Ontario ready to host Women's U18 Worlds
Hockey Canada says, 'We will look at all options options for a competition' after Ontario steps up and offers to host the tournament in 2022
From the Department of Bold Predictions One Can Take to the Bank: if there are no restrictions on international travel and it can be done safely, there will be a U18 Women’s World Championship in 2022 and it will be held somewhere in Ontario. We can say that with a very high degree of certainty because Fran Rider has said she’ll do everything in her power to make that happen.
For those of you who don’t know her, Rider is the president and CEO of the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association. Upon learning that the International Ice Hockey Federation had cancelled – not postponed, cancelled – six events, including the U18 Women’s World Championship in Sweden in January, the OWHA put out the following tweet:
Now, you might look at a tweet like that as a pie-in-the-sky attempt by a well-meaning group to grasp at any straw that might be available to keep this tournament alive. And if you weren’t dealing with Rider and the OWHA, you might be right in thinking that. But if there is any association and any person able to make this happen, it’s the OWHA and Rider. Along with the tweet, the OWHA immediately sent an email to Hockey Canada stating its intention to facilitate hosting the tournament. And while it has yet to hear back, it’s clear Hockey Canada is taking the proposal seriously. “Once we get through (the World Junior Championship), we will look at options for a competition,” Hockey Canada chief operating officer Scott Smith told Hockey Unfiltered.
One of those options is to hold the competition in Ontario, in large part because of Rider. A member of the Order of Hockey in Canada who should one day find her way into the Hockey Hall of Fame as builder, Rider has done more off the ice to grow the game on the provincial, national and international level than anyone else. In 1987, she spearheaded against huge odds the World Women’s Hockey Tournament, the precursor to the IIHF-sanctioned Women’s World Championship. Since then, Rider and the OWHA have had a huge hand in organizing Women’s World Championships in Ottawa in 1990 and 2013, Kitchener in 1997 and Mississauga in 2000 and the U18 Women’s World Championship in St. Catharines in 2016, which drew a crowd of more than 5,000 for the gold medal game between Canada and USA.
This is clearly not her first rodeo. “We’re prepared to do it, we’re absolutely prepared to do it,” Rider told Hockey Unfiltered. “We understand the COVID challenges and we’ll work through them. We’ve done this event before and it was very successful. We’re there, we’re there to make things happen and we just hope that this event does go forward.”
Like most other people, Rider was disappointed and confused that the event was outright cancelled, along with three other U18 women’s championships and two U20 men’s championships. The fact that the U18 Women’s World Championship was cancelled and not postponed because of league commitments in Linkoping and Mjolby, Sweden, did nothing to quell the notion that the women’s game is a second-class citizen compared to the men’s game, particularly after USA Hockey and the Dallas Stars managed to move last year’s U18 Men’s World Championship to Texas after the IIHF cancelled the event, which was originally slated to be played in Michigan.
After all, this tournament could be played after January, even into the summer if necessary. And a good number of Ontario cities have the infrastructure in place to host the event. “We were very disappointed that it was outright cancelled,” Rider said. “A postponement would have made sense. We understand the variant that is going around right now and the challenges with COVID right now, but there is anticipation going into the spring and summer that this event could go. It was the same thing when last year’s was cancelled. When the Women’s Worlds was cancelled in Halifax, Hockey Canada hosted that in Calgary in the summer, and to us the U-18s could have been held in the summer as well. It should have been rescheduled and this one should have been rescheduled.”
Part of the problem here is that the costs associated with hosting an international tournament are the responsibility of the national federation hosting the event. But this is Canada. If the U18s were to be brought to Ontario, particularly with the Hockey Canada hype machine behind it, the event would be able to garner significant government and sponsorship support. Under normal circumstances, the country is awarded the event from the IIHF and then it is up to the national federation to award it to the host city based on bids it receives. Typically, the host committee would be responsible for big-budget items such as the venues, accommodations, ground transportation, meals and all the event costs for eight teams.
There is a will. And there has to be a way. People will argue that this is more about economics than equity, but that ignores the fact that, until the mid-1990s, the World Junior Championship was a dog with fleas when it came to generating revenues. If you continue to cancel events and don’t give them an opportunity to flourish, they’ll never generate revenue. And if it were just about money, no federations would bid for anything aside from the Men’s and Women’s World Championships and the World Juniors.
It is time for the IIHF and its newly elected president, Luc Tardif, to step up and make this right. There is clearly a willingness to make this work and when it’s Fran Rider who’s at the forefront, there’s a level of credibility attached to it that is impossible to ignore. “It’s the right thing to do,” Rider said. “If things fall apart, it’s not for a lack of trying.”