Penguins goaltending prospect Calle Clang said that he and the rest of Team Sweden started hearing whispers after Wednesday's morning skate that their World Junior Championship game that night against the U.S. would be canceled.
The U.S. team had already forfeited Tuesday's game against Switzerland due to two positive COVID tests. Another team, Czechia, had forfeited its game Wednesday to Finland because of a positive COVID test.
Following a positive test on the Russian team on Wednesday that would have necessitated a forfeit to Slovakia, the IIHF made the decision to cancel the remainder of the tournament.
"It's a pretty bad feeling," Clang, the Penguins' 2020 third-round pick told me in a phone interview on Wednesday. "We feel really sorry about not continuing to play. I mean, we have a good team, we played really good to start. So we're just devastated that we can't continue to play. It's a pretty bad feeling right now."
IIHF president Luc Tardif explained the decision in a press release.
“Together with the teams, we came into this event with full confidence in the COVID-19 protocols put in place by the IIHF, the LOC, Alberta Health, Alberta Health Services and the Public Health Agency of Canada,” said Tardif. “The ongoing spread of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant forced us to readjust our protocols almost immediately upon arrival to attempt to stay ahead of any potential spread. This included daily testing and the team quarantine requirement when positive cases were confirmed.”
Those "protocols" didn't sound too intensive.
The tournament was held in two cities in Alberta -- Edmonton and Red Deer -- and players weren't even separated from the public in their hotels, despite the IIHF calling the situation a "bubble." Players and staff couldn't go outside on their own, and were confined to their rooms and their team meeting room at the hotel. But evidently, organizers couldn't manage to secure a hotel in Red Deer just for the tournament's use.
"I don't think it's a bubble, but they call this a bubble," Clang said. "When we go down from our rooms to our meeting area, we can bump into people who are not with the tournament. It's really bad. Today, they have a wedding at our hotel. I mean, it's crazy. There are so many people who are not involved in the tournament who can be here and be in the hotel. I feel like it's really bad from the IIHF, who had been planning this out. We're just pretty sad right now."
Personnel from other teams have expressed similar sentiments.
"I am angry because this was not a COVID problem, but the problem was that this was a poorly run tournament," Finland head coach Antti Pennanen told Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat. "This says a lot about the state of the IIHF."
Nate Leaman, head coach of Team USA, replied to that quote from Pennanen on Twitter with "100 percent."
Clang was on Sweden's roster for last year's World Junior Championship, which was held in an actual "bubble" in Edmonton, similar to the one the NHL used in the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs. Games were held without any fans, and players and staff were isolated from the public in their hotels. Other than a couple of positive tests from the German team prior to the start of the tournament, the rest of the tournament went out without a hitch.
"It was a complete lockdown, and it worked, too," Clang recalled. "I mean, we didn't have any cases when the tournament started. I don't really know why they didn't do the same this year. It worked out last year. It's kind of crazy."
For Clang, 19, this was his last year of eligibility for the U20 tournament, an opportunity he won't get to see fully realized because of the mismanagement by the IIHF.
"You're going to have to accept it and move forward, even if it's tough," he said.
