There were a number of interesting topics on the IIHF Congress agenda, Csaba Kovács took some time out of his day to answer some quesions for icehockey.hu
The first and most important topic is the A-Pool World Championships and the new promotion relegation system.
The starting point was that it would be a great idea that both host nations of the 2017 World Championships actually be there and competing, how would that look if the arenas in Paris and Cologne are empty. There is a similar situation with the upcoming Olympic Games in South Korea. The South Korean national team is even farther away from the elite compared to France or Germany.
There were a number of options for the 2016 World Championships, of course the current Division 1/A teams were against the changes, however for us this was the best option and we supported it. Of course if we were still in Division 1/A we probably would not have supported the changes, but luckily the boys took care of this in Krakow.
How tense is it between the French and German Federations and the Division 1/A Federations?
It was a delicate topic, it was also argued that these changes can not happen so close to the start date of the World Championships, but a rule was found in the bylaws that stated that this type of change can be made.
A number of years ago we applied to host the world championships, and the idea was brought up to co host with another country but that was swept off the table, now in 2017 France and Germany will co-host. This decision is a one time rule change but maybe it should be applied in the future when two nations are co-hosting.
How did the IIHF and the other federations take the status repost of the Hungarian events?
We are organizing the women’s U18 world championships in January and an Olympic qualifying tournament in February. Neither of our presentations took long since the participating nations are satisfied with the way things are going. They listened to what we had to say, we covered all of the technical aspects and that was it.
The World Cup is making a comeback in 2016 and with the new changes in theory a Hungarian player could make the European Select team.
Yes in theory this could happen but in reality probably not. The Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and Russia will have their own teams. The Swiss and the SLovaks could probably have 13 players each that could make the European team, it would look great that a small hockey country would have a player on the team but it probably won't be Hungary.