Edmonton has once again been awarded the host city of the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship. The tournament began play on Boxing Day of 2021 before the tournament was cancelled due to coronavirus cases among the United States, Russia, and the Czech Republic.
A controversial decision was also made to restart the tournament from scratch rather than resume the tournament from where it was left off. Team Canada for example had recorded two impressive victories over the Czech Republic 6-3, and Austria 11-2. Those wins no longer count.
According to the Canadian Press on Tuesday, the games will be played at Rogers Place from August 9-20. Players who were born in 2002 or later remain eligible to participate. What we do know is that Russia will not be allowed to participate because of their invasion of Ukraine, and will be replaced by Latvia. Russia has won 13 gold medals in the history of the World Junior Hockey Championship. That is second behind Canada, which has won 18 gold medals.
Red Deer, Alberta meanwhile has been named the host city of the 2022 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, the summer under-18 hockey tournament, from July 31 to August 6. Canada has dominated the tournament in the past, winning the gold medal 22 times of the 30 years the tournament has existed. This is the second time that Red Deer has hosted the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. They co-hosted the event in 2018 with Edmonton. In 2021, Canada did not participate in Breclav, Czech Republic and Piestany, Slovakia. The tournament was won by Russia.
