2024 World Championships Underway w/ 3 Kings Participating

The 2024 IIHF World Championships kicked off this morning in Czechia.

The two tournament is split between Prague and Ostrava, with three LA Kings currently slated to participate.

Those three Kings, as noted on Wednesday, are forward Pierre-Luc Dubois representing Canada and the Swedish duo of Adrian Kempe and Carl Grundstrom. Kempe and Grundstrom are set to kick off here this morning while Dubois and Team Canada get underway tomorrow morning. Morning being relative to Pacific time, that is.

The World Championships are contested by 16 teams, divided into two groups with eight teams apiece. Each team will play a minimum of seven games throughout the tournament and the top four teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals, with each quarterfinal contest being a crossover matchup against a team from the other group. The quarterfinals will be a single-elimination game, advancing into the semifinals and eventually the gold and bronze medal games, each of which are single elimination as well.

For Kempe and Grundstrom, they’ll participate in Group B, likely as a favorite to top the group along with the United States. Those two teams will meet today in the opening game of the tournament for both sides. Sweden will also take on Germany and Latvia, who each medaled at the 2023 tournament, as well as Slovakia, France and Poland during their seven-game group state slate. The full schedule for Team Sweden is shown below.

Team Sweden Schedule
May 10 – Sweden vs. United States, 11:20 AM Pacific
May 12 – Sweden vs. Poland, 11:20 AM Pacific
May 13 – Sweden vs. Germany, 11:20 AM Pacific
May 16 – Sweden vs. Kazahkstan, 7:20 AM Pacific
May 18 – Sweden vs. Latvia, 3:20 AM Pacific
May 20 – Sweden vs. France, 7:20 AM Pacific
May 21 – Sweden vs. Slovakia, 11:20 AM Pacific

Dubois and Canada are idle today but will get underway tomorrow against Great Britain in the early game. Canada’s pool also includes the host country, Czechia, as well as Finland, gold medalists in 2022 and 2019. Canada will also take on Switzerland, Norway, Austria and Denmark across the seven games. The full slate of games for Team Canada is shown below.

Team Canada Schedule
May 11 – Canada vs. Great Britain, 3:20 AM Pacific
May 12 – Canada vs. Denmark, 7:20 AM Pacific
May 14 – Canada vs. Austria, 11:20 AM Pacific
May 16 – Canada vs. Norway, 11:20 AM Pacific
May 18 – Canada vs. Finland, 7:20 AM Pacific
May 19 – Canada vs. Switzerland, 11:20 AM Pacific
May 21 – Canada vs. Czechia, 7:20 AM Pacific

May 21 is the final day for group games, with all four quarterfinals kicking off on May 23. Both semifinals will be on May 26 and the medal rounds will occur on May 26, concluding the tournament before the end of the month.

Several of these games will be broadcast on NHL Network, either live or on replay later in the day. Today’s tournament opener between Sweden and the United States will be shown, while many of the game shown above will be broadcast as well, even if not live. NHL Network’s full programming schedule is listed HERE.