Russian Team Absence at 87th Ice Hockey World Championship Sparks Controversy: Latest Updates

The tournament will be held in Prague and Ostrava. In 2015, the tournament was also held in these Czech cities; the Canadian team became the champion of the world, defeating the Russians under the leadership of Oleg Znark, who at that time were the reigning winners of the tournament.

The competition will take place in the same areas as nine years ago. The main one is the O2 Arena, which will hold about 17.5 thousand people; it hosts the matches of the Czech national team and the current world champions the Canadians, as well as the semi-finals, the third-place match and the final. The palace in Ostrava will seat around 9 thousand spectators and will host group stage matches, as well as two final season matches.

16 teams will participate in the world championship. Group A in Prague will feature teams from Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Norway and Switzerland. In Group B in Ostrava, teams from France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and the USA will meet each other.

The top four teams from each group will advance to the semi-finals, where they will play against each other in a crossover system. Semi-final pairings will be compiled based on the following indicators for each team: place in the group, points and goal difference at the preliminary level, number of goals scored, seeding of teams before the tournament. The teams that take last place in the groups will go to Group A of the First Division, and next year the teams of Hungary and Slovenia, who won the tournament in Italy in early May, will be replaced.

The preliminary stage of the World Cup will be held from 10 to 21 May, the playoffs from 23 to 26 May.

Rest rating from IIHF

In the group stage, each team earns three points for a win in regulation time. In the event of a draw in regulation time, both teams receive a point, and the winning team either in five minute extra time or in a shootout earns an extra point. In the quarterfinals, semifinals and third-place match, in the event of a draw in regulation time, a 10-minute overtime is assigned, and in the event of a draw, there is a shootout. In the final, if there is a draw after 60 minutes of play, a 20-minute extra time will be played without restrictions. In all other periods, both teams have three field hockey players and a goaltender.

If there is an equality of points between several teams, places in the group are decided by the following indicators: games between these teams, goal difference and the number of goals scored in head-to-head games -head. In the case of equal results, the same results in matches with other opponents are taken into account; if there is a tie again, the seeding of the teams in the pre-tournament rankings is taken into account.

The Russian national team, five-time world champion (1993, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014), has not competed in the tournament since 2022. After the start of a special military operation, it was decided that the teams All Russians were removed from competitions under the auspices of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) at all ages by the council of the international federation on February 28, 2022. The Belarusian team was also suspended from international competitions national. The non-participation of the Russians, in particular, allowed the Canadians last year to surpass the USSR/Russian national teams in terms of the number of victories at the tournament (28 against 27).

In September 2022, the IIHF Congress voted that if they return, the national teams of Russia and Belarus will continue to compete in the elite division of the World Championship. However, so far the ban has been consistently extended – on February 13 this year, the IIHF extended the ban until the end of the 2024/25 season. Because of this, the Belarusian team lost the opportunity to participate in the qualifications for the Olympics.

Despite not being away from the World Championships, the teams of Russia and Belarus are still getting points in the IIHF ranking. Therefore, the Russians are still in third place in the rating after the national teams of Canada and Finland. Last year, the Russian team earned 1,520 points – the same as the Latvian team, which came third at the last world championship. The Belarusian team earned 1,260 points in the ranking, like the Austrians, and is in 14th place.