IIHF releases schedule for 2023 World Junior Hockey Championship

On Tuesday, the International Ice Hockey Federation released the schedule for the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship, which will get underway, as usual, on December 26th before wrapping up with the gold medal game on January 5th.

For those who aren't aware, the tournament was originally supposed to be held in Novosibirsk and Omsk (Russia), but due to their ban by the IIHF, it was moved to Halifax and Moncton.

As a reminder, here are the groups for the 2023 World Juniors.

Group A (Halifax): Canada, Sweden, Czechia, Germany, Austria.
Group B (Moncton): United States, Finland, Switzerland, Slovakia, Latvia.

For the first time since the 2020 World Juniors in Czechia, there will be relegation. Whoever finishes last place in each group after the preliminary round will face each other in a best-of-three series with the loser being relegated to Division 1A for the 2024 tournament.

Canada will open their schedule on December 26th against Czechia at 6:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. local. All of Canada's games will be played at the same time.

They'll then have an off-day on December 27th before facing Germany on December 28th, Austria on December 29th, another off-day on December 30th and will wrap up the preliminary round on New Year's Eve against Sweden.

Here are some other notable preliminary round games to keep an eye on.

- December 27th: Finland vs Slovakia
- December 29th: Sweden vs Czechia
- December 29th: United States vs Switzerland
- December 30th: Germany vs Austria (loser likely finishes 5th in the group)
- December 31st: United States vs Finland

The quarter-finals will get underway on January 2nd with all four games being played, two in Halifax and two in Moncton. The tournament will then shift solely to Halifax for the semi-finals and medal games on January 4th and 5th respectively.

The game schedule for the #WorldJuniors in Halifax & Moncton🇨🇦 is out! @HockeyCanada opens on Boxing Day vs. @narodnitym Read more: https://t.co/BohmyGc29S

Annonce de l'horaire du #MondialJunior : https://t.co/xoiNqvPqrd pic.twitter.com/q4QnmZXTyc— IIHF (@IIHFHockey) September 6, 2022

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