Sports
Salvian: There’s no world juniors for women. What would it take to make it happen?
The top under-20 men’s players from Czechia, Finland, Sweden and the United States will vie for a spot in the gold medal game during the semifinals of the 2024 World Junior Championship on Thursday.
The best women in that age group won’t have the chance. They never have.
Since 1977 the IIHF has sanctioned a men’s world juniors. The world’s best female hockey players compete in annual under-18 and senior national championships, tournaments which began years after their male counterparts. And even though the women’s game is rapidly growing — look no further than what will be a multi-million dollar investment into the professional game with the PWHL — there is still no women’s world juniors.
That’s something Team Canada and Team USA general managers Gina Kingsbury and Katie Million want to change.
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“The U20 group is the missing piece,” Million said in an interview with The Athletic. “It’s been (our) dream to make this happen.”
There have been discussions with the IIHF about a potential women’s world juniors within the last year, Million said, but in recent committee meetings the idea has been voted down largely because other nations outside the U.S. and Canada aren’t ready to add another team to their women’s programming.
It’s true that Canada and the U.S. have dominated at the under-18 level, just as their senior teams have — no other nation has won a U18 gold medal since the tournament started in 2008. But there has been noticeable growth. Last year, Sweden beat Team USA in the semifinals and won a second silver medal after making it to the gold medal game for the first time in 2018. And it was Nela Lopušanová, a 14-year-old from Slovakia, who was the star of the 2023 tournament.
Lopušanová might be the most obvious example of growth in international women’s hockey. If the IIHF had decided women’s hockey wasn’t ready for a U18 tournament all those years ago, Lopušanová probably wouldn’t have become one of the most exciting young players to watch right now.
“We have to start somewhere,” Million said.
The main critique of all levels of women’s international hockey has typically been that Canada and the U.S. are going to win everything, so what’s the point? It’s a stale argument.
Because what’s also true is that two countries have dominated the men’s world juniors over its nearly 50-year history. Canada and Russia, or formerly the Soviet Union and CIS teams, have won 33 of the 47 gold medals since the tournament officially began. Canada, with 20, has won nearly half of the possible championships and only missed the podium a 13 times. Only six teams have ever won over five decades of competition.
Since 2013, only Canada (5), Finland (3), and the U.S. (3) have won gold.
If you’re OK with two or three teams dominating a men’s tournament, why is it a problem when it happens with women?
Team Canada has been dominant at the world juniors — their early exit at this year’s tournament notwithstanding — and this has become entwined with national pride and making hockey “Canada’s Game.” Why do we celebrate this, and then use Canadian women’s dominance as a reason to not play?
It’s entirely possible, even with two teams at the top, to grow interest in a niche product. That’s what the men’s world juniors was before TSN bought the rights in 1991. Now it’s must-see TV, particularly in Canada because of the team’s dominance and TSN’s investment.
“It’s a spectacle here in Canada,” said Canadian Olympian Sarah Nurse. “And I think that speaks to TSN, the media and how they’ve been able to spin a tournament into this Canadian tradition. I think we can do the same thing with women’s events.”
Claire Thompson never made a U18 national team before playing for Princeton, where she was noticed by Team Canada scouts only because they had gone to watch Sarah Fillier play. (Dan Hamilton / USA Today)
With the right partners, and money, of course.
But besides all that, a women’s world juniors would be vital for the overall health of women’s hockey and would provide a critical — and missing — opportunity for development.
Under-18 or -19 female hockey players, for the most part, are well served. There are club team championships and U18 nationals in Canada. USA Hockey has national championships for 19U girls. And, of course, there’s the IIHF under-18 world championships.
But very few players in North America can jump from U18s or high school hockey right to the senior women’s national team — Marie-Philip Poulin, who went from U18 worlds to senior worlds in 2008-09, is one of the few to have done it — which creates a large gap in opportunity for the top players in the sport. Team USA and Canada have played an under-22 series since 1999 — it’s now called the collegiate series — but that’s typically only three games played in August.
“Those kids that are on a U18 team, we don’t see them again until they’re maybe junior, senior in college or post-grad,” Million explained. “It only helps our development of those players to have that touch point when they’re younger and keep them in our culture and playing our systems.”
An under-20 team would expose decision-makers in the game to a potentially different set of players at a critical point in their careers, or provide more touch points for the development of stars from their under-18 years. Players are different at 19 years old than they are at 17 — some take off, others might go the other way — but there is no perfect way for national teams to track that progress other than scouting college teams.
“There is almost this forgotten group of players,” said Nurse. “You see girls at 16, 17, 18 years old and send them off to college. And they have to hope that our GM or scouts are at games at the right times and are talking to the right people.”
Take Claire Thompson as a recent example. The Canadian defender did not make an under-18 national team before heading off to Princeton in 2016 and was only spotted by Team Canada scouts who were sent to watch her teammate Sarah Fillier. Thompson was quickly invited to the under-22 team and went on to set a record at the 2022 Olympics for points by a defender.
“Imagine a player like that slipping through the cracks,” said Nurse.
It would also provide the opportunity for players who are too old for U18s and just outside the senior team to continue to play important games.
At 19 years old, Laila Edwards has already made history as the first Black woman to play for Team USA and is expected to become one of the faces of the game — in due time. She should be squarely in the mix to make the 2024 world championship roster, but if she’s not quite ready she won’t have any national team opportunities until USA Hockey’s annual August training camp. And then she wouldn’t play in international competition until the 2025 worlds, should she make that roster.
Of course someone like Edwards can continue to develop in college, but it would only aid her development to get into competitive international games.
Player development is not just about Team Canada and Team USA anymore, either. Not with the first-ever PWHL season officially underway. Men’s world juniors offers not just one of the most prestigious stages for young hockey players, but an opportunity to significantly boost their draft stock heading into the NHL Draft.
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Let’s consider TSN for a moment again. The network promotes the world juniors as an opportunity to watch the future legends of the game before they become legends. One promo for the 2023 world juniors said, “Before they were household names they were here on TSN.”
Women’s hockey players should be afforded the same opportunity, to not just grow as players, but to announce themselves on a big stage. Fans, too, deserve to know who to watch for, or who to hope their favorite team drafts in the first round of the PWHL Draft.
So, what next? And what could this look like?
At first, it could be as simple as Canada and the U.S. expanding their national team offerings. Each summer, Canada’s U18 and Collegiate teams face off in a mini-series. Maybe they could add an under-20 — next generation — rivalry series to the mix.
Or maybe, instead of a 10-team tournament like the men’s world juniors, it’s a smaller number of teams like a Four Nations tournament, but for the under-20 age group. Maybe it’s a World Cup-style tournament with teams from Canada, the United States and Europe. The latter option would allow top players — like Lopušanová — from countries that might not have enough U20 players for a full roster to be in the mix.
What a women’s world junior offering might look like remains to be seen. The timing is even more challenging to predict.
Hopefully these decisions are made soon, though. Because every year that goes by is another missed opportunity to grow the game.
(Photo: Dennis Pajot / Getty Images)
Sports
Ed Orgeron on who should be out of College Football Playoff, Lane Kiffin’s move to LSU and his coaching plans
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The College Football Playoff begins Friday, and emotions are running high for several fan bases.
Notre Dame was ranked 10th in the penultimate CFP rankings but missed the playoffs to both Alabama, which lost a third game, and Miami, which were ranked lower going into championship weekend but beat Notre Dame during the season, which apparently took precedence.
Ed Orgeron did not have to worry about his playoff status while he was coaching LSU to a title amid a perfect season in 2019, but he has an idea of who should be in and out this year.
LSU coach Ed Orgeron runs off the field with his team before an NCAA college football game against Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Clubb)
“I don’t think a team with three losses ought to be playing for the national championship. Notre Dame should have got in ahead of Alabama,” Orgeron told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.
Bama getting in prompted calls of bias and/or collusion, considering the playoff is broadcast on ESPN and ABC, the same network that the SEC has a major media rights deal with.
“The SEC was dominant. But now, the Big Ten, Big 12 are catching up. They’ve had the national champ a couple of years now. I don’t know what’s happened with the SEC and bias, all that stuff. Is there a chance that they have it? I’m not going to get into that. But I do know this — they’re very strong,” Orgeron added.
The SEC figures to remain strong, as Lane Kiffin went from Ole Miss to Orgeron’s former LSU in a controversial move. Orgeron, though, said Kiffin, his former colleague at Tennessee and USC, made the right move, given he hardly had a choice.
Mississippi Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin (left) and LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron (right) shake hands after a game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. (Petre Thomas/USA TODAY Sports)
ED ORGERON GIVES ADVICE TO SHERRONE MOORE AFTER SAGA THAT LEFT HIM FIRED, ARRESTED
“Look, the timing of it, when he did it, that’s his choice. But he had to do it at that time to get the job he wanted. The calendar is wrong in college football. I wish they had the rule like the NFL, that you cannot talk to a coach until their season is over,” Orgeron said.
As for advice to get LSU back to the promised land?
“Keep on doing what you’re doing. He knows what he’s doing. Recruit, evaluate like he’s doing. He’s the king of the transfer portal. He’ll be able to dominate the SEC like he’s been doing. Keep on doing what you’re doing.”
Orgeron last coached in 2021, but his career is certainly not over. In fact, he expects to be somewhere soon, potentially even facing Kiffin.
Then-LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron talks with quarterback Joe Burrow after a victory against the Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff national championship game at Mercedes-Benz Superdome. (Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports)
“We’ve been in touch with people. I would take a head coaching job, doesn’t have to be a head coaching job. I’ll take a D-line coach or a recruiting coordinator, but the right situation hasn’t been coming up. I’m in a good position where I could take a job, I don’t have to take a job, but if the right situation comes up, I’m definitely taking it and going to coach. I do believe within the next month something may open, and I’ll be coaching again.”
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SEATTLE — In a matter of minutes, the home of the Seattle Seahawks went from a painfully quiet Lumen “Library” to a rollicking madhouse that sent seismologists scrambling for their ground-motion sensors.
Call it the Sheesh-Quake Game.
In a historic comeback, the Seahawks dug their way out of a 16-point, fourth-quarter ditch to beat the Rams in overtime, 38-37.
Oh, the visitors will agonize over some of the bizarre calls, some deserving of further explanation from the NFL. An ineligible-man-downfield call that wiped out a Rams touchdown when they were a yard away from the end zone? That had people scratching their heads. Then there was that do-or-die two-point conversion that seemingly fell incomplete… but later was reversed. More on that in a moment.
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Gary Klein breaks down what went wrong for the Rams in their 38-37 loss to the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field on Thursday night.
When the Rams wincingly rewind the video of the collapse, they’ll be peering through the cracks in their fingers.
You’ve heard of a no-look pass? This was a no-look finish.
As soothing wins go, this was a warm bubble bath for the Seahawks, who secured a playoff berth and assumed the driver’s seat in the race for the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
“You hear people late in the year have losses, and you hear people come up here and say, like, ‘Man, this is going to be a good thing for us,’” said Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp, a onetime Rams hero. “It’s much better to be up here right now saying this is going to be a good thing for us.”
Kupp atoned for his first-half fumble with a successful two-point conversion in the fourth quarter — the first of three in a row for the Seahawks — and a 21-yard reception on the winning drive in overtime.
“If you find a way to get a win when you do turn the ball over three times, you do end up down 16 points, or whatever it was, in the fourth quarter, just finding ways to win games when the odds are against you and things aren’t going right — finding a way to fight back — it’s going to be a good thing for us,” Kupp said. “A good thing for us to draw on.”
The Rams are sifting through the debris of a different lesson. It was a reminder that this charmed season, with Matthew Stafford in line to win his first Most Valuable Player honor, can come crashing down at any moment. There’s no more smooth glide path to Santa Clara for the Super Bowl.
As good as it was for most of the game, picking off Sam Darnold twice and sacking him four times, the Rams defense failed to hold up when it counted most. Shades of the three-point loss at Carolina.
Darnold will have a story to tell. He exorcised a lot of demons. The Rams sacked him nine times in the playoffs last season when Darnold was playing for Minnesota, and intercepted six of his passes in two games this season.
“It’s not great when you have interceptions and turnovers, you want to limit that,” said Darnold, the former USC star. “But all you can do is fight back. For us, I was just going to continue to plug away.”
Darnold came through when it counted, completing five passes on the winning drive, then finding the obscure tight end Eric Saubert — his fourth option — wide open in the end zone on the triumphant conversion.
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold looks to pass against the Rams in the first half Thursday.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
The second of the three conversions was the game’s most controversial moment. The Seahawks needed it to forge a 30-30 tie with a little more than six minutes remaining in regulation.
Darnold fired a quick screen pass to his left, trying to get the ball to Zach Charbonnet. Rams defender Jared Verse jumped the route and knocked down the pass. Everyone thought the play was dead, including Charbonnet, who casually jogged across the goal line and picked up the ball as it lay in the end zone.
That proved critical because officials — after what seemed like an eternity — ruled that Darnold had thrown a backward pass and the ball was live when Charbonnet picked it up. Therefore, a fumble recovery and successful conversion, tying the game.
Asked later if it felt like a backward pass, Darnold had a half-smile and said, “Um, yeah. It felt like I threw it kind of right on the side. I’m glad Charbs picked it up, and that turned out to be a game-changing play.”
Was that designed to be a backward pass?
“It just happened to be backwards,” he said. “It wasn’t necessarily talked about. We were just trying to get it in down there on the goal line.”
The Seahawks were lined up to kick off when officials announced that, upon review, the previous play was successful. Suddenly, the most improbable of come-from-victories was within reach.
Earlier in the fourth quarter, when the home team was trailing, 30-14, the Amazon Prime crew had to do some vamping to keep viewers engaged. Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit told some Kurt Warner stories from the “Greatest Show on Turf” days. Hey, it had to be more interesting than this game.
Michaels delivered an obscure stat: When leading by 15 points or more in the fourth quarter, the Rams were 323-1.
Informed of that, Seahawks running back Cam Akers — once shown the door by the Rams — had a wry response.
“Now, they’ve lost two,” he said.
Celebration in one locker room. Silence in another.
Do you believe in meltdowns?
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Sherrone Moore’s booking photo was released about a week after the former Michigan Wolverines football coach was fired from his job and arrested on several charges.
Fox News Digital obtained the booking photo of Moore on Thursday. The picture showed a red-eyed Moore appearing downcast in the Washtenaw County Jail in Michigan.
Sherrone Moore’s booking photo was obtained by Fox News Digital on Dec. 18, 2025. (Washtenaw County Jail)
The photo’s release came as new details emerged in the Moore scandal, including allegations that he “had a long history of domestic violence” against the staffer with whom he allegedly maintained an inappropriate, yearslong relationship.
Court documents obtained by Fox News Digital revealed allegations made by the staffer’s attorney, Heidi Sharp, on the day that Moore allegedly entered her home without permission, which later resulted in his arrest.
Moore appeared in a Washtenaw County court on Friday, where his bond was set at $25,000 and included several conditions, including no contact with the alleged victim in the case. A not guilty plea was entered for him.
Prosecutors detailed the alleged events that led up to Moore’s arrest, including that Moore had engaged in an “intimate relationship” with the Michigan staffer for “a number of years” and that the woman had broken up with him two days before his arrest.
Former Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore appears via video in court in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Dec. 12, 2025. (Ryan Sun/AP Photo)
MICHIGAN FOOTBALL RECRUITS DE-COMMIT FROM PROGRAM AMID SHERRONE MOORE SCANDAL
Prosecutors accused Moore of contacting the staffer via phone calls and texts after the breakup, prompting the victim to contact the University of Michigan and cooperate in its investigation. Moore was subsequently fired from his position as head football coach, which prosecutors said prompted him to show up at the woman’s home.
Moore then allegedly “barged” his way into the residence, grabbed a butter knife and a pair of scissors and then began threatening his own life. According to prosecutors, Moore allegedly told the staffer, “My blood is on your hands” and “You ruined my life.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Moore’s attorney for comment.
Moore faces a felony charge of home invasion in the third degree and two misdemeanor charges of stalking and breaking and entering without the owner’s permission. He was released on bond and is due back in court on Jan. 22.
Sherrone Moore, then-of the Michigan Wolverines, looks on during the second half against the Maryland Terrapins at SECU Stadium on November 22, 2025 in College Park, Maryland. (Chris Bernacchi/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
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Moore took over as head coach for Jim Harbaugh when he left to take the Los Angeles Chargers’ job.
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
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