The world juniors are about to begin. Why isn't there a women's world junior tournament?
CBC
Inside an arena in Tampere, Finland in mid-December, future top PWHL draft prospects faced off in a tournament final.
At the Women's Euro Hockey Tour (or Six Nations Tournament), the Canadians faced an American roster stacked with senior national team talent, including Lacey Eden, Abbey Murphy, Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards.
A Canadian squad with less international experience stuck in the game until the final minutes, when the Americans pulled ahead on a Murphy goal for an eventual 5-3 win. Canadian goaltender Ève Gascon had 33 saves in the loss, putting up a performance her coach described as "phenomenal."
"Not necessarily the results against the U.S. that we were hoping for, but we are super proud of our team's performances throughout the course of the tournament," Canadian national development team head coach Alison Domenico said in an interview with CBC Sports.
"In that last game alone to kind of come back, being down a couple, it could have been easy to pack it in."
Even though several players on both sides of that final are likely to be high draft picks in the PWHL within the next few years, the tournament wasn't broadcast in Canada, nor was it streamed by Hockey Canada.
While many Canadians will watch top NHL prospects at the world junior hockey championship for men under 20, which begins on Dec. 26, there's no world championship for women of the same age.
There's a world championship for women under 18, which will take place in Finland in January and is broadcast nationally on TSN.
But there are few international opportunities between that tournament and the senior national team, creating a development gap as women aim to reach the highest level of the sport.
For fans, it also means fewer opportunities to see and get excited about future PWHL stars. Most will go from the under-18 tournament to play in the NCAA, but those games aren't always easy to find in Canada, either.
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Earlier this year, the IIHF said a women's world junior championship is on the horizon, but isn't likely to happen for several years, the Canadian Press reported.
In Europe, the problem is that there aren't enough female players to fill teams on the under-18 side, a senior national team and another age group in between, according to Mike Helber, the director of hockey operations for the Swedish Ice Hockey Association.
"What will end up happening is that our best players will play at least in two of the tournaments, maybe even all three," Helber said in an interview with CBC Sports.
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