.
After so much work and sacrifice, all of the sudden, the shadow of two losses in games not even played hung over the defending gold medal champion American team. It couldn’t get any worse for Team USA's gold medal defense, it seemed.
Until it did.
The next dominoes fell in rapid fashion, with positive COVID results on the Czech side negating Czechia-Finland, and then Russia-Slovakia got scrubbed with positives flaring up on Team Russia.
Within hours, it was all over.
Thanks to the fine reporting today by prospect analyst Chris Peters, we saw it all unfold in real-time. The IIHF executive committee met this afternoon to go over options and determine the world’s best under-20 showcase of junior-eligible players from across the globe, and the decision came down to cancel the entire tournament.
Official Announcement: The 2022 #WorldJuniors have been cancelled due to Covid-19.
Full statement at https://t.co/TNNT2FHecn pic.twitter.com/xnPs9nDWli
— IIHF (@IIHFHockey) December 29, 2021
Just like that, the months and years of preparation, gone. Just like that, the effort and work behind the scenes by organizers, country and team staff, volunteers, countless people who were needed to pull off the event, all for not.
A year ago, the WJC happened in the same location. Fans could not attend and the teams were kept in a bubble to make it work, but it happened, and USA went the distance to raise the championship trophy and bring their gold medals home. In 2022, things were supposed to get back to somewhat normal, with spectators in the stands and all of the drivers to the economic engine that the event has become over the years, especially in Canada, where the WJC fervor is unmatched.
In 2022, Team Canada, whose championship hopes were dashed a year ago by their south of the border archrivals, were expected to win it all. In two games, Canada carved opponents Czechia and Austria like a hot knife through butter. Talented and deep at all positions, the squad was chock full of NHL-drafted players and future top picks in 2022 and 2023 with Shane Wright and Connor Bedard.
As for the USA, a 3-2 victory over Slovakia the day after Christmas was encouraging. Matty Beniers (Hingham, Mass.) had earned gold with the 2021 team, but as a late ’02 in his final opportunity to compete in the WJC, this was going to be his time to be a centerpiece.
Fellow ’02s and NTDP and college teammates Brett Berard (East Greenwich, R.I.) and Mackie Samoskevich (Newtown, Conn.) were getting their first and final chance to go for gold in this major event. They had paid their dues behind a tremendous ’01 American birth year that comprised the championship core a year ago, and now it was time for the ‘02s to take their turn.
Same for defensemen Ian Moore (Concord, Mass.), Scott Morrow (Darien, Conn.) and goaltender Drew Commesso (Norwell, Mass.). Just like that, it’s over for them and every other 2002-born player in the tournament.
These anecdotes are just the tip of the iceberg for the 450 players from all countries chasing their dreams of a WJC. As we are all now left to process the decision, it comes back to this: the players deserved better.
They all received the coronavirus vaccine. They all quarantined upon arriving in Alberta the week before last. They did what was asked of them by those who established the rules. Now, it all rings hollow, as the event has been scrubbed and many of us are left to wonder how it all came apart so quickly.
As the science behind the coronavirus has evolved and adjusted, the pro leagues across the major sports are figuring out that the more stringent protocols based on pre-vaccine timetables and previous COVID-19 strains are creating an untenable disruption. From the outside, it appears as if the IIHF’s protocols left them very little wiggle room if things went south.
The biggest difference between the 2021 and 2022 WJC events is the fact that with public access to the venues and living facilities of the participating teams a year ago restricted, the players were protected in a bubble. This time, the general people were in the same common areas in the hotels where the players were frequenting as they traveled back and forth between the game and practice venues.
As the world attempted to get back to normalcy with weddings and events that had been put on hold since early 2020 when the pandemic went global, that opened the door for more risk to enter the WJC equation.
In hindsight, those are variables that perhaps should have been given more attention during the planning process. No one could have known at the time about the omicron variant's emergence, but it is not unfair to question why better contingencies weren't developed in the weeks and days prior to the teams (and spectators) traveling to Canada to participate.
Everyone wants to be safe. Everyone wants to be healthy. Everyone is on board with not putting others at needless risk. Everyone wants a viable hockey event with a clear winner at the end. All of these things can be true.
Elite athletes are among the population's lowest risk group. Working in conjunction with national and provincial health officials, could the IIHF have figured out a way to salvage the tournament rather than scrap it all based on a handful of asymptomatic positive test results? Given how quickly the decision to cancel came down, we may never know. The IIHF's recent decision to cancel the 2022 Women's World Under-18 Championship scheduled for January due to COVID only adds intensity to the debate swirling around the organization.
In the coming days, we’ll learn more about what happened when, and what decisions could have saved the WJC. It goes without saying that the impact on the players and all involved in the event is devastating. That is to say nothing of the economic impact and devastation of those affected venues, restaurants and hotels. They planned and committed resources for the spectators and fans who traveled to Canada from across the world to support the players representing their countries. All of those who own and/or work for those service industry businesses are the ones now left holding the bag in the aftermath of the cancellation.
There may not be any winner in the 2022 WJC, but the number of losers is legion.
At some point, when will fear of what could happen be replaced by sober risk acceptance, mitigation and maybe some common sense? Real people and real businesses are impacted by bureaucratic decisions that result in a scorched earth result, though well intentioned. That begs another question: at what point does the cure become worse than the disease?
For now, that is all moot, but it is fair to say that the players deserved better. Everybody did.
