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Getting closer.

Looks like Canada is going to send a pretty good team this year. Guess the 4 Nations tournament and the revival of real Olympic Hockey has increased the interest for international play.

We'll see which way Sweden goes. We usually have almost exclusively NHL players, but in the recent Czech Hockey Games where Sweden, Finland Switzerland and Czechia took part, Sweeden had like six pliers from the squad that won gold at the World Juniors this January, and we beat all three opponents. Stenberg, Frondell, Björck - all looked good. I would definitely be in favour of spicing it up a bit with having a handful of juniors on the team! Really good for their development.

Sweden and Canada square off on the very first day, May 15th!
16.20 CET which I assume is like 7.20 am in Vancouver. Get ready for some breakfast hockey!

Group A is the USA, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Latvia, Austria, Hungary and the UK.

Group B is Canada, Sweden, Czechia, Denmark, Slovakia, Norway, Slovenia and Italy.

Some of those teams are just filler, but it's about spreading the gospel. Fewer countries would guarantee a higher quality in the games that are played, but this is the equivalent of the NHL putting teams in southern USA. Expanding the market.

Our group is not that bad though. The Danes and Norwegians like hockey, they're just not that good at it. Slovakia does have the tradition, and every now and then they manage to get it together, but I guess most of the talent just ended up in Czechia when Czechoslovakia split. Slovenia is an itsy bitsy country but they did produce Kopitar (even if he spent most of his junior years in Sweden) and Italy can usually muster a bunch of Canadians with double citizenship.

But Austria, Hungary and the UK in group A?
At least I guess they provide some insurance that Latvia will not risk getting demoted.
I like Latvia! They are a tiny country with no real league, but they're feisty and they always come to play hockey.
Heck! Their J18 team eliminated the USA in the quarter final of the recent U18 World Championship! Ka-boom!

Official website for the tournament: https://www.iihf.com/en/events/2026/wm