IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship

iihf Ice Hockey World Championship Schedule 2019
The 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship is scheduled to be hosted by Slovakia, as announced by the IIHF on 15 May 2015.[1] It will be the second time that Slovakia is to host the event as an independent country.
As was the case in 2011, the host cities were announced to be Bratislava and Košice.
The seedings in the preliminary round are based on the 2018 IIHF World Ranking, as of the end of the 2018 IIHF World Championship, using the serpentine system. On 22 May 2018, the IIHF and the local organizing committee announced the groups, in which Slovakia and Norway switched places so that Slovakia would play in Košice and the Czech Republic and Austria would play in Bratislava
The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). First officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics, it is the sport's highest profile annual international tournament.
The IIHF was created in 1908 while the European Championships, the precursor to the World Championships, were first held in 1910. The tournament held at the 1920 Summer Olympics is recognized as the first Ice Hockey World Championship. Between 1920 and 1968, the Olympic hockey tournament was also considered the World Championship for that year.
The first World Championship that was held as an individual event was in 1930 in which twelve nations participated. In 1931, ten teams played a series of round-robin format qualifying rounds to determine which nations participated in the medal round. Medals were awarded based on the final standings of the teams in the medal round. In 1951, thirteen nations took part and were split into two groups. The top seven teams (Pool A) played for the World Championship. The other six (Pool B) played for ranking purposes. This basic format would be used until 1992 (although small variations were made). During a congress in 1990, the IIHF introduced a playoff system. As the IIHF grew, more teams began to participate at the World Championships, so more pools (later renamed divisions) were introduced.
Sixteen countries will participate in this tournament.
These 16 teams are divided to two groups.
Group A and Group B.
Group A
-> Canada
-> United States
-> Finland
-> Germany
-> Slovakia
-> Denmark
-> France
-> Great Britain
Group B
-> Sweden
-> Russia
-> Czech Republic
-> Switzerland
-> Norway
-> Latvia
-> Austria
-> Italy