BUDAPEST – Group H of the Olympic Pre-Qualification during the February international break will be played at the 9,000-seat Laszlo Papp Sportarena in Budapest.

The Olympic Pre-Qualification will take place 11-14 February 2016 with the two other groups being hosted in Sapporo, Japan, and at a venue to be named in Italy.

The Laszlo Papp Sportarena has previously hosted several other hockey events at that level including the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I events in 2011 and 2013 and an Olympic Pre-Qualification group during the 2012/2013 season.

Top-seeded host Hungary will be joined in the group by Poland, Lithuania and one of the group winners from the Olympic Preliminary Qualification that will be held in November in Estonia and Spain.

The game between Hungary and Poland will be much anticipated. In April at the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A in Krakow, Hungary beat host Poland 2-1 in the deciding game to earn promotion to the 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Russia.

This time the game could decide which of the four teams in Budapest will advance to the Final Olympic Qualification, which will be played in three tournaments in Belarus, Latvia and Norway to determine the last three teams to advance to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games men’s ice hockey tournament. The top-8 nations form the 2015 IIHF Men’s World Ranking and host Korea already pre-qualified.

Click here for the Olympic Qualification structure.