1990 IIHF Women's World Championship


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.
There was strong international attention directed at the games. The gold medal game packed 9,000 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, Canadian and Asian representative Japan, qualified automatically.
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 tournament

Group stage

Group A

Group B

Consolation round

5–8 place

7–8 place

5–6 place

Final round

Semifinals

3–4 place

Final

Rankings and statistics

Final rankings

Scoring leaders

List shows the top ten skaters sorted by points, then goals.
　GAPts
Cindy Curley, 111223
Tina Cardinale, 51015
Cammi Granato, 9514
Kim Urech, 8614
Angela James, 11213
Heather Ginzel, 7512
Susana Yuen, 5712
Kelly O'Leary, 6511
Shirley Cameron, 5611
Stacy Wilson, 3811

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.
PlayerTOISAGAGAASv%SO
Cathy Phillips1563231.1590.631
Tamae Satsu151143176.7588.110
Kelly Dyer20083123.6085.541
Aurelia Vonderstrass18065103.3384.620
Tanja Muller14797156.1284.540
TOI = Time On Ice ; SA = Shots Against; GA = Goals Against; GAA = Goals Against Average; Sv% = Save Percentage; SO = Shutouts
Source:

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.