Welcome to the (soon to be) largest website with the latest news about the preparations before and during the ice hockey world championship 2021. With several million active players, ice hockey is one of the world’s biggest sports and in North America there is great interest in the best league in the world, namely the NHL. The Ice Hockey World Cup 2021 will start soon, which will be held in Latvia between the dates 21 May – 6 June and we are ready to guide you through the championship.
Your guide to Hockey 2022 WCH
The Hockey World Cchampionship 2021 will be played between the dates 21 May – 6 June 2021 in the Latvian capital Riga. From the beginning, matches were also planned to be held in Belarus, but the IIHF chose to deprive the nation of hosting. The two arenas Arena Riga and Olympic Sports Center will hold all matches during the tournament.
A total of 16 national teams from all corners of the world will participate in the championship, which is the 84th in a row (the 2020 World Championship was canceled due to covid-19). The World Championship 2021 will offer 64 exciting matches. At Hockey-Championship.com we report everything that has to do with the tournament and also present the game schedule, tables and results for the championship.
Every season, the junior national team WCH U20 also plays around the turn of the year, and that the women’s WCH is played in april. Everything about these two tournaments can also be found here with us. During the season, a number of training matches and smaller tournaments are played, which we monitor here on the site. This way you can stay up to date on the national teams and their WCH preparations.
The history of the Ice Hockey World Championship
The first ice hockey championship was played 90 years ago, in May 1930. In the first championship, only 12 teams participated, and the tournament had a very “odd” game schedule. Canada was the host country and was therefore rewarded with a final place from the start, and the 11 remaining teams had to compete on who would face Canada in the final.
After the first championship, they chose to switch to a more traditional tournament format, and use the same format as during the Olympics. 10 teams participated and first played a group game to qualify for the semifinals and finals. The Hockey WCH had a number of different formats during the 30’s. Some years they used the current format, and some years a straight series was played where the team with the most points, when the tournament was finished, was named the winner.
The Hockey World Championship has grown more and more every year, and today 55 different nations participate in eight different divisions. 16 teams play in the A-WCH and in the lower divisions between 4 and 6 teams participate in each tournament, where the teams compete to advance to a higher division. Between 1998-2011, the teams in the highest division were divided into four groups, from where the three best teams went on to the next stage of the tournament. The next step was a new group with six teams, where the four best teams went on to the playoffs. The last teams had to play about who would be relegated to the WCH IA.
Between the years 1998-2004, the Asian countries were allowed to qualify for the high school division, where the winner got an automatic place in the tournament. As the competition was not very great, Japan won the qualifiers every year, but despite being superior in the qualifiers, Japan came last in the tournament every single year except 2004 (when they came second last). After years of miserable results from Japan, the International Ice Hockey Federation chose to close down the Asian qualifiers, and now no direct place is awarded to the Asian teams.
Former winners of the World Ice Hockey Championship
Canada is the team that, by far, has won the most WCH gold over the years. This is followed by the Soviet Union and Sweden at the top list. However, if you add up Russia’s victories with those taken by the Soviet Union, the nation tops the list. In the same way, the Czech Republic climbs past Sweden if one also includes Czechoslovakia’s winnings. The reigning world champion is Finland, which in 2019 took home its third title.
How is the 2022 Hockey World Championship played?
16 teams participate in the Hockey World Cup 2022, and the teams are divided into two groups based on their world ranking. The ranking is based on how the countries have performed in the latest Winter Olympics and the last four world championships. The most recent world championships has a greater impact on the rankings than the older ones (WC-2019 has 100%, 2018 has 75% and so on).
The teams play seven matches in the group stage and the four best teams from each group advance to the playoffs. In the quarter finals, the best seeded team and the worst seeded meet, etc. Most often, the quarter-finals are played against teams in the other group, but if the route would be far too long between the different venues, the tournament management can decide that the teams meet teams from the same group.
Can anyone participate in the Hockey World Championship?
In recent years, it has often been debated which players should be allowed to represent countries during sports championships. Qatar is one of the countries that has been questioned, as they have put in place systems to use players who have minimal connection to the country. Qatar’s national ice hockey team consists largely of players from countries in Europe, who in one way or another succeeded in getting a pass from Qatar to get the opportunity to play in a World Championship.
The International Ice Hockey Federation has strict rules when it comes to what players are allowed to represent their countries. The following rules apply:
- Each player must be a member of his country’s ice hockey association.
- Each player must be a citizen of the country that the player represents.
- Each player must be at least 18 years old on the day the tournament is played. Players who are 16 years or older can play if they are granted a waiver.
If a player changes citizenship, the player must have played in the national team for two years before they can participate in a Hockey World Championship. If the player has played in another national team, players must play in the new national team for four years before they can participate in a World Championship, and may never change again after that. These rules make it harder for countries to cheat themselves into a good squad, and prevent players from using the system to give themselves the opportunity to play the World Cup.
Because the Hockey World Cup is played at the same time as the NHL playoffs, it happens that NHL players are prevented from participating. During some years, the league has not allowed its players to participate in the World Championship, something that has upset the hockey world.