Czechia Forfeits World Junior Game Versus Finland Due to Positive COVID-19 Test
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to make its presence felt at the 2022 World Junior Championship.
According to TSN's Bob McKenzie, Czechia has officially been forced to forfeit their scheduled game on Wednesday versus Finland after one of their players tested positive in the most recent round of testing, therein causing the team to undergo a mandatory quarantine.
Czechia is the second team to forfeit a game at this year's tournament for COVID reasons in as many days, with the United States handing Switzerland a win by default on Tuesday after two of their players tested positive hours before puck drop.
Such are the risks of holding a large international tournament at the height of a pandemic.
This year's World Juniors had already been struggling to contain an outbreak of the virus since before the event even officially began, with a pre-tournament game between Czechia and Switzerland being canceled on Dec. 23 out of an abundance of caution, all while the Alberta government limited arena crowd capacities to 50 percent.
The hope is that enacting these swift quarantines for affected teams will help contain COVID from spreading even further. But at the rate it's going, this will likely not be the last game to be forfeited before the tournament reaches its end.
