It starts today. The 85th Men's Ice Hockey World Championship, connoisseurs call it 2022 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Finland, starts in Helsinki and Tampere. The first games in the two ice hockey epicenters, i.e. in Groups A and B, are France against Slovakia (LIVE on SPORT15) and USA against Latvia at 20:1 p.m. (CEST).

In the evening, the German team will take part in the game for the first time (19:20 p.m., LIVE on SPORT1 & MagentaSport). The opponent for the team of national coach Toni Söderholm is the team of record world champions Canada. The Canadians have won 27 gold medals to date, 15 silver and 9 bronze medals round off the impressive record of 51 medals. However, last year the DEB-Team, in its third tournament game in Riga, an impressive 3:1 victory. With goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger, the goalscorers Mathias Plachta, Stefan Loibl and Korbinian Holzer, as well as Moritz Seider, Moritz Müller, Jonas Müller, Leo Pföderl, Marcel Norbels, Fabio Wagner and Maximilian Kastner, eleven players from last year's squad are in the national team squad again this time. And all of them were also registered for the tournament in the first step. For now, only goalkeeper Dustin Strahlmeier, defender Mario Zimmermann and the strikers Alexander Karachun and Taro Jentzsch will take their place in the stands.

As was the case at the Olympics, the Canadian team is coached by the very prominent head coach Claude Julien. Experts believe that the team of the 2011 Stanley Cup winners (Boston Bruins) will definitely win a medal despite their low average age. In addition, the Canadians have never missed the quarter-finals at a World Cup. There's always something in there. Maybe they are a little weaker in goal than the rest of the team if you read expert opinions and maybe they are missing the big stars, but so far they have only called up NHL players and have a really hungry team at the start that you can look forward to should take care.

In Game 2, the German team will face Slovakia less than 24 hours after the end of Game 1 (Saturday, March 14.03th, 19:20 p.m., LIVE on SPORT1 & MagentaSport). The Germans don't really remember the last three comparisons well; the narrow preparatory defeats in Dresden (1:3, 2:3) were still bearable, but so was the Olympic defeat, which led to elimination in the quarter-final qualification (0:4 ) but very painful. A small consolation: the strong Slovaks won the bronze medal in the end. So, the German team is warned about this team, which is mainly made up of players from the European leagues. But the Slovaks also have a superstar on board, alongside young star Juraj Slafkovsky: striker Tomas Tatar from the New Jersey Devils.

The first two games are tough for the German national ice hockey team. The boys can really use your positive mood in front of the TV at home or in the arena in Helsinki. Cheer them on and keep your fingers crossed!

All information about the tournament and statistics from the games can be found at: https://www.iihf.com/en/events/2022/wm

This year's men's ice hockey world championship starts today