Nova Scotia Cancels Women’s World Hockey Championship
HALIFAX — The IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship, which was set to take place in Nova Scotia in early May, has once again been cancelled.
According to the IIHF, the Nova Scotia government sent word Wednesday morning that the tournament would be cancelled “due to concerns over safety risks associated with Covid-19.”
This marks the second year in a row the tournament was scheduled to take place in Nova Scotia, only to be cancelled weeks before its scheduled start.
“While we are disappointed with the cancellation, we understand the decision was made with the health and safety of all participants and the community at large as the top priority,” Hockey Canada president Tom Renney and chief operating officer Scott Smith said in a joint statement.
They added that a “tremendous amount of work” went into planning a safe tournament and thanked the province for its help with that process.
News of the cancellation comes just one day after Nova Scotia’s top doctor said it was safe to hold the tournament in the province.
At a press briefing on April 20, Dr. Robert Strang said he had “worked closely” with tournament organizers to ensure players would be isolated and not able to transmit Covid-19 to Nova Scotians.
“That tournament, in my opinion, does not present a risk of bringing Covid and then transmitting it into Nova Scotia, with all the very strict protocols [the players] have even before they leave their home countries,” Strang said.
On Wednesday afternoon, Premier Iain Rankin released a statement saying he withdrew permission for the event to take place because of “the evolving situation with Covid-19 and the circulation of variants.”
“I sincerely regret the short notice, but the rapidly changing environment dictates this decision in the interest of the safety of Nova Scotians and participants,” Rankin said. “The safety of the Nova Scotia public and participants is paramount and is the reason for our decision.”
While the tournament will not take place in the coming weeks, Hockey Canada says it “remains committed” to hosting it this year.
“We owe it to every single player that was looking forward to getting back on the ice after such a difficult year that we do everything possible to ensure this tournament can be moved to new dates and played this year,” Renney and Smith said in their statement.
They said their goal is to host the event sometime in the summer of 2021. They did not specify a location.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, HRM staff calculated the tournament would bring about $2.5-million of economic activity to the city.
That included the approximately 2,000 hotel rooms that would have been booked and all the spending from the expected 82,000 attendees.