1990 Women's World Ice Hockey Championships

The 1990 IIHF World Women Championships were held March 19 to 25, 1990 in Ottawa, Canada. The Canadian team won the gold medal, the United States won silver, and Finland won bronze. This was the first IIHF-sanctioned international tournament in women's ice hockey.

There was strong international attention directed at the games. The gold medal game packed 9000 people into the arena and drew over a million viewers on television.fact|date=June 2007 For unknown reasons, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association decided that the Canadian team should wear pink and white uniforms instead of the expected red and white.Kelly p. 88] While the experiment only lasted for this tournament, Ottawa was taken over by a "pink craze" during the championships. Restaurants had pink-coloured food on special, and pink became a popular colour for flowers and bow ties.

Qualification

The United States and Canada qualified automatically.Andria Hunter [http://www.whockey.com/int/wwc/ Women's Hockey Net page on the IIHF World Women Championships] accessed July 16, 2006] A tournament in Asia took place between Korea, Japan, and China. Japan won the tournament.

The 1989 European Women's Ice Hockey Championship served as the qualification tournament for this championship. The top five finishers in the top pool qualified. They were Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and West Germany.

Final rankings

#ihw|CAN
#ihw|USA
#ihw|FIN
#ihw|SWE
#ihw|SUI
#ihw|NOR
#ihw|GER|name=West Germany
#ihw|JPN

Partial results

These games determined the final rankings. All took place on March 25.Andria Hunter [http://www.whockey.com/int/wwc/1990/results_wwc_90.brief.txt Women's Hockey net 1990 Summary] accessed July 16, 2006]

Gold medal game
*ihw|CAN 5 - 2 ihw|USA

Bronze medal game
*ihw|FIN 6 - 3 ihw|SWE

Fifth place game
*ihw|SUI 7 - 6 ihw|NOR

Seventh place game
*ihw|GER|name=West Germany 9 - 2 ihw|JPN

coring leaders

Canada's Dawn McGuire was named MVP of the gold medal game.

Bodychecking

This is the first and only major international tournament in Women's ice hockey to allow bodychecking.Malcolm G. Kelly "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Canadian Sports History and Trivia" p. 89 Alpha Books ISBN 0-13-014658-7] Before the tournament, bodychecking had been allowed in women's ice hockey in Europe. The European teams, knowing that they were less competitive than the North American teams, asked for bodychecking to be included. For some reason, the Europeans failed to realize the fact that while European women learned to play with other women, most North American players learned to play with men. Consequently, North American players were bigger than European players and used to playing a rougher game. This added to the already significant mismatch between the squads.Fact|date=February 2007

After this tournament, the International Ice Hockey Federation disallowed bodychecking in women's ice hockey. It is currently an infraction punished with a minor or major and game misconduct penalty.International Ice Hockey Federation [http://www.iihf.com/hockey/rules/rules_part_two.pdf Section 5, Rule 441 of Official Ice Hockey rules] p. 84 accessed July 16, 2006]

In addition, the intermission between periods were twenty minutes instead of fifteen. This has since been abolished and changed to the usual fifteen minutes.

ee also

* IIHF World Women Championships

References

External links

* [http://www.whockey.com/int/wwc/1990/results_wwc_90.brief.txt Summary from the Women's Hockey Net]
* [http://www.iihf.com//archive/WW.pdf IIHF Results for other tournaments]