After a one year hiatus due to the pandemic, the IIHF Men’s World Hockey Championships return with this year’s tournament being played in Riga, Latvia. This will be Latvia’s first time hosting the tournament since 2006. The tournament was also supposed to be hosted in Minsk, Belarus, but security concerns caused the IIHF to move away from those plans.
The last tournament was held in May 2019, with Finland emerging as champions with a 3-1 victory over Canada in the final, while Russia took home bronze. This tournament has seen a lot of balance over the last decade or so, including six different medalists in the last two tournaments.