Tournament details | |
---|---|
Host country | Sweden |
Dates | 15–30 March |
Teams | 6 |
Final positions | |
Champions | Soviet Union (9th title) |
Runner-up | Sweden |
Third place | Czechoslovakia |
Fourth place | Canada |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 30 |
Goals scored | 219 (7.3 per match) |
Attendance | 196,769 (6,559 per match) |
Scoring leader(s) | Anatoli Firsov 14 points |
← 1968
1970 →
|
The 1969 World Ice Hockey Championships was the 36th edition of the Ice Hockey World Championships, which also doubled as the 47th European ice hockey championships. For the first time the Pool A, B and C tournaments were hosted by different nations:
A total of 20 nations participated in the tournament. The Pool A team featured only the top six nations, now playing a double round-robin tournament for the amateur world championship. Teams #7-#14 contested the Pool B championship with the winner qualifying for the 1970 Pool A championship, while the bottom six participated in the Pool C tournament. Pool B and C began exchanging two teams this year (through promotion and relegation), a practice that lasted until 1987.
For the seventh straight year, the Soviet Union won the Pool A tournament. Originally the tournament was scheduled to be held in Czechoslovakia, but due to the Soviet invasion of the country, they declined to host. In the two games the Czechoslovak and Soviet teams played against each other, the Czechoslovak team won both times, becoming the first team to beat the Soviet Union twice in the same international tournament. For the first time in international ice hockey, body-checking was allowed in all three zones of the ice. Team USA was demoted to Pool-B after losing all ten games.
Czechoslovakia – Canada 6:1 (1:0, 2:1, 3:0)