IIHF President Luc Tardif was made available to press for a short interview during intermission of the bronze medal game at the the U18 IIHF Women's World Championships in Madison on June 13.

Below you'll find a transcript of that conversation as well as the audio Nicole recorded while speaking to Tardif. The other reporter in this interview is Todd Milewski, who covers University of Wisconsin men's and women's hockey in Madison for the local newspaper, The Wisconsin State Journal.

Finland 1, Canada 2

You wouldn’t know it from watching this tournament, but Finland's best finish in the U18 Women's World Championships were bronze medals in 2011 and 2019. They made a huge stride forward this year, taking down Canada for the first time at this age group in the preliminary round.

It has been truly amazing to see the level of competition among the teams at this tournament. If this group is any indication, the future of women's hockey is looking incredibly bright.

Their coach, Mira Kuisma, was fighting back tears and struggling to put into words her thoughts on the game in the postgame press conference, knowing how well her team has played and how close they were to making history.

The "glorified doorbell cam" footage that former VP writer Kirsten captured and shared in 2019 is an infamous part of women's hockey lore at this point.

The high angle fish lens feed was impossible to watch and, when asked about it, the IIHF blamed the local organizing committee (LOC).

But what you might not remember about the doorbell cam is that it was from the 2020 IIHF U18 Women's World Championships held in Bratislava, Slovakia – thus they were placing the blame for the poor streaming situation on the Slovak Ice Hockey Federation. The darlings of this year's 2022 U18 tournament are ultimately supported by the federation that couldn't provide more than a doorbell cam for the top division IIHF U18 Women's Wolrd Championship in 2019.

United States 7, Canada 0

After watching the first few games, it sure felt like the Americans were the best team in the tournament, but I don't think anyone could have foreseen the blowout USA engineered Thursday evening. It was a masterclass in puck possession – something their coach Katie Lachapelle emphasized on Wednesday's off day as being important for her team's success. The less time the opponent has the puck, the less dangerous they are. The Americans made sure they held the puck, distributed it around the ice, and took smart, deliberate shots to get the win.

Seven different players scored the goals for the Americans and 12 players tallied a point. It was a total team effort as skaters up and down the line sheet took advantage of their time on ice. Laila Edwards' late goal moved her to a tie for first place in scoring this tournament with seven points. Teammate Sydney Morrow had her seventh assist of the tournament on Edwards' goal.

We're not quite halfway through the tournament, with eight of fourteen games complete and one rest day under our belts.

I've gathered some interesting quotes and stories that haven't made it into the daily notebooks, but still should see the light of day, so I'll try to do these after the off days and probably after the medal games.

This photo from the IIHF of USA's Laila Edwards and Finland's Tuuli Tallinen just really puts in stark relief what I'm talking about when I'm mentioning Edwards' reach. Tallinen is listed at 5'9" and would be one of the taller players on the ice in most women's hockey games. Look at the distance between their gloves (not too significant) and the distance between the blades of their sticks (an absolute chasm).