After 16 days of great hockey, the IIHF World Championship has come to a close and the host nation, Czechia, walked away golden for the first time since 2010, while Switzerland took home their first medal in six years.
Looking back at the 2+ weeks, this tournament was one of the best in quite a while and every time the IIHF hosts an event in Czechia, the fans turn up in droves. This year, the IIHF set a new attendance record for the World Championship with 797,727.
Coming into the tournament, once I saw the final rosters from each of the 16 participating nations, I believed that at least eight of could’ve competed for the gold medal. While there were some nations that underperformed including the United States and Finland, there were others who didn’t make the playoff round, but impressed me a lot throughout the preliminary round.
In their first appearance at the top division of the World Championship since 2002, Poland lost all seven of their games but their record doesn’t reflect how they played. Krzysztof Macias, who was the only Polish player to spend the 2023-24 season in North America (Prince Albert Raiders – WHL), was solid. In seven games, he had two goals, both of which came in their opening game, an overtime loss to Latvia. By finishing eighth in Group B, Poland has been relegated back to the Division 1A tournament for 2025.
Meanwhile in Group A, Great Britain finished in eighth place and like Poland, will be relegated to Division 1A for 2025, which is set to be held in Romania. Liam Kirk was great for the Brits, putting up four points in seven games, but it wasn’t enough as they allowed the second-most goals in the tournament with 30. To me, it seems inevitable that Jackson Whistle will take over the full-time starting role from Ben Bowns next year. Whistle started four of Great Britain’s seven games in the preliminary round, while Bowns got the other three. Regardless, both will be on Great Britain’s roster in Romania in April 2025.
Austria was another team that really surprised me. They were missing their top defenceman, David Reinbacher, due to a minor injury, but as expected – Minnesota Wild forward Marco Rossi played a huge role for his country. Austria had a back-and-forth game with Switzerland early in the tournament, which they eventually lost, but against Canada, they also came back from 6-1, scoring five in the third period to tie the game before losing in overtime. Two days later, they scored with 0.2 seconds remaining in the third period to defeat Finland for the first time in their history at the World Championship.
With Great Britain and Poland relegated to Division 1A for 2025, they’ll be replaced by Hungary and Slovenia, who were promoted following the D1A tournament in Bolzano, Italy. Despite a solid showing for the hosts, who led the tournament in goals, Italy wasn’t able to find a way back to the top division for the first time since 2022. Italy is set to host the 2026 Winter Olympics and next year, they need to build off of this year’s tournament and be promoted to the 2026 World Championship. Italy is going to be massive underdogs at the Olympics, with NHL players returning for the first time since 2014, but they need some of their top guys to make big strides in their development over the next 20 months. Keep an eye on 19-year-old Damian Clara, an Anaheim Ducks prospect who has spent the last two seasons in Sweden. He’ll likely be Italy’s starting goaltender at the Olympics.
Let’s take a look at the final standings for the 2024 IIHF World Championship, as well as the projected groups for next year’s tournament which is co-hosted by Stockholm, Sweden & Herning, Denmark.
FINAL STANDINGS – 2024 IIHF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
- 1. Czechia (Gold)
- 2. Switzerland (Silver)
- 3. Sweden (Bronze)
- 4. Canada
- 5. United States
- 6. Germany
- 7. Slovakia
- 8. Finland
- 9. Latvia
- 10. Austria
- 11. Norway
- 12. Kazakhstan
- 13. Denmark
- 14. France
- 15. Great Britain (Relegated)
- 16. Poland (Relegated)
GROUPS FOR 2025 IIHF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
*IIHF ranking in brackets.
| Group A – Stockholm, Sweden | Group B – Herning, Denmark |
| Canada (1) | Finland (3) |
| Switzerland (5) | Czechia (4) |
| Sweden (7) | United States (6) |
| Slovakia (9) | Germany (8) |
| Latvia (10) | Denmark (11) |
| Austria (13) | Norway (12) |
| France (14) | Kazakhstan (15) |
| Slovenia (19) | Hungary (18) |
Before I wrap up, I want to say that it’s great to have parity at the World Championship. In the previous four tournaments, Canada and Finland have dominated, both winning gold twice and even in 2017 & 2018, Sweden won back-to-back championships. To have Czechia win the gold medal, especially on home ice, is great for the sport and it’s great to see the development of other nations too such as Austria, Great Britain, Poland and others. Expect more parity at this tournament in the coming years.
Thank you to everyone who has been reading my articles, I greatly appreciate it, even though I have posted nearly as much as I would have liked. Expect more international hockey content from me in the going forward with the next competition I’ll likely cover being the Final Olympic Qualifying tournament in late-August/early-September.
– Cooper.