IIHF Congress approves new tournament format from 2012. Elite division will be played with two groups with eight teams each. The IIHF Semi-Annual Congress in Portoroz, Slovenia today approved a new tournament format for the IIHF World Championship top division. From 2012 the 16 participating teams will be divided into the two groups with eight teams instead of four groups with four teams. This means that each team will play seven games in the preliminary round.
Top four teams in each group will qualify for the quarter finals while the bottom teams in each group will be relegated. There will be no more games for teams placed 5-8 after the first round. The new format will see the number of games increase from 54 and 56 and the final teams will play 10 games instead of 9 as in the earlier format.
The format change was a proposition from Sweden and Finland who will organize both 2012 and 2013 World Championship togheter. Main reason for the change is to make it easier to sell tickets with all pre playoff games are known before the tournament. Earlier it has been hard to sell tickets to the second round.
"This is a good change and everyone is happy. The qualifying round has been a tough sell as you may have the last games of the preliminary round being played on a Wednesday, and it is not until very late that day that the fans get to know which teams will be opening the qualifying round on Thursday." IIHF president René Fasel said to IIHF.com commenting on the new format.
The quarter finals will also be played with teams from the same group to avoid long travels when going into the quarter finals.
A new format has also been suggested for the lower level tournaments. Instead of having to equally levelled group there will be one A group with the top seeded teams and B group with the lower seeds. Winner of the A group will promoted to the next level while winner of B group will be promoted to the A group. A voting about this will take place at the Annual Congress in Bratislava 2011.
Elias Lindner
(F)
Kölner Haie
EV Landshut
Julius Korjus
(F)
KeuPa HT KeuruuJYP Jyväskylä
Liam Griffin
(G)
North Ayrshire WildAberdeen Lynx
Scott Kosmachuk
(F)
EC Red Bull Salzburg
Vlci Žilina
Nikola Murgic
(D)
Burlington Cougars
Dunaújvárosi Acélbikák
Tomáš Rachůnek
(F)
HC Kometa GroupHC Dukla Jihlava
Anthony Rinaldi
(F)
Tilburg Trappers
Greensboro Gargoyles
Czech Rep.:
Tipsport extraliga |
1.liga |
2.liga
Slovakia:
Tipsport Extraliga |
1.liga
Sweden:
SHL |
HockeyAllsvenskan
Other: EBEL | Belarus | Croatia | Denmark | Estonia | France | Great Britain | Iceland | Italy | Latvia | Lithuania | MOL-liga | Norway | Poland | Romania | Serbia | Slovenia | Spain | NHL | AHL |
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Russia:
Switzerland: