From May 26 to 28, the official website of the Luxembourg Ice Hockey Federation, the official website of the Luxembourg Ice Hockey Federation reports.
By the decision of the IHCF, the matches of group “A” of the third division of the Ice Hockey World Championship in 2023 will be held in the Republic of South Africa.
Turkmenistan's national ice hockey team will compete for entry into the second division with the teams of South Africa, Luxembourg, Taiwan, North Korea and Thailand. The tournament will be held in Cape Town from April 17 to 23, 2023.
Let’s remind that the Ice Hockey World Championship is held in several divisions, depending on the rating of the teams. In total, there are five divisions in world hockey. The formula of the draw in these tournaments is quite simple: the best teams from the lower divisions rise a division higher, the worst are relegated to the lower division. So, the national team of Turkmenistan, in case of victory in the third division, next year will play in the World Hockey Championship in the second division.
We recall that at the World Championship in the third division of group “A”, which ended in April, the hockey players of the Turkmenistan national team won bronze medals. The tournament was held in Luxembourg.
Three years ago, the Turkmen Hockey players, making their debut at the World Championship in Sofia (Bulgaria), took the third place in the third division among 6 teams, which presented Europe, Asia and Africa. The team was led to this achievement by head coach Bayram Allayarov, under whose leadership the Turkmenistan national team won small gold medals at the second division tournament in 2017 in the program of the VIII Asian Winter Games in Sapporo (Japan), and in 2018 won the World Cup qualification tournament in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) with the participation of four teams.