2022 Women’s U18 World Championship to be held in Madison
USA Hockey stepped in to host when the January tournament in Sweden was canceled due to COVID
Huge news out of the IIHF and USA Hockey this afternoon and they officially announced the 2022 U18 Women’s World Championships will be held in Madison, Wisconsin from June 6 through the 13.
The 8-team tournament will be held at two locations. Preliminary games for Group A (United States, Canada, Finland and Sweden) will be at LaBahn Arena in Madison, home of the Wisconsin Badgers. Group B’s preliminary games (Czechia, Switzerland, Germany and Slovakia) will be at Bob Suter’s Capitol Arena in Middleton. LaBahn will also host the quarterfinal, semifinals, and medal games.
Players born in 2004 or later will be eligible to play.
Typically the tournament is held in early January, just after the new year. The originally 2022 tournament was supposed to be held in Sweden starting on Jan. 8, 2022 but was cancelled on Dec. 24, 2021 due to surging omicron varirent of COVID-19.
It was the second year in a row the women’s U18 tournament was cancelled, while the men’s U20 World Juniors - which is typically held at about the same time - was held in a bubble. The 2021 men’s World Juniors tournament started on Dec. 26, 2021 and was eventually cancelled on Dec. 29, 2021, after games were cancelled and forfeited due to the number of players getting COVID.
The lower division 2022 U18 tournaments (which were also cancelled in late December) are also slated to be played. The Division I Group A will play in Gyor, Hungary from April 3-9. Division I Group B will play in Radenthein, Austria from September 5-11. The Division II is planned in Istanbul, Turkey in the summer with dates to come.
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