Nickel: Madison-area trio steps up to save women's international championship

It took one city, two ice rinks, three sports organizations, local hockey royalty and otherwise a couple hundred employees and volunteers just three hurried months to get here.

But the international flags were hoisted Wednesday morning, just in the nick of time.

In a butterfly save of the tournament that already had been canceled, not once but twice, Madison and Middleton will host the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Under-18 Women’s World Championship tournament June 6-13.

The tourney was supposed to happen in January, in Linköping and Mjölby, Sweden, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of that, just as it had in 2021.

Not wanting to see another tournament lost for the year, USA Hockey asked for reconsideration.

And the IIHF said: OK. If you can figure it out, you can have it this year.

That was in February.

By March, the University of Wisconsin senior assistant athletic director for event operations, Todd Nelson, with Madison Area Sports Commission Vice President of Conventions Sales, Sports and Services Jamie Patrick and Madison Capitols GM Andrew Joudrey combined their resources to bring the best up-and-coming hockey players to Wisconsin this month.

A rare treat for not only Wisconsin, but the U.S. as well.

USA Hockey senior director of communications Dave Fischer said there are five major world championships the IIHF hosts each year, at every level, and they cycle around the world. A lot of nations want to host them. The Under-18 women's event is a newer tourney, and this is just the third time it will be here in the U.S.

The IIHF tournament will showcase the top eight teams in the world.

Twelve of the 22 games, including the bronze and gold medal games, will be at LaBahn Arena on the UW campus. The Group A teams – including the United States, Canada, Finland and Sweden – will play their preliminary round games at LaBahn Arena. The other 10 games will be in Group B, with the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany and Slovakia playing at Bob Suter’s Capitol Ice Arena.

Buffalo was one of the cities that put in a bid to host, but the Madison area, with so many resources in close proximity, was awarded the tourney.

“USA Hockey reached out to Wisconsin, as they did to some other places,” said Nelson. "We do have a women's hockey team here, so when you hear about something at this level, bringing in the best of this age group from around the world, it does at least interest you. But then there's a lot of questions that have to be answered, dates and timing and costs and availability of the facility and things like that.”

The normal planning of an event like this would take more than a year, but it was compressed into three months with Wisconsin athletics, the Madison Sports Commission, and Bob Suter’s Capitol Ice USHL team all coming together with two facilities, enough locker rooms and parking spaces to make it happen.

"We kind of quickly came together and said, hey, if we're going to put a bid in like this, I don't think any one of us can do it on our own. But if we combine our resources and look at this, using two different facilities, I think we have a shot,” said Nelson.

“We're kind of to the point now where we’ve got 200 things to do but we might only get the first 100 done, and so we have to prioritize what those are.

“Because ultimately we have to play hockey games and that's what we're prepared to do. We want to have this run as smoothly as possible so that the athletes, the coaches and our visitors to this city have a great time and a great experience and say great things when they leave.”

The hope is that hockey fans from all over the state and as well as nearby cities like Chicago and the Twin Cities will attend these games.

"I'm taking my daughter to see the Canada-U.S. game next Thursday," said Joudrey, who played four years for the Badgers men's team from 2003-07, and won a title his junior year at the BMO Harris Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

"We also have four girls teams in the Capitol's youth program; Milwaukee Junior Admirals has girls teams. The really nice thing is, we have these girls programs with these girls teams; we call their managers, we talk to these kids about coming out to watch a USHL game or a Badger men's game or go to Minnesota Wild game. Yeah, it's really good hockey, but that's not who they're aspiring to be. They're aspiring to be on the Badger women's team and to be able to have an international event here just helps embolden and motivate them more."

Madison has held other non-collegiate sporting events with big national draw like IRONMAN and the CrossFit Games, and this type of event will be on the same scale. The timing is good too, all things considered – spectators may only have to choose between this and the American Family Insurance Championship golf tournament in Madison at the same time, and the Packers minicamp in Green Bay as well.

All of these players are likely headed for U.S. colleges and possibly the Olympics for the U.S and their respective countries in years to come. Wisconsin can claim more than 50 former Badgers in the 20-year history of the program from the U-18 world championship tournament and the Badgers have three incoming freshman on the Team USA roster that looks to defend its gold medal.

For the trio hosting this event, that was also important, so much so that NHL player Ryan Suter threw his support behind the event, as well as UW women's hockey coach Mark Johnson. Even Fischer, who has several family ties to Wisconsin, was encouraged by the support of the area hockey community.

“Not only can we host some great hockey, but we're showing support for this women's sport that, for Wisconsin, has been around now for over 20 years,” said Nelson. “We're showing support to the for the sport in general. This happens to be the 50th year of Title IX and Wisconsin athletics is obviously doing a number of things to highlight that landmark legislation that provided some more opportunities for girls and women in sport.

“And so not only are we going to be hosting a hockey tournament, but we're doing it for the support of USA Hockey, Badger hockey, women's hockey, girls hockey, and just to show our commitment to supporting these tremendous opportunities that these young girls and young women are going to have by competing in this specific event. We wanted to just continue our legacy, especially here in Madison.”

For the tournament schedule, visit www.iihf.com/en/events/2022/ww18/schedule.

Message Lori Nickel on Twitter at @LoriNickel, Instagram at @bylorinickel or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ChinUpLoriNickel 

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Madison hosts International Women's Hockey Under-18 World Championship