The IIHF Women’s World Championship will have a new format beginning in 2026, the sports world governing body recently announced at its semi-annual congress in Rhodes, Greece.
Currently, the top 10 countries in the world are divided into groups of five teams each, but the groups are not balanced – the top five teams are in Group A and the next five are in Group B. That format will continue at the 2025 Women’s Worlds in Czechia. Beginning in 2026, the number of teams will remain at 10 but the groups will be balanced, using the “serpentine” or “snake” seeding system based on the IIHF World Rankings, similar to how the groups are drawn in the Men’s World Championship.
This will mean that the format will be virtually identical to what’s used in the IIHF World Junior Championship and Men’s U18 World Championship – the top four teams in each group will advance to the quarterfinals and the bottom team in each group will play off in a relegation game.
The groups at the Women’s Worlds were balanced from 1992 until 2011, when the tournament included eight teams. The IIHF switched to tiered groups in 2012 partly to minimize blowouts in the group stage, and to give the top European women’s teams more head-to-head games against Canada and the USA in an effort to close the gap. This has been somewhat effective, as while the North American teams rarely lose to their top European counterparts, the games – particularly against Finland or Czechia – are now usually much more competitive and the scores more respectable.
The Women’s U18 World Championship, which includes eight teams, reverted to balanced groups in 2024.
The next IIHF Women’s World Championship is scheduled for České Budějovice, Czechia from April 9 to 20, 2025. No Women’s World Championships have been assigned beyond that.
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