The Ice Hockey World Federation IIHF announced the postponement of the event on Monday at the virtual IIHF Congress A World Championship 2021 in Riga/Latvia and Minsk/Belarus confirmed by two weeks. This means the tournament will now take place from May 21 to June 6, 2021 will be held instead of the initially scheduled period from May 7th to May 23rd, 2021. With the postponement, the IIHF wants to give all national championships that are affected by planning difficulties due to the corona pandemic, and in the process also the national teams, a little more time. The selection of the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund (DEB) will play in Group B in Riga next spring against Canada, Finland, USA, Latvia, Norway, Italy and Kazakhstan.
In addition, as expected, the Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournaments for Beijing 2022 by February 2021 to August 26th to 29th, 2021 relocated. The German team of women's national coach Christian Künast will then against Denmark, Austria and a third opponent yet to be determined Host a tournament and try to get your ticket to the upcoming Winter Games. If the women's national team qualifies, that would be DEB represented with both teams at the Olympics for the first time since Turin 2006. National coach Toni Söderholm's men's national team had already secured Olympic qualification by participating in the quarter-finals at the 2019 World Cup in Slovakia.
DEB-Sports Director Stefan Schaidnagel: “The postponements of the 2021 World Cup and the Olympic qualification are the right decisions. The still unpredictable global situation in sport must be reorganized globally and therefore these decisions are conclusive and necessary. This gives the national teams the opportunity to ensure professional preparation despite possible postponements in league play.”
Women’s national coach Christian Künast: “The Olympic qualification is a big and important event for us, everyone has to cope with the postponement equally. We will prepare as well as possible and hope to be able to use our home advantage in Füssen. We want to qualify for Beijing 2022, that is our big goal and that would be a significant step for German women's ice hockey. The opportunity to have women and men represented at the Olympics for the first time since Turin 2006 is also a great motivation for us.”
The IIHF also confirmed all other World Championship dates for the next season. The Women's A World Championship is scheduled to take place from April 7 to 17, 2021 in Canada (Halifax and Truro), the Women's U18 World Championship from January 5 to 12, 2021 in Sweden, and the Men's U18 World Championship is scheduled to take place from April 15 to 25, 2021 in the USA (Ann Arbor and Plymouth). The Men's U20 World Championship is also scheduled to take place in Canada (Edmonton and Red Deer) from December 26, 2020 to January 5, 2021. The German team of U20 national coach Tobias Abstreiter will duel there in Group A (Edmonton) with Canada, Finland, Switzerland and Slovakia. For the first time since the 2012/13 season, all teams from the DEB in the respective top division in the coming season.
Photo (copyright Dominic Pencz)