IIHF confirms World Juniors in Alberta for August, 2022

International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) President Luc Tardiff has confirmed that the perviously cancelled 2022 World Junior Championships have been rescheduled and will be played in Edmonton/Red Deer, Alberta this August.

From the IIHF's official website:

 The 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship in Edmonton and Red Deer, which had to be stopped during the event, will also be played in summer. “It will be in the middle of August in Alberta. It will be a new competition, which means we forget the results (in December),” Tardif said and confirmed that it will be the same age category as in the original tournament, namely players born in 2002 or younger.

“We are talking with all participants and are negotiating on details. It will be after the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. It will be a hockey festival and the teams are excited to do it,” said Tardif and thanked Hockey Canada and USA Hockey for organizing these two top-level junior events in summer.

- IIHF

The January tournament had to be cancelled, of course, due to a rash of positive COVID-19 test cases amidst the height of the Omicron variant in Alberta. Multiple games had either been postponed or outright cancelled in the days leading up to the IIHF's decision to cancel the tournament, yet Tardiff and the IIHF still took a lot of heat for their role in how things played out.

To many, myself included, Tardiff and the IIHF seemed completely blindsided by the developments this past January. There seemed to be no real protocols in place to deal with a potential outbreak and, frankly, the IIHF looked like they were in far over their heads. The popular refrain on social media at the time was, "How did they NOT see this coming?!"

While I was disappointed to see the January tournament cancelled, it'll be interesting to see how things play out in August. I could see NHL teams being apprehensive to send their young players to the tournament with NHL rookies camps and training camps opening up in September. At the same time though, these teams could use the tournament as a bit of a mini-training camp and scouting session for these same players. Time will tell how teams view this change.

Personally, with all the changes to the NHL schedule the past two years I'm not phased by the idea of some highly competitive summer hockey in the slightest. Bring it on!