World Juniors cancelled by IIHF amid worsening COVID-19 situation
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The cancellation comes after teams from the United States, Russia and Czechia all had to forfeit games over the last two days due to positive tests within their teams.
The International Ice Hockey Federation has cancelled the remainder of the 2022 World Juniors amid rising COVID-19 case counts that prompted three games to be forfeited.
"The IIHF Council has decided that, due to the ongoing spread of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant, the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship will be cancelled to ensure the health and safety of all participants," reads an IIHF statement.
The cancellation comes after teams from the United States, Russia and Czechia all had to forfeit games over the last two days due to positive tests within their teams.
The federation confirmed tonight's US versus Sweden game would also have been forfeited by the Americans.
The IIHF says the forfeits meant "the sportive integrity of the event has been compromised."
"We owed it to the participating teams to do our best to create the conditions necessary for this event to work," said Luc Tardif, IIHF president.
"Unfortunately this was not enough. We now have to take some time and focus on getting all players and team staff back home safely."
