Team Canada will head to Finland in May as one of the favourites in our 2022 IIHF World Championship preview.
Here we’ve broken down how the competition works and what could happen this year.
How does it work?
The competition is split into five divisions – the middle three of which are further subdivided into two groups. Each division and group is contested in succession from lowest to highest, starting with Division IV and ending with the Championship itself.
After all of the divisions have been played, the top team in each is promoted and the bottom team is relegated. This differs for the Championship, where the bottom two teams swap places with the top two teams in Group A of Division I.
How are the world champions decided?
The tournament has followed the same format since 2012, with 16 teams divided into two groups of eight who play each other once each. The top four teams in each group qualify for the play-off round while the bottom teams are relegated
The play-off round is a standard knockout bracket, with quarter-finals and semi-finals preceding a gold medal game to determine this year’s champion. There is also a bronze medal game to separate the losing semi-finalists.
Which teams look the strongest this year?
Based on the latest IIHF world rankings, Canada are the strongest team in Group A and will avoid the other three competing members of the current top five, who are all in Group B.
The Canadian team looks to be in a strong position to top their pool, having won 14 of their 17 encounters with the other teams in Group A during the previous five tournaments.
Even without home advantage, Finland look best equipped to navigate Group B as the number one side in the world and with the best combined head-to-head record: 12 wins out of a possible 15.
IIHF World Championship betting
Who has the best record in the competition?
Since the current format was established in 2012, Canada has the best overall record with three championships, two silver medals, another semi-final appearance and three exits at the quarter-final stage.
There are three other teams who have never failed to reach the playoffs in this period, but none of them can match Canada here. The United States and Czech Republic have yet to reach a gold medal game between them since 2012, while Finland have had to settle for just one title and three silver medals.
Like Canada, Sweden have won three of the last nine world titles, but they have also suffered four quarter-final eliminations and once failed to get out of the group.
Which rivalries are the most one-sided?
There are seven combinations of teams that have met at least five times in the last five tournaments. If Sweden encounters Switzerland in the playoff round then most of the money will be on the Scandinavians, given their 100% record in their last six meetings.
Canada will be optimistic of getting off to a winning start against Germany, according to our 2022 IIHF World Championship preview, given that they have won four of their five games against the Germans in recent years.
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