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.

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.

Qualification Tournament
The United States and Canadian teams qualified automatically. A tournament in Hong Kong took place between South Korea, Japan, China, India and Hong Kong. China won the tournament but declined their invitation, Japan went in their place. The 1989 IIHF European Women Championships served as the qualification tournament for this championship. The top five finishers in the top pool qualified. They were Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and West Germany.

Bodychecking
This is the only major international tournament in women's ice hockey to allow bodychecking. Before the tournament, bodychecking had been allowed in women's ice hockey in Europe. The European teams, knowing that they were less competitive than the North American teams, asked for bodychecking to be included. For some reason, the Europeans failed to realize that while European women learned to play with other women, most North American players learned to play with men. Consequently, North American players were bigger than European players and were used to playing a rougher game. This added to the already significant mismatch between the squads.

After this tournament, the International Ice Hockey Federation disallowed bodychecking in women's ice hockey.