The IIHF World Championships, men and women.

Status in October 2026

• 2026 men's championship: finished. Finland beat Switzerland 1-0 in overtime in the final on 31 May 2026 in Zurich.
• 2026 women's championship: not yet played. The top division is scheduled for 6 to 16 November 2026 in Herning and Esbjerg, Denmark. There is no 2026 women's champion yet.

Men's results by year

2026: Finland

Finland won the final at Swiss Life Arena in Zurich, in a tournament hosted by Switzerland. Konsta Helenius, aged 20, scored 10:42 into overtime and Justus Annunen made 22 saves for the shutout. AP counted it as Finland's fifth world title, after 1995, 2011, 2019 and 2022. Captain Aleksander Barkov led the team with 11 points, three goals and eight assists, in 10 games. Finland beat Czechia 4-1 in the quarterfinals and Canada 4-2 in the semifinals.

Switzerland went into the final 9-0, having scored a tournament-high 39 goals. It lost a third final in a row, after losing to Czechia in 2024 and the United States in 2025 (both results below), and AP noted that it had now failed to score in three finals; the 2024, 2025 and 2026 finals were all shutout defeats.

The bronze went to Norway, which beat Canada 3-2 in overtime on 31 May 2026, Noah Steen scoring 3:32 into overtime and Robert Thomas scoring both Canadian goals. NHL.com and AP report it was Norway's first medal in any IIHF top-division tournament; its previous best was fourth, in 1951. Canada had won all its group games and knocked out the defending champion United States in the quarterfinals, with a roster that included captain Macklin Celebrini, Sidney Crosby and John Tavares, but left without a medal.

2025: United States

The United States beat Switzerland 1-0 in overtime on 25 May 2025 at Avicii Arena in Stockholm, Sweden being a co-host. Tage Thompson scored 2:02 into overtime and Jeremy Swayman made 25 saves. The U.S. beat host Sweden 6-2 in the semifinal, and Canada went out to Denmark 2-1 in the quarterfinals.

How many world titles this makes for the United States depends on who is counting. NHL.com and CBS call it the first U.S. title since 1933, and USA Hockey counts 1933 as its only previous one. The IIHF, according to a Flashscore report, also recognises the 1960 Olympic gold as a world title, because no separate championship was held that year. A search summary of CBS News gave Sweden over Denmark 6-2 for bronze; we could not confirm that from a page we read.

2024: Czechia

Czechia beat Switzerland 2-0 in Prague on 26 May 2024. David Pastrnak scored at 49:13, David Kampf added an empty-net goal and Lukas Dostal made the shutout. Daily Faceoff reported it was Czechia's first world title since 2010 and its 13th counting Czechoslovakia. Sweden beat Canada 4-2 for bronze, its first medal since winning gold in 2018.

2023: Canada

Canada beat Germany 5-2 in Tampere on 28 May 2023, which AP called a record 28th world title. Samuel Blais scored twice, including a backhand that made it 3-2 early in the third period. Germany had reached the final by beating the United States in the semifinals. Latvia then beat the U.S. 4-3 in overtime for bronze, Kristians Rubins scoring 1:22 into overtime. AP said it was Latvia's first top-three finish, its previous best having been seventh. AP's 2026 report says Canada's most recent title is still this one, from 2023.

Women's results by year

2025. The United States beat Canada 4-3 in overtime on 20 April 2025. Sarah Fillier tied the game for Canada late in regulation, and Tessa Janecke won it with 2:54 left in overtime after Taylor Heise intercepted the puck. AP put the count at 11 world titles for the U.S. against 13 for Canada. Finland beat Czechia for bronze.

2024. Canada beat the United States 6-5 in overtime on 14 April 2024, on Danielle Serdachny's power-play goal at 5:16 of overtime; Marie-Philip Poulin scored twice. Wikipedia counts it as Canada's 13th women's world title.

2023. The United States beat Canada 6-3 in the gold medal game in Brampton.

The 2026 Women's Worlds in Denmark

The 2026 top division runs from 6 to 16 November 2026, with the semifinals, bronze game and final in Herning on 16 November, according to VisitDenmark and a search summary of IIHF pages (the IIHF's own schedule page could not be opened). Wikipedia lists the groups, which match the IIHF summary:

The venue names differ by source. The IIHF calls them Hockey Arena Herning and Hockey Arena Esbjerg; VisitDenmark lists Kvik Hockey Arena in Herning and Granly Hockey Arena in Esbjerg. Wikipedia notes that Russia and Belarus remain excluded from IIHF events over the invasion of Ukraine.

How IIHF games are decided

World Championship games use the IIHF's rules, not the NHL's. Under the IIHF Official Rule Book 2026/27:

• Standings (Rule 78.1): three points for a win in regulation. A game won in overtime or a shootout gives the winner two points and the loser one.
• Preliminary-round ties (Rule 84.1 and 84.4): up to five minutes of 3-on-3 sudden-death overtime, then a shootout with five different shooters per team, then one pair at a time.
• Playoff and bronze medal games (Rule 84.5): up to 10 minutes of 3-on-3 sudden-death overtime.
• Gold medal games (Rule 84.6): 3-on-3 sudden death, period after period, until someone scores. The rule describes no shootout.

The completed tournaments in this section were all played before the 2026/27 edition was issued in June 2026; we have not compared it line by line with the editions in force at the time.

A short history

NHL.com notes that the 1920 Olympic tournament also counts as the first official world championship. According to Wikipedia, the first standalone World Championship was held in 1930, and every Olympic tournament from 1920 to 1968 doubled as the world championship. The first IIHF Women's World Championship was played in Ottawa in March 1990, with Canada beating the United States 5-2 in the final, according to Wikipedia. The IIHF says it began holding the women's event in every non-Olympic year from 1997, and announced in 2022 that it would be held every year, Olympic years included. More is on international hockey history.