2014 IIHF World Championship

The 2014 IIHF World Championship was hosted by Belarus in its capital, Minsk. Sixteen national teams were competing in two venues, the Minsk-Arena and Chizhovka-Arena. It was the first time Belarus hosted the tournament. The selection of Belarus to host this competition was the subject of much debate, with some politicians in both Europe and the United States calling for the IIHF to move the tournament to another country.

Russia remained undefeated throughout the championship and captured the gold medal by defeating Finland 5–2 in the final. Sweden captured the bronze medal with a 3–0 victory over the Czech Republic. Host team Belarus made the playoffs for the first time since 2009, losing to Sweden 3–2 in the quarterfinal. Italy and Kazakhstan were relegated to Division I A. Prior to the championship, Division I-III had played their tournaments to establish the rank between teams of lower levels.

The tournament saw a new attendance record for the World Championship, as a total of 640,044 people attended games, surpassing the record set at the 2004 tournament in the Czech Republic, which had 552,097 spectators.

Host selection
On 8 May 2009, the Belarusian bid was successful and got 75 votes in the race for hosting the 2014 IIHF World Championship. The application with the slogan “Welcome to the young hockey country” beat out those from Hungary (24 votes), Latvia (3), and Ukraine (3).

The two main venues listed as hosts for the ice hockey teams were Minsk-Arena (capacity around 15000) and Chizhovka-Arena (capacity around 9600). The larger arena was completed and opened in 2010, whereas construction of the smaller one was completed in 2012.

The selection of Belarus as hosts caused great controversy (Minsk2014 Campaign). On 11 April 2011, United States Senator [Dick Durbin]] and Representative Michael Quigley urged the IIHF to move the World Championship to another location, citing concerns over the authoritarian government of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. Lukashenko's alleged human rights violations had resulted in numerous sanctions placed on himself and 157 of his associates by the European Union and United States. Senator Durbin and Representative Quigley were supported by former Slovak ice hockey player and current Member of the European Parliament Peter Šťastný. According to a 2013 report by the U.S. organisation Freedom House, Belarus was the least democratic country in Europe at the time. However, the IIHF remarked that its statutes did not allow it to discriminate on political grounds, and spokespersons for the Latvian and Lithuanian ice hockey federations stated that they had no desire for "mixing politics with sports".

On 16 January 2012, President Lukashenko announced that any foreigners who wanted to attend the World Championships would not need a visa to enter Belarus, or the medical insurance required for entry. The only documentation required was an original or electronic copy of a ticket to a game.



Preliminary round
The schedule was released on 5 September 2013.

'' All times are local ([UTC+3). ''

Group A

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Group B

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Ranking and statistics
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Final ranking
The official IIHF final ranking of the tournament: