Three Bruins Will Compete in the World Championship Semifinal

BostonBruins.com –– The 2026 IIHF World Championship is down to four teams, and three Boston Bruins remain in the tournament battling with their countries for a gold medal. 

Fraser Minten and Team Canada will take on Henri Jokiharju, Joonas Korpisalo and Team Finland in the semifinal on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. ET. Norway will face Switzerland at 9:20 a.m. ET in the other semifinal matchup. 

Both semifinal games will be hosted at Swiss Life Arena in Zurich, Switzerland. The winners will move on to the gold-medal meeting, and the losing teams will play in the bronze-medal game, all on Sunday. 

Canada beat the United States – which James Hagens, Alex Steeves and Mason Lohrei played for – 4-0 on Thursday to secure its spot in the semifinal. Minten logged three shots on goal, two blocks and went 66% from the face-off dot through 13:02 of ice time while centering the fourth line between Porter Martone and Connor Brown. The 21-year-old forward has four points (one goal, three assists) through eight games at his first World Championship. 

Finland topped Czechia 4-1 on Thursday to clinch its semifinal slot. Jokiharju had one shot on goal and led all Finnish defensemen with 19:22 of ice time. The blueliner also leads his team’s backend with eight points (two goals, six assists) in eight games thus far. 

Both Jokiharju and Korpisalo won bronze medals with Finland in February at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, and will look to earn more hardware this weekend.

Providence Bruin Matěj Blümel saw his World Championship run with Czechia come to an end with the loss. The 25-year-old forward finished the tournament with four points (two goals, two assists) in seven games.

Lukas Reichel also competed in the World Championship with Germany, which did not make the quarterfinal cut. Reichel had a strong stretch nonetheless, posting eight points (four goals, four assists), including a hat trick. 

Thursday’s other action saw Switzerland beat Sweden 3-1, and Norway beat Latvia 2-0 to fill out the rest of the semifinal bracket. 

Norway’s best-ever finish in the World Championship was fourth place in 1951. Switzerland has collected silver the past two years (2024, 2025) but has never won the tournament. Canada took home gold in 2023, and Finland’s last gold medal was in 2022.

The World Championship games are on NHL Network in the United States, and TSN (in English) and RDS (in French) in Canada. You can also livestream the tournament on the IIHF TV platform.