The IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship (3-19 May 2013) will go back to Stockholm, Sweden, and Helsinki, Finland as part of the two-year co-hosting agreement. This year, Helsinki will host Preliminary Round and Quarter-Finals together with Stockholm, while both semi-final games as well as the medal games will be played in Stockholm.

Host country Finland will face Germany on the on the opening day, 3rd May 2013, at Hartwall Arena. The last encounters between the two teams ended with a 5-4 shootout win for Finland in Bratislava 2011 and a 1-0 victory one year earlier on the opponent’s ice in Cologne.

Before the opening ceremony and the hosts taking the ice, France will meet Slovakia in the afternoon game of the first day in Helsinki.

Saturday, 4th May 2013 will provide three games of action at each venue. After the USA-Austria game, defending champion Russia will play its first game in Helsinki in a neighbouring clash against Latvia. Finland will face 2012’s runner-up Slovakia in a clash between semi-finalists of this year’s event in the late game. Click here for the full schedule. 

Each of the 16 participating nations will play seven games in the Preliminary Round consisting of two groups with eight teams each. The Quarter-Finals will be played within the group (1st vs. 4th, 2nd vs. 3rd) at the same venue before the best two teams from Helsinki will move over to Stockholm for the Semi-Finals and the Medal Games. The 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship will end on 19th May 2013 with the Gold Medal Game in Stockholm at 20:30 local time.