Belarus and Latvia will host 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship

Belarus and Latvia have won the right to co-host the 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship.

2021 Ice Hockey World Championship will take place on 7-23 May, 2021.

The voting for the host of the World Cup was held at 2017 IIHF Annual Congress in Cologne on Friday, 19 May. The day before, on 18 May 18, the cities of the applicants held presentations of their applications.

Belarus and Latvia rivaled Finland, who wanted to bring the World Championship back to Tampere and Helsinki. The joint bid of Belarus and Latvia suggests Minsk and Riga as the host cities.

The voting on Friday was attended by delegates from 67 national hockey associations, as well as members of the IIHF Council.

Belarus and Latvia submitted a joint bid to host the championship in January 2017.



In February representatives of IIHF paid a visit to Minsk to inspect the facilities that can be used for the tournament in case Belarus and Latvia win the bid.

A few days before the voting IIHF President René Fasel said that both applications were very strong, but he believed Belarus and Latvia had more chances of winning.

Minsk hosted IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in 2014. Riga was the host of the World Championship in 2006.