He told the press: "Every year we spend C$10,000 to send a Canadian hockey team to Europe to play 40 exhibition games.

[1][2][3] Also absent were the Soviet Union; it was hoped that the USSR would participate but they did not, but they sent observers, including coach Anatoli Tarasov, to scout the tournament.

It is believed that injuries to their star players, including Vsevolod Bobrov, was the reason behind the decision.

[3] Czechoslovakia were withdrawn from the tournament by General František Janda, the Chairman of the State Committee for the Physical Education and Sport, who ordered the team home when it became obvious their President, Klement Gottwald, was going to die from pneumonia he contracted at Stalin's funeral.

Gottwald died the next day, March 14, 1953; subsequently, the team was disqualified, with their results being deleted from the records and their remaining games cancelled.