MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th March, 2022) The French national ice hockey team will replace Russia at the World Championship, which will be held in Finland in 2022, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) said on Friday.
The World Championship is scheduled for May 13-29.
"The IIHF Council determined that France and Austria, the next-ranked countries in the 2021 IIHF Men's World Ranking, will take part in the 2022 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. France will replace ROC in Group A in Helsinki and Austria will replace Belarus in Group B in Tampere," the IIHF said in a statement.
The game schedule remains unchanged, the statement read.
In late February, the IIHF Council suspended the national teams of Russia and Belarus from international competitions for an indefinite period and deprived Omsk and Novosibirsk of the right to host the 2023 World Junior Ice Hockey Championship in the wake of Russia's special operation in Ukraine.
Changes also happened in several other tournaments, with the Latvian national team set to replace the Russian one at the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship, scheduled to be held in August in Canada.
