Group A | Group B |
---|---|
USA | Canada |
Russia | Finland |
Sweden | Czech Republic |
Slovakia | Switzerland |
Germany | Belarus |
Latvia | Norway |
Denmark | France |
Italy | Slovenia |
The International Ice Hockey Federation has announced the groups of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship that will take place in Germany and France.
Group A in Cologne includes Team USA and 2016 bronze medallist Russia, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany, Latvia, Denmark and Italy.
Defending champion Canada will start its campaign in Group B in Paris where they are seeded together with this year’s other finalist Finland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belarus, Norway, France and Slovenia.
The groups are based on the 2016 IIHF Men’s World Ranking with minor amendments to take into consideration special requirements of the co-hosts since the event will be hosted in two countries.
Cologne, the largest city in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region with a population of over 10 million people, will serve as the main venue for the event with its 18,500-seat LANXESS arena (formerly known as Kolnarena), which is the biggest indoor sport venue used for ice hockey in Europe. It will host 34 games including the Group A, two quarter-finals and all semi-final and medal games.
In Paris, the French capital with a population of over 12 million in the metropolitan area, the legendary arena at Bercy will host 30 games including all games of Group B and two quarter-final games. The arena was recently refurbished and extended into a state-of-the-art, 14,500-seat venue that will incorporate a large fan zone nearby.
The event will take place from 5th to 21st May 2017 at the two venues that are linked by the Thalys bullet train with a trip from downtown to downtown taking three-and-a-half hours.
The game schedule will be announced at a later date.