The Athletic Hockey Show - 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship cut short by COVID-19

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

On this week's Prospect Series with Max Bultman and Corey Pronman, the boys welcome Chris Peters from Daily Face-off to discuss the IIHF's decision on Wednesday afternoon to cancel the remaining games of the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championships due to an outbreak of COVID-19 in the host cities of Red Deer and Edmonton Alberta.Max, Corey and Chris look at what the cancellation means for the development of some of Hockey's top prospects, if the tournament could be played in the summer instead and if some of these players could represent their countries at the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February of 2022.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey everybody, Max Boltman here alongside Corey Pranman back with another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show's prospect series. A very different episode on tap today than the one we had planned to record. We are joined by Chris Peters of Daily Faceoff and the excellent website Hockey Sense. We were planning to give you kind of a midpoint rundown of the World Juniors today. Instead, it is the end of the World Juniors announced today. Chris initially with the first scoop that the World Juniors has been canceled. after three games had been forfeited, one by the U.S., one by the Czechia, and one by Slovakia. So, Chris, I wish we were having you on under better circumstances, man.

Welcome to the show again. Well, yeah, thanks for having me, Max, and Corey. It's great to be with you guys. Yeah, today was not a fun day. I mean, by any stretch of the imagination, it was a day where, you know, I was just hoping to find out if the U.S. was going to be playing Sweden tonight. and things moved very fast and and and things went south real, real quickly. And yeah, it's just, you know, you hate to see it.

Obviously, my heart goes out to the players, to the coaches, to all the people that were involved in getting the tournament off the ground. You know, hockey Canada, the double IHF, they're, they're the ones that incur, you know, the financial penalties, but then there's also the people that that gave them of their time and did the best that they absolutely could to make this work. And unfortunately, it didn't work, you know, but that that's, that's, that's, that's, the way it goes. That's kind of where we're at in this society and in this time where we just have to be nimble and things change at the drop of a hat and we got to change with it, I guess.

For both of you, I mean, Corey and Chris, you both cover this tournament as closely as anybody. Can you give us kind of a, I guess we could start with Corey here in an overview of how we got to this point because there were extensive measures taken at the start of this tournament. Teams got in early to make sure they were tested. How did we get to this point where we had, you know, very early in the tournament games getting forfeited and then now canceled. The main issue is the unexpected development of the latest strain of COVID-19 termed the Omnachron variant.

Obviously, people were familiar about it going into the tournament, but when the protocols were put in place, I believe sometime in November when they were finalized, if I recall, Omnacron might have been being talked about briefly at the time without much information. But they kind of set up their protocols for an environment that looked a lot like the period between September to November in the world. And the circumstances changed. And you can argue that the protocols and implementation of the tournament did not change quickly enough. And you could argue, I'm sure the people in charge would argue, it would have been extremely difficult. to change it in that period of time.

In particular, the issues primarily stem to the fact that this was not a bubble that teams were in as you were used to when the NHL and the NBA went through in the summer 2020 and what the world juniors went through a year ago. This is what they coined a protective environment where there were certain measures that were taken to try to separate the teams from the general public. but they were not completely separated. The prime issue that people point, many people pointed out is that the hotels in both Edmonton and Red Deer

were being shared with people who were not part of the tournament. We're just regular, you know, regular patrons. And this is kind of similar to what happened in Dallas at the U18 World Championships to an extent where it wasn't really a bubble. It was a protected environment. However, it was a different COVID environment at the time and the event ran smoothly.

I saw a comment on Twitter earlier today, and it was from Finland's coach, Antipennan. This was via Taylor Haas of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports. And the Finland's coach basically said he felt like this was not a COVID problem. This was a – the problem was that it was a poorly run tournament. Team USA's coach, Nate Lehman, actually replied to that quote on Twitter and said, 100%. Chris, from the people that you've been talking to, around this tournament, around these teams today.

What has the reaction to this news been like and I guess kind of the way things have gone from the people who are running these teams and these federations, basically? Emotions ran very, very hot, high. I mean, however you want to talk about it, there was, you know, the desperation was pretty obvious. And that actually started before today. I had heard from multiple teams in it's particularly in red deer because that was what I was following most closely and I was supposed to be in red deer before deciding not to go. That essentially, you know, they were doing everything they possibly could and they felt like it wasn't going to be enough.

And when the U.S. tested, had two players test positive. Everything changed. And it's my understanding that the other teams like Slovakia and Finland and Sweden were all. trying to, you know, they knew that if it happened to them, they would hope to have the support of the other team. Now, the protocols as they were decided at that going into the tournament, and I talked to somebody that had direct knowledge of the document that was sent to all the teams, it was essentially that if there were close contacts, the previous protocols called for if you were vaccinated, did not exhibit symptoms or you had had the virus.

and recovered from it within 90 days, if you were a close contact, you were not subject to isolation. But because of Omicron, that all flipped. And so if you had one positive player on your team, your entire team went into isolation and had to test out of it.

If that player tested negative on that second test, they would have to get another negative test. But then there was this whole idea of, okay, well, if the U.S. tests negative, that's fine. And then, you know, we'll be able to play. But then there was another. change to that. I'm not sure if it was yesterday or today, that the roommates of the players that tested positive

were going to be subject to a further quarantine or a further period of isolation. The problem with that is that one of those players was going to be a goaltender for the U.S. And they were already down to one goaltender because that one of the goal is tested positive. And so that's where things went really off the rails in terms of, are we going to be able to play this game against Sweden? And then Czechia and Finland gets canceled. Russia, Slovakia gets canceled. and at that point you're saying, okay, we don't have the integrity of the tournament.

So that's what they were frustrated by is that there was a moving target of all these different types of things that would come up. And it's really like it's hard to lay blame at any one person because we don't know like the way that Omicron started when all these protocols were put in place. It was before Omicron was really fully understood. Then they moved and really even from the two weeks and they talked about this in the media availability this evening. evening as we were all on it, that essentially the decision to, or when they got there on the 15th, the protocols were different than what they were today. And the situation was far different than what it was today. So essentially, the snowball just kept getting bigger of the issues that they were going to have to contend with. And because of those uncontrolled, uncontrolled environments where they could have interaction with the public, even like, you know, just getting into an elevator with.

somebody that was unmasked and not from the tournament, that was happening. Those types of situations were happening. And so that's where I think there was a lot more concerned. But I think everybody's learning, but it was not just the information as it was shared continued to change. And I think that's why so many people were so frustrated and view it as a disorganized tournament, even though I think nobody really quite knew how to deal with what was going on. Yeah, I think obviously it's easy to criticize afterwards that it should have been, you know, a bubble in an actual bubble like it was a year ago. I think the organizers would come back and cite one. Like as Chris Iibo pointed out, that thing developed rather quickly.

And there would be a financial aspect to that, too, of creating a real bubble for these players and teams at all times. Yeah, I mean, one big difference between now and the environment last year when it was bubbled is there's a little. little more, you know, public tourism that's going on right now than would have been the case. Hotels sometimes are already going to be pre-booked and booked up. And I imagine that's all a factor here, too. Is there anything that, you know, from what you guys have heard in your conversations that, you know, federations, I guess, would have liked to have seen been done differently or other than kind of the overall, you know, decision of how to handle interacting with the public. Is it more about the protocols, what are you hearing about what maybe could have been done differently or could have

changed? I, you know, I think it was a frustration of a combination of things. I, you know, the protocols were not just made by any one individual. It was a collaboration between the double IHF, hockey Canada, and the Alberta provincial health officials. I think they looked at the circumstances here, and a lot from the federations I talked to, they acknowledged that it was an untenable situation with how strict the protocols were, and as Chris said as well, how they were strict and ever-changing. The current COVID situation, where you have this extremely transmissible a strain that did not seem to create bad outcomes

in people who are fully vaccinated at a significant rate. And you have, you know, the health guidelines coming from Canada, they are asking you to be extremely stringent on anybody who test positive. It created a situation that just made it impossible for the determining to move forward, as it was clear that the virus was quickly circulating among everybody who was at the tournament. So, you know, there's always a lot of frustration that none of those variables seem possible to change at the last minute. Yeah. I mean, I think that most people are more mad at the virus, right? You know, like, which we all are. We're just exhausted by it and we're

exasperated. And but, you know, I think that there was just so much changing of communication and the different things that, that really was what, you know, at least from what I had heard from other teams was, was the, was the frustration. Um, all teams. All teams. did know going in I don't know how how much they knew the hotels would be intermixed with with people like they knew that it was a possibility they knew that they'd have their own floors things like that but there was it was it was it was a lot harder than they thought to avoid the general public in those situations and you know as as Corey and I reported you know that with this this potential wedding

reception that was a huge concern because now all of a sudden you're bringing people that aren't even staying at the hotel into a situation, the risk rises. And the other thing, too, that, you know, with having fans, I think that the, I think teams, the players and the coaches, all they cared about was getting the games in. That's all they, you know, and obviously the health and safety, of course, of everybody. But, but they wanted to get the games in. That was probably going to mean no fans, as opposed to 50% fans and things like that. So it really wasn't, it really wasn't, you know, anything that I think anyone could control. And I think coaches love to be in control.

They love to have the ability to do whatever for all of their teams, you know, to make sure that they have some control of a situation. This is just one that I don't think anybody could have controlled. And I do think that, you know, that some of the things I heard was also the testing of asymptomatic players, which as we now know is something that is going to continue for a while. But I think that there's at least some frustration. This is just what we have to deal with, but there's some frustration that, you know, these players were essentially fine, asymptomatic. And, you know, the general public typically, like, you know, I can't even schedule a test without having symptoms.

That's not the world we live in right now. That may be where we're going eventually, but that's not where we're at right now. And I think that's another thing that just was frustrating that they couldn't control. Yeah, and you're seeing those debates to go on right now, particularly in the NFL and NBA. where they seem to kind of be progressing in that way. Obviously, Canada being part of the National Hockey League, and this tournament being held in Canada changed those circumstances a little bit in terms of there.

I don't think that those non-testing asymptomatic players was ever something that was ever seriously considered. Yeah. And, you know, I think as well with this tournament, I'm not going to say there was a deference, but there was, you know, a fact coming into the tournament that the double IHF has held three successful tournaments during the COVID pandemic. They held the World Junior in a bubble, and they held the World Championship last summer,

as well as the U18 World last spring. So I think people knew this was going to be a dicey situation, but it started off fine. You know, everyone came in on the 15th. They did their quarantine. There was a couple of positive tests that came in, but they kind of like there was with the German team last year, and those players were isolated and it felt like we're moving forward. But it just seemed with just how prevalent and transmissible this new strain was, that it just seemed like the situation rolled out of control rather quickly.

Yeah, I mean, if you go back to the day that Team USA was leaving Plymouth to go to Edmonton and Reddier to check in and report, you know, at that point, I think most of the NHL games really still hadn't been canceled. We still hadn't really start to see Omicron start to take the whole bit. that it has in sports all around, but certainly hockey's been hit really hard and it's changed everything. It was kind of starting in Europe, but definitely not North America. Yeah, and in the NHL specifically, right? Like, I think the impact, those two things kind of overlapped. So the arrival, that goes to both of your points about the timing of the protocols and really it being

a little bit out of everyone's control with the way that that timing lined up. All right, so the obvious question here immediately turns to what is next for this tournament. Luke Tardeefe has said a couple times now publicly, it's possible that this thing could reemerge at a later date and specifically obviously at the time it seems like it would make the most sense would be maybe early summer, especially once the junior seasons NCAA seasons that makes up a big base of the pool here have ended.

Am I naive for thinking that that makes a whole lot of sense and really should be the direction this goes here? What are the obstacles, Corey? Well, there is some precedent. You know, the Women's World Championship last season ran into COVID issues and the double IHF rescheduled it for a later date in the same host country. That is what they said would possibly happen here. Tardeev has said several times that if it were to be rescheduled, it would stay in Canada.

The Canada would retain the hosting rights. And it is possible. there will be different obstacles to having this reschedule than there would have been for the Women for World Championship in that the players involved will have varying obligations, you know, depending on certain things with the NHL, you know, in terms of, you know, NHL Combine, NHL draft, NHL development camps,

and various other issues that would emerge. But it is definitely possible. I mean, summer is when we typically, have the U-20 camps, like the World Junior Summer Showcase. Now, that would create a separate set of issues where you would have possibly the world juniors overlapping with the World Junior Summer Showcase or being in a very short period in between them, which isn't impossible to execute, but it would be unique challenges, but we're used to unique challenges.

So I think that is something that would be quite possible, but it would be different. What I also thought was interesting from the Tardee interview that he did with the Russian publication champion, is he said if this was to be held, he would be open to changing the lineups that were in the current tournament. Because as you can imagine, there will be players who will have circumstances that might be different six months from now. Owen Power and Jake Sanderson presumably will be NHL players. You will have Lucas Raymond will probably not be playing games. Thomas Borla will be probably hanging out somewhere and might want to actually play in this tournament for once.

So there will be, it's definitely possible, but it will be challenging, I think. Yeah, and I just want to say that too. I think that they will do everything that they can to make this happen. And I don't have a lot of faith in it happening. I'd like to be optimistic. I would. I know that they're going to put forth the effort.

But to put together a World Junior Championship and a completely new World Junior Championship in a span of six months is really challenging. And you're also talking about the costs of sending teams back now, bringing them back over, going through a lot of protocols. I would say that if things don't change pandemic-wise in terms of the protocols that teams have to go to, the costs are just are just astronomical. But, I mean, there is an incentive to do it because HACA Canada would presumably have an opportunity and the double HF to regain and recoup the lost funds from this year. And it is something that they talked about today on the media availability is that, you know, while while the money element is not the most important thing that they want to think about today, that there is, you know, certain. they have to find a way to try and, you know, absorb those, those issues. So,

I'd like to be, like, I'd like to be an optimist. Obviously, I want the World Juniors to happen. I think that the NHL teams would be receptive to making, making some concessions for that to happen, like delaying or postponing development camps and things of that nature.

So we'll have to wait and see. Yeah. Building off what Chris said, I mean, I've talked to some of the, some of my sources, both in the NHL with the federations, the cost,

is one of the main things they pointed out to because even though the whole tournament wasn't completed from a financial perspective, a large part of the cost outlays were done in terms of particularly the flights and the hotel because even though the tournament didn't take, wasn't going on that long, teams got there

December 15th. So for the most part, a large part of the cash was already spent and you would basically be asking these federations to spend on three world juniors in an 18 month span. That would be asking a lot. And the other issue that I think was recently presented, and as Chris kind of alluded to

with the virus, is there is no guarantee six months from now that Canada is in a better place than it is right now. As we've kind of seen over the last two years, these things can change quickly. And if we can't have a tournament in an environment with fans right now, who's to say we can execute it six months from now either? Yeah. Yeah. And just the last point is really for you know, not having fans. If you can't have fans, like they want to have the tournament, but if you can't have fans,

you have to really strip everything down. There's a whole different thing. And it's still very, very, very, very expensive to execute. Yeah, I mean, that all goes hand in hand, right? Like the significance financially of this tournament as something that helps the Federation really do everything it does in the year, the IHF, that is, the costs of trying to do it twice. And then the fact that you can't outlay any of that with,

with attendance and revenue and, you know, concessions, all that, that all goes hand in hand in hand to this puzzle. I would think you'd be a little optimistic about, you know, the summer months tend to be a little less intense for transmission, at least so far in the pandemic, what we've seen so far. But it's no guarantee. I mean, there was some issues in the summer in Canada before. I believe, you know, they've seen, this virus has, you know, has proven to be unpredictable. So I'm not saying you can't hold it, but I can't, if this current climate may the tournament impossible to hold, I would say there's no guarantee in six months from now will be fine. The other question that I have, and I don't think either you guys will be able to answer this

today, but just something for everybody to think about is what happens with the hockey that we did see played. It wasn't as much as any of us wanted to see, but we saw some pretty significant things happen that if this tournament, well, first of all, I don't know what happens to it as is, but especially if the tournament were to get rescheduled for a later date, what becomes of the hockey that we did see if Connor Bedard's four-goal game as a 16-year-old, the results, Germany beating Chequia for the second time in three tournaments, what becomes of some of these results and some of these individual achievements? Yeah, I don't know for sure. It was a question that I tried, I wanted to ask during the media available.

ability that I didn't get, they didn't get to me. But it was, uh, my belief is, is if you're going to do the tournament, you're, you're starting from scratch. Um, you know, I think because of the, you know, what, what do you do about the forfeited games and things like that? It would create a lot of scheduling headaches. Um, and, and so that's really tricky as well. Um, so I would say that they would probably have to start from scratch. And that, that would be a real shame because there were multiple historical achievements, you know, in this event. The ones that you mentioned, of course, I mean, Conradar, no and power, both, you know, essentially helping rewrite the, the Canadian record books in a couple of different ways.

And, you know, and I, I think that that, while it's unfortunate to lose those things, I think it's the only way to, I mean, the integrity of the tournament was disrupted from the get-go. It only got worse as the tournament went on. So I would say that, you know, go forward with a new tournament if you're able to manage that. Right. I guess my only issue kind of, saying what we said before is, while I agree the integrity of the tournament did kind of fall apart there, you know, even from the beginning when certain players are not allowed to come, it's just, again, to me, just quite foreseeable that these things could happen again. And I think what you're kind of seeing in the arguments in other sports kind of mentioned with the NBA. NFL and is the conversation we're going to, I think,

having society going forward is how do we kind of live with this thing? And I have no problem just leaving the records as they are now. I can see the argument if the rosters are changed, like, substantially. You know, 50% of the rosters on each team are different, something like that, then you can probably argue that's not the same tournament. But if the roster decisions are only mild, and I don't see a problem with just moving forward. But that being said, we didn't really get much of the tournament.

And only while there was that one upset, Jeremy being checked, for the most part, the favorites tend won a lot of their games. And I don't think it would be that consequential other than losing the Connor Bedard record evening to wipe the slate clean. What would you do with the forfeited games, Corey? Would you try to replay them or would you leave him as one-o's for the team that did not have the positive? You would obviously try to replay those. I mean, I can't, and I can't imagine that the teams would argue otherwise,

especially since we've agreed that the tournament, at least the last iteration of the tournament, would have no relegation. Who the hell knows for future iterations? That makes sense to me. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what direction they go with that if they choose to do it. I think you kind of have to have to decide that very early in the process and it probably needs to be one of the first questions they have to answer. I guess it's probably the least important part of all this, but I imagine the listeners

do at least want to hear a little bit about your guys' impressions from the hockey that we did see. We talked about the Bidar game. You know, it almost feels ridiculous asking it, guys, given the circumstances. But what were the highlights of this tournament for you guys? Oh, Max, I know. And it's amazing. that this time, you know, 24 hours ago, we were watching the Connor Biddard show.

And it was in full swing. And what I hope isn't lost is that we did have this, this fleeting moment of amazing hockey in a couple of different games. And we had Connor Bidard, we had Matthew Michkov, Owen Power, really, you know, making a statement. Yes, we lost it. Yes, for Walsett having an incredible game. I mean, just an incredible, you know, for performance where he, you know, I mean, Sweden got badly outshot by Slovakia and Wollstet was amazing. And so, you know, so we did get to see that. And so the world juniors was really was really outstanding when it was being played. And, you know, you look at the top two drafts.

I mean, it's kind of interesting. Poor, poor Shane Wright only had two games and they were only okay for. both of them. It's not that that's going to affect his draft status with me personally, but, you know, I think there were other 2021 draft eligible players that are, that are, sorry, 2022 draft eligible players that, you know, may have actually performed better in this very tiny sample that we're probably just going to throw out. You know, I've said on this podcast several times, I think reasonably that Brad Labr was not having the best season and holy hell, did Brad Labbard look good in those first few games?

Yeah, and unfortunately, you know, like, in Finland didn't play, like, a really tough team, but Brad Lambert was doing all the things that you want to see him do. He was skating with pace. He was making plays. He was showing good vision. Got inside a little bit, a little bit more, which is good. But, yeah, but I mean, like, you know, it was an opportunity for those guys to really springboard themselves. And now it's like just another stop in a series of many stops.

You have the Slovakians, too. You have the Slovakkowski, Simon Nemich, Philip Messchash, who. will not, unless there is another world juniors, will not play another junior hockey tournament this season. Because they will, I would be very surprised if those, especially the top two guys, Nemich and Slavkoski, went to the U-18

B pool in the spring to catch some of the listeners up two years ago at the U-18 World Championships in Sweden. Was it two or three years ago? I almost forgot. But the one that was held in Sweden, the 2019 version, Slovakia was relegated in that tournament because the WIJF tournaments had no promotion or relegation last year.

Slovakia is still considered a relegated team this year at the U18 level despite the fact that this age group nearly won the Hinkogretzky Cup. It's terrible that we will not see these players play for their country and potentially have a chance to medal, which would be an amazing accomplishment for Slovakia, to meddle at a double-ichf championship, because they will be at the B-pool.

So we presume that Slavkowski and Nemitz would probably be with the senior team in the summer. But this was a great opportunity for them to showcase what they could do, and I thought they were both playing well. Slavkowski, despite having two great world juniors, had still yet to record a point in this tournament. We presume that would have come eventually with the way he was playing, But that's a storyline that I think we will miss from this tournament. Yeah.

Yeah, I thought they outplayed the Swedes. That's a really hot take when they shot them like two and a half to one. No, no, no. This is my personal opinion. No one else is. No, they were very good. I think they would have beaten Russia. But, yeah, I feel really bad for them.

I feel really bad for Sweden, actually, because I think they had a ton of momentum. And one of the guys who obviously would stand to, I think it would be really cool to see it another tournament as Sweden's coach, Thomas Monton, who in his last year as coach of that team, and you would hate to see it end this way for him, especially after he already missed last year's tournament. Well, last year was supposed to be his last year, and then he decided to give another cracker because he missed it because he got COVID,

and I think this will actually be his last one, whether there is a new tournament or not. But it's a tough way to go. I'll see. Nate Lehman came back to coach his second term in a row, obviously he's won and gold already. He did so last year. Yeah, that whole staff came back.

It was a major commitment from them as well. So it's just, yeah, I know that, yeah, I do, I think for the coaches, it's such an opportunity for them as well. I mean, certainly are my feelings are for the players. But like Montanin, you mentioned, you know, this is an opportunity, his last look at, you know, as he's trying to move on to the next phase of his career, you know, what is he going to do next? And this is kind of that last opportunity.

And yeah, I agree with you, Max. I thought Sweden, aside from, you know, being outplayed by Slovakia, that game against Russia, they were so much better than Russia, just so much better top to bottom than Russia. And I didn't think they had the depth. I didn't think they matched up depth-wise. They did, you know, in a big way. And they're in William Eklund and Alexander Holtz and Oscar O'Lawson and Yesper Walsden. I mean, they all were playing, and Simon Edvinson, of course, all playing.

at an incredibly high level. Email Andrea. I'll leave guys out, but I was like, ah, I was so excited to see them because I didn't, my expectations were low for them coming in the tournament, and then they really exceeded them, and Walsstett looked like an all-world goalie at points in that tournament as well.

Yeah, and I think also one of the other storylines that I'll remember from the tournament, you know, we mentioned Connor Bedard, you know, it was, you know, what was how good 17-year-old Matapé Michkov was at this tournament, too. I mean, obviously, like, you know, both of our highly well-known players, we knew, I kind of thought they'd play well, but as underage draft eligible players, I thought expectation had to be very reasonable for both of them. And they both exceeded any kind of reasonable expectations. I mean, they were Mitchkov, you can argue, was Russia's best player in the couple of games they played.

You can argue Connor Bardard was Canada's best forward in the games they played. probably wouldn't, it would be probably closer than it would be for the Russians. You know, there were some other players on Canada who, the limited amount that they played that I was really impressed by, I thought Mason McAvish looked great. You know, I liked, you know, some of the things I saw from some of the guys don't have as high draft status. Like, I like the player Donovan Sabrango. I thought he was very solid.

I thought really Greg did a lot of good things. and it's just it just builds on the unfortunate things that we had in a tournament that we can't see what they get to build off of. One thing I wanted to kind of get both of your opinions on as we wrap up here. I've seen it kind of especially since the NHL pulled out of the Olympics, you know, the idea that some of the players who were participating in this tournament, even before the cancellation, could go and compete for their countries at the Olympics now that there won't be NHL players there. You know, some of the names that would come to mind, obviously, Owen Power, Matthew Baneers, Kent Johnson, Sanderson.

Jake Sanderson. You guys can help me out here. Jake Sanderson. A lot of the Europeans, Edvinson, Nemitz, you know, Slavikovkovsky. I mean, there is a lot of guys in this tournament that very well could be asked and should be asked. And I'll tell you what, Max, like, if I'm, if I just went through this as one of these players, and I have a club team that I care about, if I have a club team that I have a club team that, I feel like I can have some success with.

I'm going to think long and hard about whether or not I want to go into the environment in China. The protocols for the Olympics are way stricter. We know the quarantine situation can be an absolute non-starter, although there were, from what I understand, the double IHF had planned to have ambulance flights for players to leave and avoid that, that quarantine. But I don't, you know, that's a huge expense. Will they do it for the not NHL players? I don't know. So we have a lot, a lot left to figure out here on this whole front.

And I mean, if I'm one of those players, what just happened to me is going to weigh heavily on my decision about whether or not I'm going to play for Team USA or Team Russia or whoever at this point. Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be, especially if you were a U20 player, I think, you'll be asking a lot of those guys to to basically trust the double IHF again that they can come represent their country and everything will go smoothly I think it's going to be a tall ask

I think it's going to be a tall ask of the teams as well I mean I was just reading right before we got on this podcast with an interview Roger Ronberg was Gabe who was the coach of Frilynda and who coaches Simon Edmondson as a that you know he wouldn't want his

players going because because of how long the time commitment is and how in this, if there were to be that four to five week quarantine, how it will basically overlap with a lot of these college and European teams. It will probably overlap with their playoffs. You will be asking a lot. I still think the Olympics are the Olympics. And even given those kind of sacrifices, there's probably a lot of people.

As we see in the National Hockey League, there's a lot of athletes. who will want to go despite all the risk, despite the potential consequences for their club team. But I can't say it's a guarantee. All right. That's all I got. Any final thoughts that either you want to share before we let Chris go enjoy the Iowa State bowl game here?

You know, I think the closing thoughts that I have is that it's not just about the Olympics. This is about everything going forward. including the NHL, we're dealing with a situation right now that is only going to continue to madden us. We're going to have different opinions all over the map. And we don't know where things are going to go, but this is going to continue to have an effect on sports. This is one of the most impossibly just maddening things to have happened with the tournament already underway. But you look at what happened to the women's under 18 worlds, you look at what happened to the other, the five other tournaments that double IHF canceled for January. You know, what's to say that there are going to be

events in February or events in March or April or May? And I'm talking about that's not just, there are so many things on the schedule for an NHL draft season as well. So with what Corey and I do, there are a lot of events that were very concerned may not happen, including the under 18 worlds and things of that nature because of the unpredictability. There was the U-18-5 nations and that was just canceled. Yeah, exactly. And so just, just, you know, I think there has to be some level of patience, but there also may have to be other alternative routes that we have to start considering

that, you know, health and safety has to be first and foremost, but there also is going to have to be some amount of change that comes in terms of, you know, as we grow with this pandemic, because it doesn't feel like it's, going to go away, we either going to have to get very comfortable with losing more events, or we're going to have to find alternative ways to deal with this. And I don't have the answers. I'm not a scientist. I don't know exactly what the correct thing to do is. But we make tradeoffs all the time in life. Like, you know, we don't, even before COVID, we never lived in a society with perfect health and safety. We make tradeouts all the time.

And in 2020, there was very reasonably an extremely elevated risk to our health and safety. And we took the precautions that we needed to, but I kind of agree that going forward we need to find ways to live with this because I feel like, because if this is the answer every time, it's going to be hard for the sports world to ever operate again at a reasonable level. Yeah, the thing that I'm also concerned about is the last, you know, that I think we, we look at, again, in the grand scheme, loss of life, health and safety, so much more important than anything I'm about to talk about. But the one thing that I would say is that from a hockey perspective, the players that just lost this world juniors, that lost the world under 18s,

the 2002 birth year lost their under 18s during the first wave, just a few weeks before that tournament was supposed to happen. The fact that we did have, you know, a lost OHL season last year, that we're going to have many more junior hockey games canceled this year, that who knows if we'll get a Memorial Cup? I mean, there are so many different things that are at play. Players are losing these benchmark opportunities, and it's not just that they're losing the benchmarks now. They're losing the actual opportunity to develop and get better. And I think that we're going to see a substantial impact on not just, I think the athletes will always find a way. They'll find a way to improve and find a way to better themselves. But we are at a serious risk

at this point of athletes, not just from the professional level or the junior level, but all the way on down to the grassroots level of a very significant downturn in player development or into the player pool as a whole because of what this is doing right now. Yeah, I'll be curious to see what athlete participation rates look like going forward in the next couple of years because when they're not playing sports, their free time probably goes elsewhere and they probably have other interests. And to your point, they also, to the ones who are the high level athletes, They, they, you know, we want to watch the world juniors, us for work purposes, fans for entertainment purposes, but for these players, these are life experiences.

These are, these are life-changing experiences for a lot of them, whether it's the top players or the lower level players. And, you know, we'll go to a world junior again at some point, but these guys will never get that experience back. Good stuff from both of you guys, very, very good thoughts. And we appreciate Chris, you coming on and doing this today. I know it's been a heck of a busy day for you, so we appreciate your time and coming back on. Yeah, it's my pleasure.

I mean, it's good to be amongst friends and to commiserate over what's been a real challenging day, certainly. Professionally and personally, as just a huge fan of the world juniors and of all the players that we're about to play in it. But thanks a lot for having me on. It's great to be with you guys. And, yeah, if you want to follow my work, it's most of it. A lot of it's going to be at daily faceoff.com. There's also hockey sense on substack. and my podcast is Talking Hockey Sense,

which obviously there's going to be a lot to talk about in these, over and above what we just talked about here. So, yeah, if you could please follow my work at those places and click on those links and subscribe and do whatever you have to do, I would greatly appreciate it. Definitely go do that. I remain a very satisfied subscriber to Hockey Sense.

Yes, thank you. And for the three days that this tournament, two or three days of this tournament was underway for, some very good coverage that I still think everyone should go back and read. Make sure you get on that. Thanks, bud. It is our pleasure. That's going to do it for us.

Thanks for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series. Please follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't forget to leave a rating and a review. Right now, you can get an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $24 a year when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show. The Athletic Hockey Show continues Monday, January 3rd with Ian Mendes. and Haley Salvean back at it. Thanks so much. Happy New Year.