The

Ice Hockey World Championships The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), first officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics. The IIHF was created in 1908 while the I ...

is an annual event held by the

International Ice Hockey Federation The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; ; ) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 84 member countries. The IIHF maintains the IIHF World Ranking based on international ice hockey to ...

(IIHF). It was preceded by the European Championship which was held from 1910 to 1932. The first World Championship tournament was decided at the

1920 Summer Olympics The 1920 Summer Olympics (; ; ), officially known as the Games of the VII Olympiad (; ; ) and commonly known as Antwerp 1920 (; Dutch language, Dutch and German language, German: ''Antwerpen 1920''), were an international multi-sport event held i ...

. Subsequently,

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

was featured at the

Winter Olympic Games The Winter Olympic Games (), also known as the Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held in ...

, where the World Championship was decided when the two events occurred concurrently, until the

1968 Winter Olympics The 1968 Winter Olympics, officially known as the X Olympic Winter Games (), were a winter multi-sport event held from 6 to 18 February 1968 in Grenoble, France. Thirty-seven countries participated. The 1968 Winter Games marked the first time ...

. The first three championships were contested at the Olympics, while the first World Championships that were an individual event were held in

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be on J ...

. The modern format for the World Championship features 16 teams in the championship group, 12 teams in Division I and 12 teams in Division II. If there are more than 40 teams, the rest compete in Division III. The teams in the championship play a preliminary and qualifying round, then the top eight teams play in the playoff medal round and the winning team is crowned World Champion. From the 1920 Olympics until the 1976 World Championships, only athletes designated as "amateur" were allowed to compete in the tournament. Because of this, players from the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...

and its senior minor-league teams were not allowed to compete, while the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

was allowed to use permanent full-time players who were positioned as regular workers of an

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or tractor industry employer that sponsored what would be presented as an after-hours amateur social sports society team for their workers. In 1970, after an agreement to allow just a small number of its professionals to participate was rescinded by the IIHF, Canada withdrew from the tournament. Starting in 1977, professional athletes were allowed to compete in the tournament and Canada re-entered, using some NHL players from those teams that were not good enough to reach the

Stanley Cup playoffs The Stanley Cup playoffs () is the annual elimination tournament to determine the winner of the Stanley Cup, and the league champion of the National Hockey League (NHL). The four-round, best-of-seven tournament is held after the NHL's regular s ...

. Following the conclusion of the 2025 edition, 88 tournaments have been staged. From 1920 to 1930, the

Ice Hockey Tournaments held counted as the World Championships and no tournaments in between were held. No championships were held from 1940 to 1946 due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, nor during the Olympic years 1980, 1984 and 1988, nor in 2020 due to

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Ten national teams have won a gold medal at the World Championships, five more national teams have won medals. Canada has won 53 medals overall and 28 gold, the most of any nation. The Soviet Union, which began competing in the year of

1954 Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

and last competed in

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

, captured a medal in each of 34 tournaments they entered. In winning the 2006 World Championships, Sweden became the first nation in ice hockey history to win an Olympic gold as well as a separate World Championship in the same season. In

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

, Finland repeated this achievement by winning the World Championships at home.

Champions

;Key

Medal table

National teams in ''italics'' no longer compete at the World Championships.

Finals

Since the introduction of play-off rounds in

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

, the following national teams have made the finals.

Most successful players

Boldface denotes active ice hockey players and highest medal count among all players (including these who not included in these tables) per type. "Position" denotes player position on the hockey rink (D – defenceman; F – forward; G – goaltender).

Multiple gold medalists

Multiple medalists

The table shows players who have won at least 11 medals in total at the World Championships.

Best performers by country

Here are listed most successful players in the history of each of 15 medal-winning national teams – according to the gold-first ranking system and by total number of World Championships medals (one player if he holds national records in both categories or few players if these national records belongs to different persons). If the total number of medals is identical, the gold, silver and bronze medals are used as tie-breakers (in that order). If all numbers are the same, the players get the same placement and are sorted by the alphabetic order.

Notes

References

General

* * *

External links

International Ice Hockey Federation

Medal table and alternative medal table
{{featured list Medalists World Championship, IIHF, medalists

IIHF World Championship The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; ; ) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 84 member countries. The IIHF maintains the IIHF World Ranking based on international ice hockey tour ...