Ice Hockey World Championship 2021 – Recap

After many tribulations, the Ice Hockey World Championship was held from the 21st of May to the 6th of June 2021. According to the original schedule, the IIHF championship was supposed to be held in Latvia and Belarus. Unfortunately, due to the political situation and Covid-19 restrictions, the championship only took place in Latvia. And in this article, we’ll mention everything interesting regarding the Ice Hockey World Championship 2021 – from participants to finals. Much like remembering when Nigeria lost the unbeaten WC qualifiers record, today we are going to remind our readership about the most important moments of IIHF 2021!

Participants

In the 2021 IIHF championship, 16 nations represented their countries. However, after a doping scandal, the Russian team was denied the right to represent their country under the Russian flag, so they appeared on the Championship (as well as on the Olympic Games) as ROC (Russian Olympic Committee). 

So, the 16 nations included ROC, Check Republic, Slovakia, Denmark, Belarus, Switzerland, Great Britain, Canada, Sweden, Finland, the USA, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Italy, and Kazakhstan.

Every team in the Championship had at least 15 skaters and two goaltenders. 

The Official Mascot

In February of 2020, it was announced that the official mascot of the Ice Hockey Championship will be a Hedgehog. Dressed in white equipment with blue gloves and skates, the Hedgehog under the name of Spiky was the official face of this competition. Spiky was voted as the best option for the mascot by voters from Latvia and Belarus. It stands for the determination and fighting spirit of the two original host countries. 

Playoffs Rounds

After two weeks of intense matches, the IIHF championship 2021 had its quarterfinalists. They included Finland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, ROC, United States, Switzerland, and Canada.

Finland fought hard against the Czech and with the result of 1:0 made it to the semi-finals. In the match of Germany vs Switzerland, there was plenty of action, but eventually, Germany won with 3:2. Slovakia wasn’t that successful against the US and lost after the result of 6:1. However, one of the most intense games was between ROC and Canada. Eventually, Canada won, and with the result of 2:1 became the last semi-finalist. 

In the semi-finals, Finland faced Germany, and Canada was going against their neighbor the United States. Even though the Germans were confident about their victory, Finland managed to score one more time and become the first finalist. On the other hand, Canadians defeated the US with 4:2, sending them to fight for third place against the Germans.

The finals were very exciting, but the Canadians finished victorious with the end result of 3:2. However, the game for the bronze medal was dominated by the US who defeated the Germans with 6:1. 

The titles of most successful players of the championship belonged to Canadian and US players. The best player is Connor Brown from Canada with 10 games played, 14 assists, and 16 points. The next one on the list is Conor Garland from the US team, with 10 games played, 7 assists, and 13 points. Another Canadian made it to the top three, Adam Henrique, with 10 games played, 5 assists, and 11 points.  

The goaltender that spent the most time on ice is Cal Petersen from the US team, with 417 minutes and 14 seconds. The second and third best goaltenders respectively were Adam Reideborn and Alexander Samonov.