The pain is still there for Kaiden Guhle
On December 29, Luc Tardif, the new president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, announced the complete cancellation of the current World Junior Championship. This news devastated many hockey fans, but especially many young prospects who were participating in this holiday classic.
Among them was a certain Kaiden Guhle. The CH's first round pick in 2020 was the captain of the Canadian team... at 19 years old. Worse yet, he was playing in his hometown tournament.
"Yes, it still hurts," he admitted. "I look at the dates and I think we were supposed to play the semi-finals on January 4 and the final on January 5. It's still in the back of my mind. I think it's sad, but there's nothing you can do about it. That's the reality these days, the pandemic is causing a lot of damage."
"I never thought about that possibility, of the tournament being cancelled," he added. "I thought we were going to play the tournament, like last year. We had opened the tournament, we had played games. But in our world today, you can't predict too much. The organizers chose to cancel the tournament for the safety of the players, staff and people around the tournament. It's unfortunate, but that's part of life."
There is a small glimmer of hope that the tournament will be played somewhere in June, but nothing has been confirmed to that effect yet. So it's possible that Guhle and his 2021-2022 teammates won't be able to defend Canada's colors until the gold medal game.
In short, we can understand the great disappointment of this Habs prospect.
