The top under-20 men’s players from Czechia, Finland, Sweden and the United States will vie for a spot in the gold medal game during the semifinals of the 2024 World Junior Championship on Thursday.
The best women in that age group won’t have the chance. They never have.
Since 1977 the IIHF has sanctioned a men’s world juniors. The world’s best female hockey players compete in annual under-18 and senior national championships, tournaments which began years after their male counterparts. And even though the women’s game is rapidly growing — look no further than what will be a multi-million dollar investment into the professional game with the PWHL — there is still no women’s world juniors.
That’s something Team Canada and Team USA general managers Gina Kingsbury and Katie Million want to change.
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“The U20 group is the missing piece,” Million said in an interview with The Athletic. “It’s been (our) dream to make this happen.”
There have been discussions with the IIHF about a potential women’s world juniors within the last year, Million said, but in recent committee meetings the idea has been voted down largely because other nations outside the U.S. and Canada…
