Burning Questions For the 2024 World Champions

The 2024 women's IIHF World Championships are set to drop the puck in Utica, New York. Here are five burning questions to follow at the tournament.

The 2024 IIHF Women's World Championships of hockey are upon us, with ten nations set to compete for gold in Utica, New York. It's the first ever World Championship with a single professional league, the PWHL, taking an international break to allow participation. Next year more European members of the World Championships will join the PWHL, which will change the landscape again. USA enters as hosts and reigning champions.

Here's five burning questions to answer at the 2024 World Championships:

USA looked dominant in the gold medal game despite falling behind in the game. They controlled play and were the faster, more skilled team. They carried that dominance into the first half of the Rivalry Series this year while their NCAA players were involved. USA has followed the cost friendly route of utilizing a predominantly NCAA roster who can't be paid to compete for their national team. Over the next three seasons however, almost every member of USA's current roster will be in the PWHL. It will be interesting to follow that storyline. For now however, USA's young, quick, and skilled roster will see if they can hold gold against Canada's almost entirely professional roster.

At the moment, Canada is the main PWHL filled nation in the tournament, although USA and Czechia have a share as well. Finland will begin joining that conversation next year, and Sweden may send more players as well. Will the game tested players coming to the tournament who in past years were working off rust in the preliminary round step forward and dominate? Will international players get a chance to network among PWHL players and choose their future path? Will nations who aren't sending players to the PWHL struggle? This impact also goes two ways. Injuries at the World Championships could be catastrophic for PWHL teams. We already saw injuries to stars like Taylor Heise in the Rivalry Series this year at impacted her season. With only five games remaining on the schedule and playoffs approaching, any injury now, or even the aspect of players being overworked and banged up could change the fate of a PWHL team.

It's the norm for the IIHF to make announcements at their annual press conference involving different IIHF officers and president Luc Tardif. Not only is this the space that future tournament locations are announced, but it's the chance for the IIHF to make other announcements. It's expected that this year, or in the very near future, the IIHF will announce a change to the way Groups are made at the women's World Championship. Currently they involve the top five teams in Group A, and teams 6-10 in Group B. But it's an imperfect model year to year as teams change and develop, and a single bad game can put a stronger team down. The IIHF changed the women's U-18 World Championship to two balanced groups this year, and it's expected the senior World Championship will follow. Similarly, the women's hockey world has been waiting for the announcement of a World Junior tournament. It's the final remaining gap between men's and women's offerings, and there is no reason for it to remain that way, other than the IIHF and governing bodies devaluing women's hockey.

Finland has one of the stronger non-North American rosters this tournament has seen. They look poised to challenge for a medal, of any color. Czechia will have something to say about that as the reigning back-to-back bronze medalists. Czechia is without Dominika Laskova, a key contributor to last year's bronze as she remains out with a lower body injury. Czechia has four players coming from the PWHL, and another strong group coming from the SDHL, where four more are expected to head to North America next year. As that trend continues, it will be other nations looking to keep up with not only Canada and USA, but Czechia as well. This year however, their spot on the podium is at risk, not only from Finland, but a rising Swedish team that few will look forward to matching up with in the quarterfinals.

Group B has been problematic for the World Championships, specifically since reinstating a two team relegation system. It's been the same up and down yo-yoing for years, not allowing teams who are promoted a chance to adapt to the top level, particularly as they never get to face the top teams in the tournament. Instead we've seen repeated promotion and relegation of nations like France, Hungary, and Denmark. China will look to avoid that this year, but they forfeited their best chance for a continued climb up the international ranks by ridding their roster of dual passport players. That means China rode pro players like Leah Lum and Hannah Miller, and NCAA stars like Anna Segedi, Camryn Wong, and Tia Chan to get to the top division, and now have kicked them to the curb once they've arrived. It's a potentially disastrous recipe that if it involved China playing against Group A competition, would result in lopsided results of epic proportions. Removing the tiered grouping system could do a long way, or creating a single larger pool like the eight team groupings on the men's side, with a single team relegated each year instead of two.