The IIHF U18 Women's World Championship, officially the IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women's World Championship, is an annual

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

tournament for national women's under-18 (U18) ice hockey teams, administered by the

International Ice Hockey Federation The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; ; ) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 84 member countries. The IIHF maintains the IIHF World Ranking based on international ice hockey to ...

(IIHF). It is the junior edition of the

IIHF Women's World Championship The IIHF Women's World Championship is the premier international women's tournament in ice hockey. It is governed by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). The official world competition was first held in 1990, with four more champions ...

and participation is limited to female ice hockey players under 18 years of age.

History

A qualification tournament was held in 2007 to finalize divisional placement and the inaugural championship was held in

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Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, Canada, in January 2008. The United States' national team won nine of sixteen championships and never ranked lower than third place. The Canadian national team has won eight gold medals, seven silver medals and one bronze. The third most successful team in championship history is the Swedish national team, the only nation to unseat either of the top North American teams to claim silver (

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) and winners of five bronze medals. The other national teams to have won bronze are the

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

(2),

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

(2), and

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(3). Thirty-two countries participated in the most recent championship (

) across three divisions: Top Division, Division I, and Division II. As with other IIHF tournaments, there is an active system of

promotion and relegation Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

between the groups and divisions, the winner of each group gains promotion to the group or division directly above for the following tournament and the lowest ranking team in relegated to the group or division below. Through this system, no two consecutive championships feature the same teams in each group or division and it is possible for a team to rise from Division IIB to the Top Division or fall from the Top Division to Division IIB in the span of five tournaments – though no team has ever accomplished such a meteoric rise or fall. The Top Division is the only division to confer the title of World Champion and comprises the teams ranked first through eighth in the world. Division I comprises twelve teams organized into two groups of six teams each, classified as Group IA and IB. Division II comprises eight teams organized into two groups of four teams each, classified as Groups IIA and IIB. Winning a gold medal in a divisional tournament below the Top Division corresponds with the numeric placement from first, i.e. the Division IA gold medal team ranks 9th in the world, the Division IB gold medal team ranks 15th in the world, and so on. The tournament can be interpreted as the women's counterpart of both the

IIHF World Junior Championship The IIHF World Junior Championship (WJC), sometimes referred to as World Juniors, 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 traditionally ...

and the

IIHF World U18 Championship The IIHF U18 World Championship is an annual event organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation for national under-18 ice hockey teams from around the world. The tournament is usually played in April and is organized according to a sys ...

, though it is afforded significantly less in terms of resources or promotion than either of the junior men's tournaments. Media coverage of the women's tournament is similarly lacking in comparison.

List of championships

Participation and medals

Medal table

References

External links

* Hockey Canada
2008 World Women's Under-18 Championship
* IIHF
IIHF World Women's U18 Championship

at EuroHockey.com {{IIHF International ice hockey competitions for junior teams International Ice Hockey Federation tournaments Women's ice hockey tournaments Recurring sporting events established in 2008 January in sports Women's U18