Cancelled

As we know from the past year and a half, there have been many tournaments and events cancelled in the hockey world. This shouldn't come as a surprise as we battled a worldwide pandemic during that time, but it seemed like we were creeping back towards some normalcy with hockey seasons getting close to starting, teams requiring staff, players, and fans to be vaccinated, and facilities putting policies in place for all people who work in and around the arenas. With the Delta variant still very present in everyone's life, however, two countries have decided to cancel events for its national teams.

Announced last Friday, New Zealand is keeping its U18 women's and U20 men's national teams from their respective 2022 IIHF World Championship events as New Zealand looks to control its COVID-19 situation. As we know from New Zealand's previous efforts, one case was too many for them, so it appears they will prevent its U18 women's team from travelling to Turkey in January while the U20 men's team will be prevented from playing in Mexico in January.

New Zealand Ice Hockey Federation President Andy Mills stated that while this was a no doubt a disappointment for the players and staff, it was the right decision for the NZIHF to make in order to ensure that the health and safety of its teams. New Zealand, as stated above, would have required these players to quarantine after returning, and this was also cited as a factor in preventing these teams from going to their tournaments.

The other country who decided to pull its team was Iran whose national women's team would have competed at the 2022 IIHF Ice Hockey Women's World Championship Division III Group B tournament. What makes this one a little more eyebrow-raising is that the Iranian men's national team will still play, at the time of writing, in the 2022 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division IV tournament scheduled for March 3-9, 2022 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Iranian women's rights aside when it comes to that country's decision as that's another blog entry altogether, New Zealand's decision to withdraw their teams seems a little overcautious, but that's how the country has handled the entire pandemic. They've been reluctant to allow foreign travellers, banning neighbouring Australians from travelling to the island nation, as well as locking down the country when even one case was detected. Again, I don't find a problem in this strategy outside of it being quite strict, but New Zealand has escaped this past 18 months with just 27 deaths and only 4000 sick.

What I do fear is that these young men and women who were scheduled to play in these tournaments will now have aged out of the U18 and U20 categories without having played any international hockey for the past two years. That seems awfully unfair to those kids when it comes to them following their hockey dreams, but public safety is truly a matter for all in New Zealand.

The last time the U18 New Zealand women's national team played was February 2, 2020 when they lost the bronze-medal game to Mexico 6-3 to finish in fourth-place at the four team 2020 IIHF World Women's U18 Division II Group B Championship. For the record, they went 0-3 in round-robin play against Spain, Mexico, and Turkey before losing a heartbreaking 2-1 overtime game to Spain in the semifinal. But when you consider that the Mexico game was their last international game in February 2020, there are definitely women who have aged out of the U18 program.

The same goes for the U20 men's program who played their last game in a 6-1 loss to Bulgaria on January 19, 2020 to finish in sixth-place at the 2020 World Junior Hockey Division III Championship. Players such as Lochlan Butler and Nathan van Slooten played in the 2020 tournament, but they never got a chance to suit up for the U20 team after that as tournaments were cancelled and New Zealand denied their teams from participating. It's these players I feel for simply because they're missing years of hockey where they could be improving their games.

With another year gone due to the NZIHF's decisions, there will be another year of players who miss out on their last chances in representing New Zealand on the international stage. These experiences would be immense in the development of the young New Zealand men and women playing in these tournaments, so these decisions, while good for public safety, are literally setting back the development of hockey players in New Zealand.

Assuming everyone was vaccinated and following the safety protocols set out by the tournaments, I don't understand why New Zealand is denying these men and women the opportunity to play hockey and represent the country. While there is a risk they could contract the virus while travelling, it would be expected that they would take all the necessary steps to prevent that from happening.

Instead, New Zealand falls further behind the other countries it was competing against for promotion within the respective championship structures, and these players miss out on amazing opportunities to gain experience and possibly shock the world with their skills.

While I respect New Zealand's effort to eradicate the virus within their borders, at some point they have to let the kids off the island to play. Otherwise, why have international hockey teams at all?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!