1990 IIHF Women's World Championship

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, 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 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.