Time is coming for the IIHF Ice Hockey World Junior Championships (also known as World Juniors) and here are some details. You can learn when and where it'll happen and some other information too.
When
At the turn of the year, the first match will start on December 26, 2022 and the tournament will continue until January 5, 2023.
Where
The World Junior Ice Hockey Championships will be held in Canada again. After two years in Edmonton, this time it will be in Halifax - Scotiabank Center (Group A) and Moncton - Avenir Center (Group B).
Originally, the tournament was supposed to be held in Russia, in Novosibirsk and Omsk, but the organization was taken away from them.
Tournament format
The format of the tournament remains unchanged. It consists of group phase and playoffs.
Point system
Points will be awarded this way:
- 3 points for winning in regulation time
- 2 points for winning after overtime
- 1 points for losing after overtime
- 0 points for losing in regulation time
Group phase
There will be 2 groups in the tournament and single round-robin series in each group. Four best teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals.
Canada
Sweden
Czechia
Germany
Austria
United States 
Finland
Switzerland 
Slovakia
LatviaClick on the group or team name to see matches with results and without spoilers.
Relegation round
Compared to last year, overall the last two teams will play in the relegation round. They need to win two matches in order to stay in the top division for the next tournament. The losing team will be relegated to a lower pool - Division I.
Playoffs
Quarterfinals
Four best teams from each group will play cross-over games on one win by this key: 1A vs. 4B, 1B vs. 4A, 2A vs. 3B and 2B vs. 3A.
Winning teams will meet in the semifinals and losing teams will not participate in this tournament anymore.
Semifinals
Semifinal pairs will be formed as follows: the best team after quarterfinals will play with the fourth team and the second best team will face the third.
Finals and bronze medal game
Those who win the semifinals will compete for the gold medal, while those who lose the semifinals will compete for the bronze medal.
List of matches
Here you can see an interactive list of the matches with results and without spoilers.
How to predict winners?
You can create a prediction group (for free) with friends here . Click “New group" and fill the name of your group.
Joining the group is easy: open group, select your nickname and click "Join this group". It works without registration, you can find more about predictions here .
Winners history
Since 2013, only three countries have alternated in winning, namely Finland, Canada and the USA. The other medal positions were taken by countries such as Russia, Sweden and Slovakia at this time, too. In the entire history of official U20 tournaments, Canada has the most victories - 19. You can see the distribution of all medals in the table below (without unofficial tournaments).
| # | Country | all medals | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada | 19 | 10 | 5 | 34 |
| 2 |
Russia Soviet Union* CIS* Total |
4 8 1 13 |
10 3 0 13 |
9 2 0 11 |
23 13 1 37 |
| 3 | Finland | 5 | 5 | 7 | 17 |
| 4 | United States | 5 | 2 | 6 | 13 |
| 5 | Sweden | 2 | 11 | 7 | 20 |
| 6 |
Czechia Czechoslovakia* Total |
2 0 2 |
0 5 5 |
1 6 7 |
3 11 14 |
| 7 | Slovakia | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 8 | Switzerland | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
History of Tournament
A few interesting facts:
- The first tournament was held in Leningrad in 1974, but this and the following two, held in Canada and Finland, were unofficial. The first official under-20 ice hockey championship under the auspices of the IIHF took place in 1977 in Czechoslovakia.
- A memorable match was also played in Czechoslovakia ten years later, but the reasons behind it are infamous. Match became famous for the mass battle between the players of the Soviet Union and Canada in the final match, known as Punch-up in Piestany. The battle lasted 20 minutes and turning off the lights in the arena didn't help. Due to the fact that a player must be eliminated until the end of the match after a battle, there were not enough players to finish the match. Therefore, both teams were disqualified. In the end, gold was won by Finland, silver by Czechoslovakia and bronze by Sweden.
- Due to the high interest in the tournament in Canada, this country has hosted the tournament quite often (16 times so far) and will host it every two to three years in the future. After the current year the next time it will be in 2026
