IIHF World Championship 2023 Preview

This year’s World Championship final takes place at the end of May in Finland and Latvia and will take place over sixteen days with the final held on Sunday the 28th of May. Qualification for the tournament took place one month before the start with matches taking place in Nottingham in the UK, Tallinn in Estonia, Madrid in Spain and Istanbul, Turkey. This tournament was originally scheduled to be held in Russia but will now be co-hosted by Finland and Latvia. 

Tournament Format 

A total of sixteen countries will be participating in this year’s tournament starting with world number one team Finland down to Hungary, who are currently ranked 20th. These sixteen teams have been split into two groups of eight as follows:

Group A

• Finland
• Sweden
• Czech
• Germany
• Denmark
• France
• Austria
• Hungary

Group B

• Canada
• USA
• Switzerland
• Slovakia
• Latvia
• Norway
• Kazakhstan
• Slovenia

Each team will face all of the other seven teams in their group, resulting in 28 games being played in each group. The top four from each group will go through to the final eight and play each other in the quarterfinals and will advance further from there. There will be a third place or bronze match game played and the gold and silver medals will be decided in the final on the 28th.

History

The IIHF World Championships are the highest profile international Ice Hockey tournament and take place annually for the men’s teams. It was first held back in 1920 in the Olympics. The early years were dominated by Canada and the Soviet Union and since then the Czech Republic and Sweden have been the next best two teams, winning 12 and 11 titles respectively. Finland won their fourth gold medal back in 2022 and will hope to defend their title this year, with home advantage in their favour. 

Betting on the Tournament

Finland are the favourites to win and retain their title, with their price currently at 3.25 and these are followed by Canada at 3.50. The next team is Sweden on 5.50 and these are followed by the Czech Republic (8.0) and USA (12.0). The least favoured teams are Austria (500/1), Slovenia (500/1) and Hungary (1000/1). 

As well as outright winners, one can place bets on the progress of each team as well as the outright top goalscorer and the leading goalscorer for a particular team, amongst other bets. One can also focus attention on betting on each individual match with a number of team and individual bets on offer.

The opening match sees Finland take on the USA with the host nation as favourites to win at 1.72 (3way). One can also back Money Line odds as well as handicap markets and the total number of goals. As well as finding the right selection for the whole match, one can also bet on each individual period. As well as this one can also bet on player and team specials. 

IIHF World Championship Predictions

Every team in the tournament has a selection of some of the world’s best players. Canada, winners last year, are expected to be one of the top challengers yet again and will be led by Sidney Crosby. Sweden are hoping to regain their title from 2019 and have a selection of NHL stars in their team including Gabriel Landeskog and Elias Pettersson.

The USA have two time Olympic gold medalist Patrick Kane leading them. Other teams that have had recent success and could be dark horses for the tournament include Slovakia, Switzerland, Latvia and Finland. Given the talent on show, this is likely to be an exciting tournament and we should witness some world class Ice hockey matches.

Tactics are also likely to play a more important role this year as this element of the sport is constantly evolving and the use of analytics to track players and analyse player data and stats is proving to be more and more important.

Can Finland use home advantage to retain their title? Will Canada return to their familiar role as World Champions? Will a team like the USA or Germany have a bigger say than their odds suggest? All will be revealed in the coming weeks as this year’s much-awaited World Championship takes centre stage.