The 1998 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships (''1998 WJHC'') were held in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

and

Hämeenlinna Hämeenlinna (; sv, Tavastehus; krl, Hämienlinna; la, Tavastum or ''Croneburgum'') is a city and municipality of about inhabitants in the heart of the historical province of Tavastia and the modern province of Kanta-Häme in the south of F ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. The championships began on December 25, 1997, and finished on January 3, 1998. Home team

was the winner, defeating

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

2–1 in the gold medal game, thanks to the goaltending of

Mika Noronen Mika Noronen (born 17 June 1979) is a Finnish former professional ice hockey goaltender. He played 71 games n the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Buffalo Sabres and Vancouver Canucks between 2000 and 2006. The rest of his career, which laste ...

and the overtime heroics of

Niklas Hagman Niklas Hagman (born December 5, 1979) is a Finnish former professional ice hockey forward. He was a third round pick of the Florida Panthers, 70th overall, at the 1999 NHL Entry Draft and made his National Hockey League (NHL) debut with Florida ...

. Switzerland defeated the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

4–3 to capture the bronze medal, their first and only medal in the Ice Hockey World Junior Championship. Canada had its five-year title streak broken with its worst placing to date (8th). Canada would miss out on gold seven years in a row before beginning their 2005–2009 streak of five straight championships. It was the only tournament from 1993 to 2012 in which Canada failed to medal. This tournament attracted 139,680 fans to 34 games for an average of 4,108 per game. This set a record for the highest-attended World Junior tournament in Europe until the 2016 tournament, which was also held in Finland, attracted 215,225 spectators. The playoff round was expanded to eight teams, with group leaders not getting a bye to the semifinals.

Championship results

''All times are local. (

Eastern European Time Eastern European Time (EET) is one of the names of UTC+02:00 time zone, 2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. The zone uses daylight saving time, so that it uses UTC+03:00 during the summer. A number of African countries use UTC ...

–

UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. This time is used in: As standard time (year-round) ''Principal cities: Cairo, Pretoria, Cape ...

)''

Pool A

Group A

Group B

Final round

= Quarterfinals

= Semifinals

= Placement games

= 7th place game

= 5th place game

= Bronze medal game

= Gold medal game

Relegation round

'' lost the two game total goal series 17–3 and was relegated for the 1999 World Juniors''

Final ranking

Scoring leaders

Tournament awards

Pool B

The second tier was held in Sosnowiec and

Tychy Tychy (Polish pronunciation: ; german: Tichau; szl, Tychy) is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, approximately south of Katowice. Situated on the southern edge of the Upper Silesian industrial district, the city boders Katowice to the north, ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, from December 28 to January 4. Two groups of four played round robins, and then the top three played each of the top three teams from the other group. All scores carried forward except the results against the lone eliminated team from each group.

Preliminary round

;Group A ;Group B

Final round

'' was promoted to Pool A for

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

.''

Relegation round

'' lost two games to one and was relegated to Pool C for

.''

Pool C

Played in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

and

Kohtla-Järve Kohtla-Järve is a city and municipality in northeastern Estonia, founded in 1924 and incorporated as a town in 1946. The city is highly industrial, and is both a processor of oil shales and is a large producer of various petrochemical products ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

from December 28 to January 1.

Preliminary round

;Group A ;Group B

Placement games

*7th place: 7 – 5 *5th place: 3 – 2 *3rd place: 4 – 2 *1st Place: 6 – 4 '' was promoted to Pool B, and was relegated to Pool D for

.''

Pool D

Played in Kaunas and Elektrenai Lithuania from December 30 to January 3.

Preliminary round

;Group A ;Group B

Placement games

*7th place: 11 – 0 *5th place: 6 – 4 *3rd place: 9 – 0 *1st Place: 6 – 3 '' was promoted to Pool C for

.''

References

External links

Statistics and results from Hockey Canada
*http://www.passionhockey.com/hockeyarchives/U-20_1998.htm * {{IIHF World U20 Championships World Junior Ice Hockey Championships International sports competitions in Helsinki

World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

World Junior Ice Hockey Championships The IIHF World Junior Championship (WJC), or simply the "World Juniors" in ice hockey circles, is an annual event organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for national under-20 ice hockey teams from around the world. It is t ...

Sport in Hämeenlinna 1990s in Helsinki

Sosnowiec Sport in Tychy 1997–98 in Estonian ice hockey International ice hockey competitions hosted by Estonia International ice hockey competitions hosted by Poland Sports competitions in Tallinn 1990s in Tallinn Sport in Kohtla-Järve