Some of the best Ice Hockey players in the world will be in action as one of the major sporting events of 2023, the IIHF World Championship 2023, is set to kick-off from Friday, May 12, to Sunday, May 28, in Tampere (Finland) and Riga (Latvia). Full information on how to watch in your region is on the OolaTV
2023 IIHF World Championship TV Channel
Date: Fri, May 12, 2023 – Sun, May 28, 2023
Venues: Tampere Deck Arena (Finland)/Arena Riga (Latvia)
Teams: 16
TV Channel/Live Stream: OolaTV (anywhere)
Teams from all over the world will compete for the title. Historically, the tournament has been dominated by European teams, but in recent years, Asian and North American countries have joined the competition. National Hockey League (NHL) players can also participate in the World Championship if their respective NHL franchise is not involved in the Stanley Cup playoffs. It’s a key factor as these NHL players could play a huge difference in the results again this year.
IIHF Ice Hockey Men’s World Championship 2023 Live Online:
The 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Live will be broadcast on TSN in Canada and there are many TV Channels worldwide, the complete tournament live streaming is available on Curling.TV (worldwide) Unfortunately, there is no TV Channel available in the USA. If you are looking for a streaming way to watch the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship live online from the US, Canada, UK, or anywhere around the world check out OolaTV
Following streaming services and TV channels will broadcast the major event in the following territories:
- Anywhere: OolaTV
- Africa Region: Supersport
- India: Viacom18
- Hong Kong | Indonesia | Malaysia, Thailand | Singapore: SPOTV
- Austria: ORF TV
- Czech Republic: Czech TV | Hokej.cz
- Denmark: TV2 Denmark
- Finland: MTV Finland | YLE | Aamulehti
- France: Fanseat
- Germany: Sport 1 Germany | Magenta Sport | ARD | ZDF
- Russia: Match TV
2023 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Preview:
At the major event, every participating team have players with winning pedigree. Regarding top contenders, Canada, who won gold last year, is again a heavy favourite to win the title. They have a relatively young squad this year, except the 34-year-old Milan Lucic, who will be looking to make his World Championship debut. Tyler Toffolo, after scoring personal-best 34 goals in NHL this season, will lead the front three.
Moreover, they’ll have the services of the Tucson Roadrunners forward and the AHL’s leading scorer for the 2022-23 season Mike Carcone. Co-hosts Finland will be looking to defend their title but will be without Patrik Laine, who suffered an injury at the end of the NHL season and is currently recovering. They will be without their veteran forward, Valtteri Filppula as well, who captained them to double gold last year.
That said, we will rely on the Colorado Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen, one of their strongest players this year. They have several other NHL players as well in the squad, including Kaapo Kakko, Olli Maatta, Kasperi Kapanen, and Joel Armia.
This year, the United States has a relatively young and inexperienced squad, with their senior players engaging in NHL duties. Their squad is headlined by two-time Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins’ Nick Bonino, who has been part of two bronze medal-winning sides in 2015, and 2018.
They’ll have the services of Alex Tuch as well, who scored 36 goals and 79 points for the Buffalo Sabres this season. He also helped the United States to a gold medal at the 2014 IIHF U18 Men’s World Championship.
United States has finished in the top four in six of the last nine IIHF Men’s World Championships, securing four bronze medals during that span (2013, 2015, 2018, 2021). They haven’t won World gold since the Olympic gold medal in 1960. Moreover, they haven’t even progressed to the gold-medal game since then, and by looking at their squad, it seems they’ll have to wait another year to end the drought.
The Czech Republic is coming to the competition with firepower in their forward group, with Filip Chytil, who scored 22 goals for New York Rangers and Dominik Kubalik, who scored 20 goals for the Detroit Red Wings, in their roster.
Slovakia received a huge setback as their star player Juraj Slafkovsky has been excluded from the roster after he failed to recover from an injury he sustained in January. Another huge favourite side, Sweden, will be looking for the title this year as they boast a roster full of NHL stars, including Gabriel Landeskog and Elias Pettersson.
Besides these sides, Latvia and Switzerland are dark horse contenders that can’t be underestimated due to the successes they achieved in recent years.
2023 IIHF Ice Hockey Men’s World Championship Format:
Each team will play seven matches in the round-robin format. The top four teams from both groups will progress to the quarterfinals. The quarter-finals will be played cross-group, with the first-placed side facing the fourth-placed team from the opposing group a second-placed side playing third, except if both host sides qualify and would otherwise take on each other.
If that happens, each first-placed team will play the fourth-placed team from its group, with the second-placed side playing the third-placed side. For the semi-finals, teams will be re-seeded based on their group stage performances, and if the scores are tied at the end of regular time, a sudden-death first-goal-wins overtime period will be played.
In the group stage, the overtime period will be five minutes long. In that period, teams will play three-on-three. If the score remains tied, teams will head to a best-of-five penalty-shot shootout.
It’s worth mentioning that the overtime period in the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and bronze-medal game is 10 minutes. While in the gold-medal game, the overtime period will be 20 minutes. Multiple overtime periods will be played until a goal is scored.
2023 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Teams:
As mentioned above, 16 of the world’s best teams, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, United States, Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Canada, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Latvia, Norway, and Kazakhstan, will battle for the glory at the major competition.
It’s worth mentioning that out of 16 teams, 14 have automatically qualified following the results of the 2022 IIHF World Championship. Meanwhile, 2 teams with * qualified by winning a promotion to the 2022 IIHF World Championship Division I.
All participating 16 teams are divided into groups, ‘Group A’ and ‘Group B’, with eight teams in each group.
Group A:
Group A will be played at the Nokia Arena in Tampere, which opened in November 2021 and served as a host venue for last year’s World Championships. Below are the teams in Group A:
Finland, Sweden, United States, Germany, Denmark, Austria, France, Hungary
Group B:
Group B will be played at the Arena Riga in Riga. The stadium, with a capacity of 14,500, is familiar with hosting the IIHF World Championship, hosting the World Championship in 2006 and 2021 before and will host Group B games, along with two quarter-final games. Below is the list of teams in the Group B:
Canada, Czechia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia
IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship 2023 Schedule:
Below is the complete schedule of the 2023 IIHF World Championship with timings (UTC +3 hours):
Friday, 12 May:
- Finland vs USA – 16:20
- Slovakia vs Czech Republic – 16:20
- Sweden vs Germany – 20:20
- Latvia vs Canada – 20:20
Saturday, 13 May:
- France vs AUT – 12:20
- Switzerland vs Slovenia – 12:20
- Hungary vs Denmark – 16:20
- Norway vs Kazakhstan – 16:20
- Germany vs Finland – 20:20
- Slovakia vs Latvia – 20:20
Sunday, 14 May:
- USA vs Hungary – 12:20
- Slovenia vs Canada – 12:20
- France vs Denmark – 16:20
- Norway vs Switzerland – 16:20
- Sweden vs Austria – 20:20
- Czech Republic vs Kazakhstan – 20:20
Monday, 15 May:
- Germany vs USA – 16:20
- Slovakia vs Canada – 16:20
- Finland vs Sweden – 20:20
- Czech Republic vs Latvia – 20:20
Tuesday, 16 May:
- Denmark vs Austria – 16:20
- Slovenia vs Norway – 16:20
- France vs Hungary – 20:20
- Switzerland vs Kazakhstan – 20:20
Wednesday, 17 May:
- USA vs Austria – 16:20
- Latvia vs Norway – 16:20
- Finland vs France – 20:20
- Canada vs Kazakhstan – 20:20
Thursday, 18 May:
- Hungary vs Sweden – 16:20
- Czech Republic vs Slovenia – 16:20
- Denmark vs Germany – 20:20
- Switzerland vs Slovakia – 20:20
Friday, 19 May:
- Hungary vs Finland – 16:20
- Latvia vs Slovenia – 16:20
- Austria vs Germany – 20:20
- Kazakhstan vs Slovakia – 20:20
Saturday, 20 May:
- USA vs Denmark – 12:20
- Norway vs Czech Republic – 12:20
- Austria vs Finland – 16:20
- Canada vs Switzerland – 16:20
- Sweden vs France – 20:20
- Kazakhstan vs Latvia – 20:20
Sunday, 21 May:
- Germany vs Hungary – 16:20
- Slovenia vs Slovakia – 16:20
- USA vs France – 20:20
- Czech Republic vs Switzerland – 20:20
Monday, 22 May:
- Denmark vs Sweden – 16:20
- Canada vs Norway – 16:20
- Austria vs Hungary – 20:20
- Kazakhstan vs Slovenia – 20:20
Tuesday, 23 May:
- Germany vs France – 12:20
- Slovakia vs Norway – 12:20
- Sweden vs USA – 16:20
- Canada vs Czech Republic – 16:20
- Finland vs Denmark – 20:20
- Switzerland vs Latvia – 20:20
Thursday, May 25:
- Quarter-final games (2) – 16:20
- Quarter-final games (2) – 20:20
Saturday, May 27:
- Semi-final 1 – 14:20
- Semi-final 2 – 18:20
Sunday, May 28:
- Bronze-medal Game – 15:20
- Gold-medal Game – 20:20
