2006 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships

The 2006 Men's Ice Hockey Championships was held in May, 2006 in Riga, Latvia. It was the 70th annual event, and was run by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).

One of the requirements of the IIHF for Latvia to host the event was that a new arena would be constructed. Sweden was the stand-by organizer in case the arena was delayed, but the construction was completed on schedule, marking the first time a former Soviet state apart from Russia has hosted the event. The mascot of the championships was a beaver called RIX (after Riga International Airport's IATA code.)

It was preceded 2 months earlier by the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, where ice hockey was also a major event.

In the gold medal game, Sweden won against the Czech Republic and thus became the first hockey team to win both the Winter Olympics and the World Championships in the same year.

Championship results

Preliminary round

Group A

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	3	2	0	1	13	6	5
	3	1	0	2	9	8	4
	3	1	1	1	6	7	3
	3	0	3	0	8	16	0

All times local (UTC +3)

Group B

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	3	2	0	1	12	6	5
	3	2	0	1	9	6	5
	3	1	2	0	7	8	2
	3	0	3	0	3	11	0

All times local (UTC +3)

Group C

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	3	3	0	0	17	6	6
	3	2	1	0	11	5	4
	3	1	2	0	10	6	2
	3	0	3	0	2	23	0

All times local (UTC +3)

Group D

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	3	3	0	0	14	5	6
	3	2	1	0	7	3	4
	3	1	2	0	8	13	2
	3	0	3	0	6	14	0

All times local (UTC +3)

Qualification round

The top three teams from each group in the Preliminary round advance to the Qualifying Round. The top three teams from Groups A and D advance to Group E, and the top three teams from Groups B and C advance to Group F.

Teams in the Qualifying Round carry forward the results and points gained in the Preliminary Round with the teams that they have played and advance with. Teams, which have played in the Preliminary Round, do not meet again in the Qualifying Round.

Group E

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	5	4	1	0	28	10	8
	5	3	1	1	17	7	7
	5	3	2	0	11	10	6
	5	2	1	2	14	12	6
	5	1	3	1	7	23	3
	5	0	5	0	5	20	0

Group F

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	5	4	0	1	22	11	9
	5	2	1	2	17	15	6
	5	3	2	0	16	10	6
	5	2	2	1	19	10	5
	5	1	2	2	12	15	4
	5	0	5	0	4	29	0

All times local (UTC +3)

Final Round

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Bronze Medal Game

Gold Medal Game

Relegation round

The relegation round is composed of the four teams that placed last in Groups A through D. They play in a round-robin fashion, and the bottom two teams get relegated to the Division I group in next year's World Championships.

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	3	2	0	1	11	5	5
	3	1	1	1	6	10	3
	3	1	2	0	9	6	2
	3	0	1	2	6	11	2

and are demoted to Division I.

Leading scorers

Player		GP	G	A	Pts	+/-	PIM	POS
Sidney Crosby	9	9	8	17	+7	10	FW
Patrice Bergeron	9	7	8	15	+5	2	FW
Petteri Nummelin	9	3	11	14	-1	2	D
Niklas Kronwall	8	2	8	10	3	10	D
Alexander Ovechkin	7	6	3	9	+6	6	FW
Mikhail Grabovski	7	5	4	9	+2	2	FW
Andreas Karlsson	9	5	4	9	0	6	FW
Mikael Samuelsson	8	4	5	9	+7	4	FW
Anže Kopitar	6	3	6	9	-2	2	FW
Evgeni Malkin	7	3	6	9	+7	6	FW
David Vyborny	9	3	6	9	0	2	FW

Leading goaltenders

Player	MINS	GA	GAA	SO	Sv%
Fredrik Norrena	326	6	1.11	3	.951
Andrei Mezin	417	14	2.01	0	.941
Karol Krizan	380	12	1.90	3	.915
Sergei Zvyagin	279	9	1.94	1	.914
Marc Denis	263	11	2.51	1	.911
Johan Holmqvist	420	14	2.00	2	.908

Division I

Division I in the World Championships are composed of national teams that are not at the caliber of the teams in the top division. They play in a tournament that is separate from the main tournament, and which is composed of two groups. In each group all the teams play in a round-robin fashion and the first-placed team in each group is promoted to the main tournament, and the last-placed team in each division is relegated to Division II in the following year's tournament.

Group A

Division I, Group A was played at Amiens, France, April 24 – 30

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	5	5	0	0	34	4	10
	5	3	1	1	17	9	7
	5	3	2	0	18	14	6
	5	2	2	1	20	18	5
	5	1	4	0	17	17	2
	5	0	5	0	3	47	0

Scores

Team
		1 – 0	0 – 5	3 – 3	9 – 0	4 – 1
	0 – 1		0 – 8	3 – 4	12 – 0	2 – 4
	5 – 0	8 – 0		6 – 2	11 – 2	4 – 0
	3 – 3	4 – 3	2 – 6		8 – 0	3 – 6
	0 – 9	0 – 12	2 – 11	0 – 8		1 – 7
	1 – 4	4 – 2	0 – 4	6 – 3	7 – 1

Group B

Division I, Group B was played at Tallinn, Estonia, April 23 – 29

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	5	5	0	0	27	9	10
	5	3	1	1	24	14	7
	5	3	2	0	19	10	6
	5	2	3	0	19	21	4
	5	1	3	1	13	24	3
	5	0	5	0	11	35	0

Scores

Team
		6-0	3-1	5-3	8-2	5-3
	0-6		6-8	3-9	1-5	1-7
	1-3	8-6		2-7	7-2	1-3
	3-5	9-3	7-2		3-3	2-1
	2-8	5-1	2-7	3-3		1-5
	3-5	7-1	3-1	1-2	5-1

and are promoted to the 2007 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships, while and are demoted to Division II.

Division II

Group A

Division II, Group A was played at Sofia, Bulgaria, March 27-April 4

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	5	5	0	0	59	9	10
	5	3	1	1	25	17	7
	5	2	1	2	19	10	6
	5	2	2	1	23	23	5
	5	1	4	0	10	30	2
	5	0	5	0	12	59	0

Scores

Team
		4-4	4-0	2-4	7-0	2-2
	4-4		3-1	0-9	14-1	4-2
	0-4	1-3		3-16	5-3	1-4
	4-2	9-0	16-3		19-3	11-1
	0-7	1-14	3-5	3-19		5-14
	2-2	2-4	4-1	1-11	14-5

Group B

Division II, Group B was played at Auckland, New Zealand, April 3-9

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	5	4	0	1	34	11	9
	5	4	1	0	35	12	8
	5	3	1	1	27	14	7
	5	2	3	0	10	24	4
	5	1	4	0	9	34	2
	5	0	5	0	6	26	0

Scores

Team
		5-5	2-4	9-2	6-2	5-1
	5-5		6-3	4-1	5-0	14-2
	4-2	3-6		15-2	8-1	5-1
	2-9	1-4	2-15		4-3	0-3
	2-6	0-5	1-8	3-4		0-3
	1-5	2-14	1-5	3-0	3-0

and are promoted to Division I, and are demoted to Division III.

Division III

Division III was played at Reykjavík, Iceland, April 24-29

Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
	4	4	0	0	27	6	8
	4	2	1	1	18	16	5
	4	2	2	0	23	19	4
	4	1	2	1	5	17	3
	4	0	4	0	11	26	0

Scores

Team
		6-0	4-5	10-6	3-8
	0-6		0-8	3-1	2-2
	5-4	8-0		5-2	9-0
	6-10	1-3	2-5		2-8
	8-3	2-2	0-9	8-2

and are promoted to Division II at the 2007 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships

Notes

External links

• Official site