Ice Hockey UK general secretary Andy French was part of a virtual information session held by the IIHF with its membership today.

After a welcome by IIHF president René Fasel, general secretary Horst Lichtner talked about the operational work conducted by the federation during the past few months.

This included the creation of an event tracker with live updated status changes for the events on a daily basis; a covid-19 expert group with members from different areas to discuss the status of events; the latest updates from the summer IIHF council meetings; and a risk analysis and situational report from the IIHF Finance Committee.

Fasel said: “We have, on one hand, a financial challenge and, on the other hand, are still living with the covid-19 situation. Many countries have restrictions, some even local lockdowns.

“The specialists say that the situation can become even more difficult in the upcoming months. As you know, we also have some political challenges with the 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship since the presidential elections in Belarus and we really hope that the situation will improve in the upcoming months.”

Earlier this month, the IIHF had to cancel all other tournaments that were scheduled between September and February because of the covid-19 pandemic and measures against it in most of the countries, including restrictions in travel and event organisation.

An exception was the Olympic Qualification for women’s ice hockey in Beijing 2022 where the tournaments have not been cancelled but postponed with the new dates to be determined.

This would more than likely have an impact on GB Women who are meant to be travelling to Korea in February for an Olympic Qualifying tournament.

Read more here on the IIHF website.