Host country Canada Teams 8 Champions Canada (1st title) | Dates 19–25 March Arena(s) (in 1 host city) Runner-up United States | |
The 1990 IIHF World Women's Championships were held March 19 to 25, 1990, at the Civic Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, 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. Fran Rider helped to organize the championships with no financial support from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association.
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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. 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. 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 Tournament
The United States and Canadian teams qualified automatically. A tournament in Hong Kong took place between South Korea, Japan, China, India and Hong Kong. China won the tournament but declined their invitation, Japan went in their place. 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
- Canada
- United States
- Finland
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Norway
- West Germany
- Japan
Scoring leaders
List shows the top ten skaters sorted by points, then goals.
Canada's Dawn McGuire was named MVP of the gold medal game.
Leading goaltenders
Only the top five goaltenders, based on save percentage, who have played 40% of their team's minutes are included in this list.
TOI = Time On Ice (minutes:seconds); SA = Shots Against; GA = Goals Against; GAA = Goals Against Average; Sv% = Save Percentage; SO = Shutouts
Source: whockey.com
Bodychecking
This is the only major international tournament in women's ice hockey to allow bodychecking. 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.
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.
In addition, the intermissions between periods were twenty minutes instead of fifteen. This has since been changed to the usual fifteen minutes.