International Ice Hockey Federation

World Juniors schedule

World Juniors schedule

Groups and games for Buffalo announced

Published 15.08.2018 01:05 GMT-4 | Author Martin Merk
World Juniors schedule
The great U.S.-Canada rivalry will be just one highlight of the 2018 IIHF World Junior Championship in Buffalo. Defending champion USA and neighbouring rival Canada will play the outdoor game on 29th December at the New Era Field. It will be a re-match of the 2017 final. Photo: Andre Ringuette / HHOF-IIHF Images
The IIHF has announced the groups and schedule of the 2018 IIHF World Junior Championship that will take place in Buffalo, New York, USA.

Following the approval from the ten member national associations, the World Juniors in Buffalo will be played with defending champion USA, Canada, Denmark, Slovakia and Finland seeded in Group A while Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Belarus will play in Group B. The tournament dates are 26 December 2017 to 5 January 2018.

The top-four teams from each group will make it to the quarter-finals played cross-over while the last-ranked team will play in the best-of-three relegation round.

The 19,070-seat KeyBank Center, home of the National Hockey League’s Buffalo Sabres, will serve as the main venue for the event with 23 games including three of the four quarter-final games, the semi-final and medal games. The smaller HarborCenter will host seven games.

For the first time ever, the IIHF World Junior Championship will include an outdoor game as part of the preliminary round as the game USA vs. Canada on 29 December will take place at the 71,608-seat New Era Field, home stadium of the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills. The venue hosted the 2008 NHL Winter Classic between the Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

It will be the second time an IIHF game will be hosted in a football stadium after the Germany vs. USA opening game of the 2010 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship that took place in front of 77,803 fans in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, which set a new world record at that time.

While the time of the outdoor game on 29 December is to be determined, the time slots for all other games have been defined and can be found by clicking on Games.

The World Juniors will open on Boxing Day at noon with the game between the Czech Republic and Russia at KeyBank Center followed by the Belarus-Sweden game at HarborCenter.

Back at KeyBank Center Canada will play Finland at 16:00 and host USA will face Denmark in its first game at 20:00. With the arena located only three miles away from the border to Canada through the Peace Bridge, Buffalo is expected to become home to fans from both North American countries during the World Juniors.

Fans can currently purchase tickets packages by clicking on Tickets in the menu. Currently packages starting at $690 are available that either include all games at KeyBank Center and the outdoor game or that include all games of the tournament.

The Preliminary Round ends on New Year’s Eve and the final round begins on 2nd January with the quarter-finals and ends with the gold medal game on 5th January.

 

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