Espoo 2019: How to watch the IIHF Women’s World Championships

The IIHF Women’s World Championships, the crowning jewel of the women’s hockey season, begin tomorrow in Espoo, Finland. Canada and USA will battle it out for gold while the rest of the field battles for bronze... except this year there are more teams, more games, and more chances for upsets than there have been for years.

Sure, the time zones this year mean that if you’ve got a 9 to 5 job in North America you might miss a few games. We’ll have daily recaps at PPP, but there are also some prime-time reruns, and hey, who doesn’t take a long lunch now and again?

How to Watch

Dates: April 4 - 14

Broadcast: TSN (1-5), RDS, NHL Network

Streaming: TSN GO/TSN Direct, RDS Direct
We’re hopeful that streaming will include at least some of the games not on TV but there has not been any confirmation of that. For fans outside of North America, the Finnish broadcaster is Yle Areena, and the IIHF sometimes streams games on one or other of their youtube channels.

Full Schedule with TV channels

Prime-time re-runs

• Canada vs Switzerland, Thursday April 4, 9:30 pm TSN 2
• Canada vs USA, Saturday April 6, 7:00 pm TSN 2 and RDS
• Canada vs Russia, Monday April 8, 11:00 pm TSN 2
• Quarter-Final 4, Thursday April 11, 7:30 pm RDS/

Preview

For a quick primer on the teams involved this year, including how they did in Pyeongchang and at the 2017 Worlds, players you should know, the big games you need to tune in for, and our predictions, check out our previews for Group A and Group B.

Tournament Format

The women’s tournament is divided into two groups of five teams, Group A and Group B. This is the first time the tournament has involved 10 teams, so it brings some changes to format.

Group A consists of the top five teams in the IIHF world rankings after the 2018 Olympics (USA, Canada, Finland, Russia and Switzerland). Group B includes the teams ranked 6 through 10 (Sweden, Japan, Germany, Czech Republic, and France).

Each group will play a round robin tournament. A regulation win is three points, an overtime or shootout win is two points and an overtime or shootout loss is one point.

You may recall that at the Olympics and previous worlds, the top two teams in Group A received a bye to the semi-finals. With 10 teams, there are no more byes. All five teams in Group A and the top three teams in Group B will play in the quarter-finals.

The quarter-finals will be played between A1-B3, A2-B2, A3-B1, A4-A5. The quarter-final winners will move on to the semi-finals. The quarter-final losers will be ranked 5-8 according to factors like their group, and their round-robin record (points, goal difference, goals for).

The winners of the semi-final games will play each other for Gold, and the losers of the semi-final games will play each other for Bronze.

CORRECTION: The bottom two teams in Group B will both be relegated to Division IA for 2020 but will play a placement game to determine the ninth and tenth rankings.

Overtime

Overtime in the round robin will be five minutes of 3 on 3. No one in women’s hockey plays 3-on-3 overtime so this could get interesting.

Overtime for most playoff games will be 10 minutes of 4 on 4, and the Gold medal game will be 20 minutes of 4 on 4.

Shootouts are minimum five shooters, which is IIHF standard. After five, shooters can repeat, but any player who was in the penalty box at the end of overtime cannot participate in the shootout.

Right, that should be enough to get started. So, who’s getting up at 5:30 am with me?