March 28 – April 4, the 2016 Ice Hockey Women’s World Championships are held in Canada. It is the 17th time the tournament are held since 1990. Team USA are the current champions with gold medals from both 2015 and 2013 (there were no women’s WC in 2014 because of the Olympic Winter games in Sochi).
Schedule, Ice Hockey Women’s World Championships 2016
In the group phase eight teams are divided into two groups, A and B, based on their rankings. The first two teams in group A will advance directly to the semi finals while team 3 and 4 will have to play quarter finals against the top two teams from group B. Hence, it is important to have a ranking at four or better since it means a guaranteed spot in the play offs. Team Sweden is currently ranked fifth and hence have a hard task in trying to pursue their first championship medal since 2007. Some critical voices are calling for making the Swedish Women League (”Riksserien”) more professional in order to increase the quality of Swedish Women hockey. Right now, most of the players have to work part, or fulltime besides playing ice hockey which is not an optimal situation.
Group A: USA, Canada, Finland, Russia
Group B: Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Czech Republic
28-31 March: Group stage
1 April: Quarter finals
3 April: Semi finals
4 April: Final and bronze medal game
Prior winners of the Ice Hockey Women’s World Championships
The Women’s World Championships have been held 16 times before. Team Canada and team USA have played all final games. Canada have won 10 golds and USA 6. Finland have 11 bronze medals, Sweden and Russia have 2 and Switzerland 1.
Read more at the tournament’s official site.
