IIHF announces changes to the World Juniors for this year and next

Just shortly after puck drop on the first game of the 2022 World Juniors between Finland and Germany, the International Ice Hockey Federation announced that they will forego relegation for a second straight year for COVID related reasons.

"The IIHF Council has voted that no team will be relegated from the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship that will begin today in Edmonton and Red Deer, Canada to safeguard the sportive integrity of the competition in the light of the extraordinary Covid-related circumstances." The IIHF announced.

With Belarus already being promoted from the Division 1A tournament earlier this month, they will join the ten teams from this year's tournament at the 2023 World Juniors in Novosibirsk and Omsk, Russia.

This means that for the first time in World Juniors history, there will be more than ten teams in the top division. It's unclear how it'll all work when the tournament gets underway in 365 days, but one group will have six teams, while the other group will have five teams. The length of the tournament may have to be expanded as well, possibly pushing the Gold Medal Game back by a couple days if they intend on starting on Boxing Day 2022.

As for relegation at the 2023 World Juniors, my best guess would be that the bottom three teams in the tournament will play a round robin with the last place team being demoted to Division 1A. Or will the IIHF relegate two teams at next year's tournament to allow for a team from Division 1A to be promoted? That remains unclear.

If they go with how the groups are currently made up, Group A will feature seeds 2, 3, 6, 7, 10 and Group B will have 1, 4, 5, 8, 9 based on this year's results. Belarus would probably be placed in Group A, but that is still to be determined.

"The IIHF will start discussions concerning the logistical implementation of hosting 11 teams at the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship in Novosibirsk and Omsk, Russia with the organizing committee.

The task of creating an 11-team format and game schedule has been given to the IIHF Competition Committee same as the task of restructuring the lower divisions for the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship program." They added.

The task of creating an 11-team format and game schedule has been given to the IIHF Competition Committee same as the task of restructuring the lower divisions for the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey U20 World Championship program.

More at https://t.co/JGX0yteY5u pic.twitter.com/hMtjlykHmt— IIHF (@IIHFHockey) December 26, 2021

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