Great Britain won’t host Olympic Qualifiers

Great Britain Senior Men look set to be travelling to Japan for the Olympic pre-qualification tournament from 8th to 11th November 2012.
GB will go head-to-head with Japan, Romania and Korea, with the group winners progressing through to the final qualifying tournament in February 2013 in a bid to reach Sochi 2014.

Ice Hockey UK general secretary, Andy French, said: “Although GB finished higher that Japan in the world rankings and were offered the chance to host, we sadly had to decline for various reasons. It was a decision we had to make with much sadness. Hosting the event would’ve been fantastic for the sport of ice hockey in the UK. It something we really wanted to do and we realise how important it is to ice hockey fans in the UK.
But prior to the attending congress in Helsinki, several telephone calls had taken place with various venues in the UK enquiring if they had availability to host and, due to the limited dates in the facilities, it was not possible.
We also were told that, unlike a World Championship tournament, there is no direct funding available to host the Olympic qualification. Hosting a tournament with no IIHF funding would’ve been an extremely costly exercise. For starters, there’s the cost of putting up four teams in a hotel, plus the other associated costs with hosting such an event. Sadly, we were left we no option but to pass on the position of hosting and it now looks like we will be going to Japan in November.”

As second highest ranked nation in their qualifying group, Japan should host the tournament, but it's still unclear if Asian country will be able to set an international event, due to the problems affecting the country after the last year earthquake.

If Japan won't be able to host the event, the right to organize pass to Romania or Korea. Romania are still ranked a place ahead of Korea

 

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