16 Mar
The recent developments in Japan left its people coping with the shock and doubling their efforts to recover in order to get things back to normal. As a part of these efforts, the Japanese Ice Hockey Federation announced that it has withdrawn from three much-anticipated world ice hockey events in 2011.
These events are the IIHF World Championship Division which is to be hosted in Budapest, Hungary, the IIHF World U18 Championship Division in Riga, Latvia, and the IIHF World Women’s Championship Division in Ravensburg, Germany.
This decision to withdraw from all three world ice hockey competitions was made by the JIHF in the form of a letter to the IIHF stating that the choice not to participate was on moral grounds and as a mark of respect at a time of national grief.
While the IIHF had earlier sent its condolences to the Japanese Ice Hockey Federation, their response to the said letter suggested that they had accepted JIHF’s decision to not participate in the upcoming competitions without any reservations.
The reason for this was due to the fact that several family and friends of the members of the ice hockey community in Japan were victims of the tragedy that happened not so long ago; therefore, perhaps, it was fitting to withdraw from their participation as a sign of respect at the dead and to comfort their bereaving loved ones.
What this means for the IIHF is that they will have to revise the schedules, with the omission of Japan, in order to prevent any confusion about the play dates, so that they can accommodate the other teams that will participate in the competition.