Hockey’s Best Set To Square Off In Historic 2022 IIHF Women’s World Championship

The top players in women’s hockey work as allies as they strive to build a better foundation for their sport. But on the ice, those friendships are set aside. And this week, history is being made as those top players go head-to-head at the 2022 IIHF Women’s World Championship.

For the first time, the tournament is being held in Denmark, home of the 10th-ranked federation in the current International Ice Hockey Federation world rankings.

This year also marks the first time that the women will compete in a separate world championship event in an Olympic year. Women’s Worlds made its debut in 1990. Then, tournaments were held in 1992, 1994 and 1997 before women’s hockey was added as an Olympic sport in Nagano, Japan in 1998.

After that, women’s hockey received an annual global showcase. But every fourth year, that would be at the Winter Olympics rather than at a stand-alone world championship.

On the men’s side, the IIHF doubled up a world championship with the Olympics for the first time in 1992, and has continued to do so ever since.

This year’s women’s event marks another important step toward gender parity in hockey, but discrepancies still remain.

As one example, the IIHF holds just one prospect-level tournament each year for women: the World U18 Championship. On the men’s side, players participate in the U18 tournament before they’re eligible to be drafted by NHL teams. Then, they can play at the U20, also known as World Juniors — primarily a showcase for players who have been drafted but not yet settled in as full-time NHL players, and arguably the most popular IIHF event for hockey fans in North America.

On Wednesday, the women’s game also got a boost when EA Sports announced that Canadian forward Sarah Nurse was joining Trevor Zegras of the Anaheim Ducks on the cover of its new NHL 23 game, out this fall.

The cover announcement comes after playable women’s players on their national teams were added for the first time in an expansion for NHL 22 last January, just ahead of the Olympics in Beijing.

2022 Women’s Worlds Format

This year’s women’s worlds tournament will feature some teenagers, including promising 19-year-old defender Caroline Harvey of the United States and forward Sanni Vanhanen of Finland, who turned 17 on July 1.

In 2018, the womens’ Olympic and world tournaments expanded from eight teams to 10. But unlike the mens’ events, teams are tiered into two groups, based on their world rankings.

As a global sport, women’s hockey is becoming more popular. The IIHF cites a global growth rate of 37% between 2007 and 2018, and USA Hockey shows growth of 32% in the last decade, with 66,692 female players of all ages registered in 2011-12 and 87,971 in 2021-22.

But a significant gap still exists between the sport’s top two nations and the rest of the pack. Either Canada or the U.S. has won gold at every Women’s World Championship or Olympic Games. Just one other country has ever captured silver — Finland, on home ice in at the 2019 Worlds, in their controversial shootout loss to Team USA.

So, tournament groups are set with an eye toward delivering the most competitive games during the round-robin, while still giving most squads the opportunity to reach the knockout round and get a chance to play for a medal.

This year, Group A will play in KVIK Hockey Arena in Herning, located in Central Denmark. It is composed of the top four teams from the IIHF World Ranking: Canada, USA, Finland and Switzerland, as well as sixth-ranked Japan. Russia is ranked fifth but has been suspended from participation in all IIHF events since February, following its invasion of Ukraine.

The five teams in Group B hold down spots six through 11 in the rankings: Czechia, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Hungary. They’ll square off at Iscenter Nord in Fredrikshavn, on the northeast coast of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula.

In preliminary-round play, each team will play four games in its group, in round-robin format, between Aug. 25-30. The top three teams in Group B will then join the five teams in Group A for the quarterfinals on Sept. 1, and the Group B team that finishes highest will move up to Group A for the 2023 tournament, which will be held in Canada.

This year’s semifinals will be played in Herning on Sept. 3, with the medal games one day later, while the lowest two teams in Group B will face off. The winner stays in the top division for 2023, while the loser moves down to Division 1, Group A.

Taking Aim At Canada

The Canadians are the team to beat, after winning gold over Team USA in Beijing in February and last August, at the 2021 tournament held outside of Calgary. Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin, 31, has become legendary for her big-game moments. In February, she scored twice in the gold-medal game, including the winner, to boost Canada to Olympic victory over the United States — and, in doing so, became the first hockey player of any gender to score in the gold-medal game at four Olympics. She also tallied the overtime winner at the 2021 Worlds in Calgary — building on a legacy that began in 2010 when, at just 18 years old, she scored the only two goals in Canada’s Olympic win over Team USA on home ice in Vancouver.

Canada swept the all-star voting at forward in Beijing: Poulin and Nurse took home the honors along with teammate Brianne Jenner, who was also named tournament MVP. The trio is set to suit up in Denmark, but the Canadians will be missing all-star defender Claire Thompson along with 2021 Worlds MVP Melodie Daoust and veterans Natalie Spooner and Rebecca Johnston.

Before the pandemic hit, it was the Americans who had the upper hand in the Canada/U.S. rivalry. They’d won eight of nine world championships between 2008 and 2019, and finally claimed Olympic gold for the first time since 1998 in Pyeongchang in 2018. Hilary Knight was on her way to establishing a long list of new individual records within the U.S. program, and Kendall Coyne Schofield delivered a viral moment for her sport with her blazing-fast lap around the SAP Center at the NHL’s 2019 All-Star Game in San Jose.

Knight, Coyne Schofield and other familiar names like Amanda Kessel and Alex Carpenter will be back in action in Herning. But over the last few years, longtime U.S. stalwarts like Meghan Duggan, Dani Cameranesi and the Lamoureux twins have elected to retire from the game. This time around, the Americans will also be without their frequent starting goaltender, Alex Cavallini, who’s pregnant, as well as forward Brianna Decker, who was injured during the Olympics.

For both top squads, it’s an opportunity for young players to make an impression. The teenage defender Harvey has already looked very good for the Americans, while Nicole Hensley and Maddie Rooney will get a chance to fight it out for the starter’s job in net. Canada’s most promising emerging star is 22-year-old forward Sarah Fillier. She scored eight goals and put up 11 points in seven games in Beijing, and has brought home a pair of gold medals from her first two senior-level world championship events over the last year.

All U.S. and Canadian group-play games will be broadcast live, on TSN in Canada and on NHL Network in the U.S. Round-robin play kicks off on Thursday, August 25 as Team USA takes on Japan at 9 a.m. ET, followed by Canada vs. Finland at 1 p.m. ET.