Bet IIHF World Championships With BitCoin
The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championship is an annual ice hockey event, which takes place in a different host country every year. This year, the event will be hosted in the Czech Republic from May 1-17, namely in Ostrava and Prague. A total of 16 international teams will compete to be crowned World Champions, and that is an opportunity neither you, nor your Bitcoins will want to miss.
About The IIHF
The IIHF is an annual world ice hockey tournament, which sees the top ranked teams in the world of ice hockey come together to determine which nation is the best. Any team which is currently ranked in the top 14 of the IIHF World Rankings will qualify automatically for the tournament.
There are also several divisions below the World Championship, with lower ranked countries, and any team can technically win promotion from Division I to the World Championship. In 2015, Slovenia and Austria qualified for this event, via Division I.
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The history of the IIHF World Championships
The IIHF World Championships were first originated in 1920, during the Summer Olympic Games, although ten years later, they would hold their very first event on their own. Until 1968, though, the Olympic Games’ hockey event was deemed the world championship event. From that year onwards, the World Championship would be run as a separate tournament.
There have been some great clashes over the years, not least in 1969 when Czechoslovakia defeated the Soviet Union following the Soviet invasion a year prior. The blip didn’t stop the Soviets from going on dominating during the late 60s and early 70s. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many players joined the NHL, and produced a vast quantity of hockey talent in Europe.
As a result, the European teams became a lot stronger. In 2010, a new record was broken, when in a match between Germany (hardly the kind of nation you might think of when you think about ice hockey) and the United States, attracted 77,803 people. Sweden also broke a record in 2013, when they became the first team since the Soviets in 1986, to win the championship on home soil.
The Soviet Union/Russia holds the most gold medals in the IIHF World Championship, with 27 in all. Canada is second on 24, whilst the Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia) has 12, and Sweden has 9. The USA only has 2 gold medals, alongside Finland, whilst even Great Britain has 1 title, as does Slovakia. Germany and Switzerland have both been finalists, but never won the gold.
IIHF World Championship teams
This year’s participating teams are Austria, Belarus, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. The Czech Republic have qualified as the hosts, whilst Austria and Slovenia have qualified via promotion from Division I.
How the tournament works
The teams will be divided in two groups, with the top four teams in each group advancing to the quarter-finals. Seeding does play a part in which group teams will go into. Group A consists of Sweden, Canada, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Latvia, France, Germany and Austria. Group B consists of Finland, Russia, the USA, Slovakia, Norway, Belarus, Slovenia and Denmark. The winners of the quarter-finals will then advance to the semis.
The two losing teams in the semi-finals will then play a third-place playoff game to determine the winner of the bronze medal. The two semi-final winners will square up in the IIHF World Championship final, to determine the overall winner.
Place bets on the IIHF World Championship with CloudBet
Given that it is held every year, the next IIHF World Championship is never very far away. Sometimes, you can have underdogs surprising everybody, such as Switzerland did in the last tournament. Whether you decide to bet on the underdogs or the favourites though, you will still need a sportsbook to bet at.
One of the best places to bet Bitcoins on the IIHF is CloudBet. They not only offer world championship bets, but also bets on all other sorts of ice hockey tournaments, too, including the NHL, KHL and Winter Olympic Games tournaments. For ice hockey Bitcoin bets, CloudBet is certainly the way to go.
