Tampere will welcome the 16 teams of the 2015 IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship as the event comes to the second-biggest urban area of Finland from 5 to 11 July 2015.

It will be the second time after Kuopio in 2015 the Inline Worlds will be hosted in the country and the Finns couldn’t have selected a better year since they will host the event as the defending champion.

The Finnish inline hockey national team defeated Canada 6-2 in the gold medal game last year in Pardubice to win its first gold medal since 2003.

Finland will open the event on 5th July against recently promoted Slovenia while Sweden will play the Czech Republic in the other Group A game. In Group B the United States will face Germany on the first day while Canada will play Slovakia.

Tampere is an experienced host for international hockey tournaments. The Tampere Ice Arena was originally built to host the 1965 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship and was also one of the venues in 1982, 1991, 1997 and 2003. Tampere was also the main venue of the 2007 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship and of the 1992 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship.

With the tournament planned to take place soon after midsummer, participants can enjoy up to 22 hours of sunlight each day.

The 7,300-seat arena, home of the hockey teams Ilves and Tappara, also has two additional rinks. The second rink will host the Division I tournament, which includes Great Britain, Latvia, Austria and Bulgaria in Group C, and Australia, Croatia, Hungary and Argentina in Group D.

After the round-robin preliminary round, the final round in both divisions will start with cross-over quarter-finals.

Click here for the full game schedule.

MARTIN MERK