Everything you need to know about the Ice Hockey World Championship

May 13 starts the 85th Ice Hockey World Championships in two Finnish cities – Helsinki and Tampere. 16 national teams will participate in the tournament. The International Ice Hockey Federation, with the support of Belarusians, has suspended teams from Russia and Belarus from playing in the world championship after it launched a full-scale war against Ukraine at dawn on February 24. The IIHF replaced the attackers with the French and Austrian teams. The new world champion will be determined on 29 May.

Format

Finland will host the World Ice Hockey Championship for the ninth time in its history. The Finns last held two championships with the Swedes in 2012 and 2013. Six more times they took the title of the planet on their own – in 1965, 1974, 1982, 1991, 1997 and 2003.

In the first stage, the teams are divided into two groups of eight teams. According to the round-robin system, national teams will determine four quarter-finalists. Teams that close the eights will leave the elite league. They will be replaced by winners in the 1A division of the World Championship – Slovenia and Hungary.

Arenas

The World Championship will be held in two arenas in Helsinki and Tampere. Moreover, the main stadium of the tournament is not the capital’s stadium.

Nokia Arena

The final match will be hosted by the Nokia Arena in Tampere. The arena, which can host 13,455 spectators in a hockey game, opened in December last year. It looks great during gameplay thanks to modern technology and LED screens. Nokia Arena has also received ISO certification, which provides recommendations for responsible practices and development in terms of protecting the environment and society.

Another stadium of the tournament, the Helsinki Ice Hall, got this name quite recently. It used to be the Hartwall Arena. Its rights belonged to Timchenko and the Rotenberg brothers, oligarchs close to Putin. The name Hartwall comes from the name of the beverage maker, which is the biggest sponsor. Gennady Timchenko’s share in this building in the amount of 22.5% (the price is estimated at 10 million euros) was seized by the Finnish enforcement service shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Roman Rotenberg’s share remains untouched as he has been subject to US sanctions but has yet to be penalized by the European Union.

Helsinki Ice Hall

The Open Helsinki Ice Hall is the home arena of the Jokerit Club. The stadium can host 13,464 spectators during hockey matches. Helsinki Ice Hall hosted the 1997, 2003 and 2012 World Championships. World championships in figure skating were held here in 1999 and 2017, and floorball in 2002. In 2007, the Helsinki Ice Hall hosted the Eurovision final.

Story

The current world champions are Canadians. Last year, Zharar Gallan brought to Riga a highly experimental squad that was predicted to fail. Maple Leaves gained momentum throughout the tournament, beating Finland 3:2 in overtime in the final. The decisive goal was scored by Nick Paul. Canada later became world champion for the 27th time in history.

The most powerful 22 times on the planet were hockey players of the USSR, in 1990 a student of Kyiv Sokol and now one of the coaches of the Ukrainian national team Dmitry Khristic. The Swedes won 11 times. The Czech Republic has climbed to the top six times alone, six times when they competed as a single team with their neighbor Slovaks. The Finnish national team won the World Cup three times, the Americans twice, Great Britain and Slovakia once each. The Russians have five championships. We hope that the next opportunity to complete this collection will not be available to them anytime soon. Ideally, never.

Favorites

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Finnish national team, current Olympic champion in Beijing 2022

The main contender for the victory will clearly be the current Olympic champions, the Finnish team hosting the tournament. Expert Jukka Jalonen, under whose leadership the Finns won Olympic gold in Beijing 2022, played in the finals of the two previous world championships and became champions in 2019, built a formidable roster that included 17 simultaneous Olympic gold winners – goalkeepers. Garry Syateri. , Frans Tuohimää, defenders Mikko Lehtanen, Jusso Hietanen, Sami Vatanen, Niklas Freeman, Ville Pokka, Atte Ohtamää, forwards Sakari Manninen, Teemu Hartikainen, Harri Pesonen, Marko Anttila, Hannes Bjornalanenen, Saku Totteren Män. It should also be noted that the current Finns are the seven 2019 World Champions: Olkinuora, Lehtonen, Ohtamää, Rayala, Manninen, Pesonen and Anttila. At the national team level, this star team has been bolstered by two representatives of the NHL clubs that didn’t make it to the playoffs, in addition to goalkeeper Syateri, who finished the season with the Arizona Coyotes – Yoel Army of the Montreal Canadiens and Lammikko of the Juho Vancouver Canucks.

The squad, which was much more challenging compared to the team the team won the championship with a year ago, was brought in by the Canadians. More precisely, this composition of his mentor Claude Julien is very authoritative. Includes players from NHL clubs only. There are no Sidney Crosby or Auston Matthews-level stars among them, but there are enough of them to decide the fate of the match. It’s significant that the 23-year-old forward Max Comtua – 2021 sample of the Anaheim Ducks is just one representative from the champion Canadian clip. True, the striker’s statistics in the regular season were not impressive – 16 (6 + 10) points in 52 games. In this respect, Winnipeg Jets’ Pierre-Luc Dubois should be featured with 60 (28 + 32) points in 81 games. Buffalo Sabers’ Dylan Cozens and New Jersey Devils’ Dawson Mercer and Ottawa Senators Tom Chabot and New Jersey’s Damon Severson could also be team leaders.

A very good team led by Yukhan Garpenlev is brought to Finland by the Swedes with the intention of avenging their neighbors for the failures of recent years. There are seven NHL reps – goalkeeper Magnus Hellberg of the Detroit Red Wings, defensive line Rasmus Dahlin of the Buffalo Sabers, Erik Gustafsson of the Chicago Blackhawks, Adam Larsson of the Seattle Cracken, Oliver Ekman-Larsson of the Vancouver Canucks ”, forwards Rasmus Asplund Buffalo in Columbus Blue Jacket and Emil Bamstrom.

It was also mostly completed by the US team Enkhaelians. The Czechs bring a very experienced team to Finland. Once again, like the bronze at the Beijing Olympics, Slovaks will want to surprise, which includes diamond 18-year-old Juraj Słafkowski, reliable goalkeeper Patrik Rybar and New Jersey Devils forward Tomas Tatar. Traditionally, the Swiss team looks menacing in their recent world championships. Currently, Patrick Fischer has seven representatives of the NHL on the roster. One of them is San Jose Sharks forward Timo Mayer, who has scored 76 (35 goals, 41 goals) in 77 regular season games.

match schedule

Group A

Friday, May 13

16:20 France – Slovakia

20:20 Germany – Canada

Saturday, May 14

12:20 Denmark – Kazakhstan

16:20 Switzerland – Italy

20:20 Slovakia – Germany

Sunday, May 15

12:20 Italy – Canada

16:20 France – Kazakhstan

20:20 Denmark – Switzerland

Monday, May 16

16:20 Slovakia – Canada

20:20 France – Germany

Tuesday, May 17

16:20 Italy – Denmark

20:20 Switzerland – Kazakhstan

Wednesday, May 18

16:20 France – Italy

20:20 Switzerland – Slovakia

Thursday, May 19

16:20 Germany – Denmark

20:20 Canada – Kazakhstan

Friday, May 20

16:20 Germany – Italy

20:20 Kazakhstan – Slovakia

Saturday, May 21

12:20 Denmark – France

16:20 Canada – Switzerland

20:20 Italy – Slovakia

Sunday, May 22

16:20 Kazakhstan – Germany

20:20 Switzerland – France

Monday, May 23

16:20 Kazakhstan – Italy

20:20 Canada – Denmark

Tuesday, May 24

12:20 Germany – Switzerland

16:20 Slovakia – Denmark

20:20 Canada – France

Group B

Friday, May 13

16:20 USA – Latvia

20:20 Finland – Norway

Saturday, May 14

12:20 Sweden – Austria

16:20 Czech Republic – United Kingdom

20:20 Latvia – Finland

Sunday, May 15

12:20 Norway – United Kingdom

16:20 Austria – USA

20:20 Czech Republic – Sweden

Monday, May 16

16:20 Latvia – Norway

20:20 Finland – USA

Tuesday, May 17

16:20 Czech Republic – Austria

20:20 Sweden – Great Britain

Wednesday, May 18

16:20 Norway – Austria

20:20 Finland – Sweden

Thursday, May 19

16:20 UK – USA

20:20 Czech Republic – Latvia

Friday, May 20

16:20 Great Britain – Finland

20:20 Latvia – Austria

Saturday, May 21

12:20 USA – Sweden

16:20 Austria – Finland

20:20 Norway – Czech Republic

Sunday, May 22

16:20 Great Britain – Latvia

20:20 Sweden – Norway

Monday, May 23

16:20 USA – Czech Republic

20:20 Austria – Great Britain

Tuesday, May 24

12:20 Sweden – Latvia

16:20 USA – Norway

20:20 Finland – Czech Republic

Quarterfinals

Thursday, May 26

semifinal

Saturday, May 28

Third place match

Sunday, May 29 – 15:20

End

Sunday, May 29 – 20:20

World Cup matches will be shown by Sport 1 TV channel.