The 2023 IIHF World Championship will be co-hosted by

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclo ...

, Finland and

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the B ...

, Latvia. The tournament is scheduled to be held from 12 to 28 May 2023, and will be organized by the

International Ice Hockey Federation The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; french: Fédération internationale de hockey sur glace; german: Internationale Eishockey-Föderation) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland, and ...

(IIHF).

Host nation bid

The event was originally planned to be held in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, Russia, but in February 2022 the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swis ...

(IOC) called for Russia and Belarus to be stripped of hosting rights to all international sporting events due to the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. ...

. On 26 April 2022, Russia lost their rights to host the World Championship. After being promoted to the top division, Slovenia and Hungary both bid to co-host the event in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the a ...

and

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

. The bid was withdrawn due to Hungarian Ice Hockey Federation informing the IIHF that it did not receive the governmental guarantees to host. Finland and Latvia submitted a joint bid, with

Nokia Arena Nokia Arena may refer to: * Nokia Arena (Tampere), Finland * Nokia Arena (Tel Aviv) Menora Mivtachim Arena ( he, היכל מנורה מבטחים; also known as the Yad Eliyahu Arena, ; and formerly known as the Nokia Arena, ) is a large multi-pu ...

and

Arena Riga Arena Riga ( lv, Arēna Rīga) is an indoor arena in Riga, Latvia. It is primarily used for ice hockey, basketball and concerts. Arena Riga holds a maximum of 14,500 and was opened on 15 February 2006. It was built to be used as one of the venu ...

as potential host venues. On 27 May 2022, the IIHF confirmed that Finland and Latvia will host the tournament, with Finland having also hosted the

2022 IIHF World Championship The 2022 IIHF World Championship was hosted by Finland from 13 to 29 May 2022, as the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) announced on 19 May 2017 in Cologne, Germany. The host cities of the World Championships were Tampere and Helsinki, ...

in Tampere (Nokia Arena) and

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

(

Helsinki Ice Hall Helsinki Ice Hall ( fi, Helsingin jäähalli, sv, Helsingfors ishall) is an indoor arena located in Helsinki, Finland. The arena has a seating capacity of 8,200. History Helsinki Ice Hall has been the home arena of HIFK of Liiga since its co ...

Venues

Participants

; Qualified as hosts * * ; Automatic qualifier after a top 14 placement at the

: * * * * * * * * * * * * ; Qualified through winning a promotion at the

2022 IIHF World Championship Division I The 2022 IIHF World Championship Division I was an international ice hockey tournament run by the International Ice Hockey Federation. The Group A tournament was held in Ljubljana, Slovenia from 3 to 8 May and the Group B tournament in Tychy, P ...

: * *

Seeding

The seedings in the preliminary round are based on the 2022

IIHF World Ranking The IIHF World Ranking is a ranking of the performance of the national ice hockey teams of member countries of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). It is based on a formula giving points for each team's placings at IIHF-sanctioned tour ...

, as of the end of the

, using the

serpentine system The serpentine system (also called snake seeding) is a method employed in the organization of a competition to define the seeded teams and arrange them in pools. The ''n'' ranked teams that will be involved in the tournament are distributed in ''m ...

while allowing the organizer, "to allocate a maximum of two teams to separate groups". ;Group A (Tampere) * (1) * (4) * (5) * (9) * (10) * (13) * (15) * (20) ;Group B (Riga) * (2) * (6) * (7) * (8) * (11) * (12) * (16) * (19)

Preliminary round

The groups were announced on 29 May 2022, with the schedule being revealed on 8 September 2022.

Group A

Group B

Playoff round

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:IIHF World Championship, 2023 Men 2023 Men 2023 IIHF Men's World Ice Hockey Championships 2023 in ice hockey International ice hockey competitions hosted by Finland International ice hockey competitions hosted by Latvia 2023 in Finnish sport 2023 in Latvian sport Scheduled ice hockey competitions Sports events affected by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Sports competitions in Tampere Sports competitions in Riga May 2023 sports events in Europe