The IIHF annual congress officially started in Dubrovnik Croatia where they have gone through a round of votes among them how the promotion and relegation will work between the A-Pool and the Division 1A.
Thursday was a very busy day at the congress based on today's agenda.
- 8:30-12:00 congress
- 13:30-14:15 youth olympics
- 14.15-15:00 world championships
- 15:00-15:30 U20 world championships
- 16:00-16:30 U18 world championships
- 16:30-17:00 Women's world championships
- 17:00-17:30 Women's U18 world championships
- 17:30-18:00 olympic qualification
PROMOTION, RELEGATION
The structure of the way teams are promoted and relegated from the A-Pool and Division 1/A will be different from years past. Last season the two last placed teams in the two A-Pool groups were relegated and the top two teams in Division 1/A were promoted. With both host nations of the 2017 world championships being in the same group the IIHF is trying to avoid an awkward situation in which one or both of the host nations cannot participate in the world championships that they are hosting. In 2009 Germany would have been the nation to be relegated with Hungary but since they were the host nation the following year Austria was sent down instead, who finished one place ahead of Germany.
In 2016 the 2017 host nations, France and Germany are in the same group, along with Hungary, so the following changes have been made.
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If anyone but France and Germany finish last in the group there is no problem as that nation along with the other group's last placed team will be relegated and the top two Division 1/A teams will be promoted.
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If France or Germany finish last in the group then the second to last place team’s record will go head to head against the last place team in the other group and the one with less points will be relegated and only one team will be promoted from Division 1/A.
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If France and Germany finish in the last two spots in their group then only the other group’s last placed team will be relegated with only the Division 1/A winner being promoted.
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Since the Division 1/A World Championships will be played before the A-Pool World Championships the second placed team in Division 1/A will not know that they will be going up or not until after the A-Pool tournament.
This was a popular topic for obvious reasons, and was much debated, at one point it was discussed if the rules could be changed at all eight months before the A-pool tournament.
HUNGARIAN EVENTS
The 2015-16 season will have two IIHF events in Hungary.
Between january 10th-16th, Miskolc will be hosting the women’s U18 Division 1 world championships and in february from 12th through the 14th the Olympic Qualifying tournament with be played in Budapest.
A status update was given about both events.
The 2016 Winter Youth Olympi Games will have a Skills Challenge, for which Nátán Vertes will be a participant in and Hungarian and Internationa Ice Hockey Federation council member Zsuzsanna Kolbenheyer will be the women’s technical director.
World Cup
The congress held talks about the World Cup, which will be held in September of 2016 in Toronto.
There will be two eight team groups with the top two teams in each group playing in the semi finals. The the battles for the gold will be a best out of five series. Group A will be made up of Canada, Czech Republic, USA and the European Select, Group B will consist of Finland, Russia, Sweden and a North American U23 team.
The European Select team will be picked up German Federation Vice President Franz Reindl, Slovak GM Miroslav Satan, and Canadian-German coach Ralph Krueger. The 23 man squad will be made up of Europeans who are not from Sweden, Russia, Finland and the Czech Republic. In theory a Hungarian could be picked but there is a very little chance of that happening.
Photo: Laszlo Mudra