Our top Canadian sports stories this week
- How FanDuel Plans To Encourage More Women To Place Sports Wagers
- CFL Week 9 Wagering Preview: Argos Clash With Ticats For First Time This Year
- Ontario 'Highly Vulnerable' To Money Laundering Activities, Experts Say
Event of the week
World Junior Hockey Championship — August 9-20
Who’s ready for a major hockey tournament during the hottest month of the year in Canada?
The circumstances surrounding this year’s IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship couldn’t be more bizarre, or disturbing, from a Hockey Canada perspective.
First, the tournament was originally scheduled to take place last winter from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alberta. But after several round-robin games were played, the tournament was postponed on Dec. 29 due to COVID-19 concerns.
Now, the tournament will start again from scratch, and some key Canadian players won’t be participating this time, including Xavier Bourgault, Mavrik Bourque, Dylan Guenther, Jake Neighbours, Cole Perfetti, Justin Sourdif, Shane Wright, and defensemen Kaiden Guhle and Owen Power.
Second, the tournament is being overshadowed by a massive Hockey Canada sex assault scandal relating to Canada’s 2003 World Junior team.
Regardless, the event will go on from Aug. 9-20 without some of hockey’s young stars, and all of Canada will be eager to watch, and bet, on some summer hockey.
Odds to win the tournament, as listed by FanDuel:
- Canada +125
- USA +380
- Finland +380
- Sweden +420
- Czech Republic +2500
- Slovakia +2500
- Germany +10000
- Switzerland +10000
- Austria +25000
- Latvia +25000
PointsBet releases some Ontario data
We finally have a very small window, from one operator’s perspective, as to how well Ontario’s regulated sports betting market is performing.
Last week, Australian-based PointsBet disclosed its sports betting performance in the province during an investors presentation: