The remain­der of the world junior hock­ey cham­pi­onship in Cana­da has been can­celed over fears of a COVID-19 outbreak.

The Inter­na­tion­al Ice Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion made the announce­ment Wednes­day on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the organization’s med­ical offi­cials. Cit­ing the spread of the coro­n­avirus and the omi­cron vari­ant, the IIHF can­celed the rest of the tour­na­ment “to ensure the health and safe­ty of all participants.”

Two games had already been for­feit­ed because of pos­i­tive coro­n­avirus test results among U.S. and Czech play­ers and anoth­er was immi­nent with Rus­sia. Two U.S. play­ers and one Czech play­er had returned pos­i­tive tests, lead­ing to team quar­an­tine mandates.

The IIHF coun­cil deter­mined the integri­ty of the event had been com­pro­mised by the for­feits, lead­ing to the cancellation.

“We owed it to the par­tic­i­pat­ing teams to do our best to cre­ate the con­di­tions nec­es­sary for this event to work,” IIHF Pres­i­dent Luc Tardif said. “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this was not enough. We now have to take some time and focus on get­ting all play­ers and team staff back home safely.”

Tardif said at a news con­fer­ence that the tour­na­ment could resume this summer.

Teams arrived in Alber­ta on Dec. 15. Play­ers were quar­an­tined and test­ed before being allowed to skate. The pre-tour­na­ment sched­ule was reduced to one game per team, with the Czechs and Swiss unable to play an exhi­bi­tion because of pos­i­tive tests for the virus.

Pro­to­cols were estab­lished before a surge of the omi­cron vari­ant caused the can­cel­la­tion of six oth­er tour­na­ments in Jan­u­ary, Tardif said in an inter­view post­ed on the IIHF web­site before the can­cel­la­tion announcement.

“To put this into con­text, there were eight NHL games post­poned when the teams entered their arrival quar­an­tine on the 15th,” Tardif said. “By the time we had accept­ed the rec­om­men­da­tion to can­cel the Jan­u­ary events on the 23rd there were 62 total NHL games post­poned. That is how quick­ly the sit­u­a­tion has changed.”

The can­cel­la­tion breaks a run of 44 con­sec­u­tive years for the IIHF’s under-20 men’s cham­pi­onship. The 2021 tour­na­ment in Edmon­ton man­aged to cross the fin­ish line, with the Unit­ed States beat­ing Cana­da in the gold-medal game Jan. 5.

Tardif said the tour­na­ment adjust­ed pro­to­cols almost imme­di­ate­ly upon play­ers, coach­es and staff arriv­ing to avoid pos­si­ble virus spread. That includ­ed dai­ly test­ing and team-wide quar­an­tine man­dates when pos­i­tive cas­es were confirmed.

Those steps, com­bined with par­tic­i­pants not being con­tained ful­ly inside a bub­ble, explain how the tour­na­ment for the top play­ers in the world under age 20 was called off after nine games and four con­firmed cases.

“Our hearts go out to the play­ers and staff of not just our coun­try but every nation, who have worked so hard and sac­ri­ficed so much to get to this point,” U.S. nation­al junior team gen­er­al man­ag­er John Van­bies­brouck said. “We’re proud of our team for doing every­thing that’s been asked of them and will work to ensure their safe return home.”

Hock­ey Cana­da pres­i­dent Tom Ren­ney and CEO Scott Smith said the host orga­ni­za­tion under­stands and sup­ports the IIHF’s decision.

“Although we know this is the right deci­sion, we sym­pa­thize with all par­tic­i­pants who have earned the oppor­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent their coun­tries on the world stage and that will not be able to real­ize that dream in its entire­ty,” Ren­ney and Smith said in a statement.

The women’s under-18 world cham­pi­onship was one of the Jan­u­ary tour­na­ments can­cel­la­tions, with the IIHF cit­ing health and safe­ty con­cerns. USA Hock­ey and Hock­ey Cana­da asked the IIHF to recon­sid­er the can­ce­la­tion of the women’s tour­na­ment and instead resched­ule for the good of the sport.

The Cana­di­an Press con­tributed to this story.