IIHF unveils groups for World Junior tournament in Halifax, Moncton

As the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship continues this week in Alberta, we're learning more about what the 2023 tournament coming to the Maritimes this winter will look like. 

The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has announced the groups for the tournament that will be played in Halifax and Moncton. 

Team Canada will be in Group A with Sweden, Czechia, Germany and Austria. That group will play all its preliminary round games at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax. 

Group B meantime includes the United States, Finland, Switzerland, Slovakia and Latvia. Those teams will play the round robin in Moncton. 

Typically the groups aren't determined until the previous tournament wraps, but the IIHF says it based these groups on five earlier tournaments to give organizers a chance to prepare and get to work on scheduling. 

“With no relegation at the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship, the IIHF formed the groups by ranking each federation on performance at the past five tournaments to allow fans, competing teams and stakeholders time to prepare for the 2023 World Juniors as the event was only awarded to the host communities in May and give all stakeholders the opportunity to jointly work on the game schedule during the current World Juniors in Edmonton, Alberta,” the statement from the IIHF and Hockey Canada reads.

There will also be at least ten pre-tournament games played in communities across New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.