The

IIHF World Junior Championship The IIHF World Junior Championship (WJC), sometimes referred to as World Juniors, is an annual event organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for national under-20 ice hockey teams from around the world. It is traditionally ...

is an annual event organized 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 ...

for national under-20

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 ...

teams from around the world. It is traditionally held from late December to the beginning of January. The main tournament features the top ten ranked hockey nations in the world, comprising the "Top Division", from which a world champion is crowned. There are also three lower pools—Divisions I, II and III—that each play separate tournaments playing for the right to be promoted to a higher pool with the last place team facing

relegation Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

to a lower pool. The first official tournament was held in 1977. Prior to that, there had been invitational tournaments in 1974, 1975 and 1976 that were not sanctioned by the IIHF. As of 2025, 49 official tournaments have been staged, while the

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 ...

tournament was postponed due to the

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 ...

. Historically, the tournament has been dominated by Canada (20 gold medals) and the Soviet Union/CIS/Russia (13 gold medals). The USSR won the first four official tournaments, while the Canadians put together five straight championships between 1993 and

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

, and another five straight from

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

Medalists

The winners by season listed below.

Unofficial tournaments

Official tournaments

;Key * Number of tournaments (or 2nd, 3rd or 4th places) won at the time.

Medal table

The unofficial tournaments held prior to 1977 are not included in this table. Countries in ''italics'' no longer compete at the World Championships.

Notes

References

;General * * * * ;Specific

External links

International Ice Hockey Federation
{{featured list Medalists IIHF World Under-20 World Championship, Under-20, IIHF, medalists IIHF World Under-20 Championship