Reindl wins the IIHF, and Canada loses its seat at the table

Canada didn't just lose an election in Tenerife on Friday. It lost the room. For the first time since 1998, there's no Canadian at the IIHF council table, and that should worry Hockey Canada a lot more than who sits in the president's chair.

Franz Reindl is the new president of the IIHF. He beat Petr Bříza 60-57 in a second-round runoff, a three-vote margin out of 117 ballots. Our desk had Bříza on Thursday. So did the first round, which he led 48-36.

How the German got there

The whole election turned on one man's voters. Aivaz Omorkanov of Kyrgyzstan drew 33 votes in the first round and was dropped. By our count, Reindl took 24 of those 33 and Bříza took nine. That's the race in one line.

Reindl is 71 and has been around the sport's front office for decades. He won Olympic bronze with West Germany in 1976. He was general manager of the German national team from 1992 to 2014, ran the German federation from 2014 to 2022 and has sat on the IIHF council since 2016.

He lost to Luc Tardif five years ago. This time he had the coalition.

Bříza didn't go home empty-handed. He was re-elected senior vice-president on the third ballot, so the insider stays in the building. He was the treasurer last term, and I'd expect him to keep a hand on the books while Reindl works the politics.

The read: a three-vote win isn't a mandate. Reindl needs the Czechs and the Nordics on side from day one, and he knows it.

The Canadian problem

Here's the part that will land hard in Toronto and Calgary. Bob Nicholson's seat as vice-president for the Americas went to American Mike Trimboli, who ran unopposed. Hockey Canada's Katherine Henderson ran for one of the women's council seats and was eliminated in the second round with 27 votes.

So the country that treats this sport as a national trust has no vote on the body that runs it internationally. Canada has had someone at that table since 1978, except for a gap from 1994 to 1998. That gap is now back, and it lasts four years.

It's not a crisis on the ice. Canada will still host events and still win plenty of them.

But this council will make calls on the Olympic cycle, the calendar and the eligibility fights. Hockey Canada just lost the true-jersey ruling this week. Losing the seat on top of the ruling makes it a bad week to be in the room.

File under: Board room.

Who's in the room now

The eight elected council members are Heikki Hietanen of Finland, Omorkanov, Viesturs Koziols of Latvia, Anders Larsson of Sweden, Marta Zawadzka of Poland, Sergey Goncharov of Belarus, Stoian Batchvarov of Bulgaria and Andy Mills of New Zealand.

Zsuzsanna Kolbenheyer of Hungary and Merve Tunali of Turkey took the two seats set aside for women, and Susie Jo of Korea won the Asia vice-presidency.

Two things jump out. First, the women's count is better than the ballot looked on Thursday, with four women on a 15-member council.

Second, Belarus has a seat while its teams are still out of IIHF competition. Goncharov is the general secretary of the Belarus federation and has served on the council before. That file isn't closed, and now it has a voice inside.

The read: watch the first council meeting for anything on Russia and Belarus. A tight president with a mixed council tends to move slowly, and slow is its own decision.

What I'd watch

Hockey Canada's next move. The smart play is quiet work through Trimboli and the Americas group, and a candidate lined up for 2030 who can count to 60. The loud play is complaining about it. Canada has tried loud before. It rarely gets a seat back.