Release from 09.05.2022

Slovenia and Hungary announce joint bid

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Hungary and Slovenia, both promoted to the top division as the top-two ranked teams at the 2022 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A, announced a joint bid for the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship that was originally planned in St. Petersburg, Russia.

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Between May 3rd and 8th, five nations battled for two spots for next year's top division World Championship at the IIHF World Championship Division I Group A in Arena Tivoli. Besides Slovenia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and Korea participated. The hosts dominated, conceding only five goals in total and taking the victory without defeat. Second place went to Hungary, which lost their match against Slovenia 1:5, but secured second spot with three more victories. With Rok Ticar (2G|4A) and Csanad Erdely (4G|1A) two players from the win2day ICE Hockey League made it to the top five scorers of the tournament. AVS forward Erdely was also selected to the All-Star Team. The best scorer of the tournament was Slovenia's Ziga Jeglic with three goals and four assists.

"extreme circumstances require extreme decisions"
Under this motto, Slovenia and Hungary have jointly applied to host next year's top division World Championship. The tournament is scheduled to be played between May 5th and 21st at the newly built MVM Dome in Budapest (19,182 capacity), which will also host the majority of the knock-out games, and Arena Stozice in Ljubljana (10,500). The IIHF withdrew next years tournament from Russia planned for St. Petersburg in late April "due to concerns for the safety and well-being of all participating players, officials, media and fans." The IIHF plans to announce the decision on the replacement venue at its annual meeting during the upcoming World Championship in Tampere, Finland, at the end of May.

Hungary will participate in a World Championship of the top group for the eleventh time in 2023. The last time the Magyars were playing among world’s best nations was in 2016, and they have also participated in the Winter Olympics three times. They have yet to host a top division World Cup tournament.

Awaiting Slovenia next year will be their tenth participation, between 2002 and 2017 they were part of the top group nine times and took part in two Olympics. In 1966, a World Cup was held in Yugoslavia, Ljubljana hosted the tournament for the top nations at that time.


Fotocredit: IIHF/Domen Jancic