2021 World Championship dates announced

The 2021 IIHF World Championship will be held May 21-June 6 in Minsk, Belarus, and Riga, Latvia.

The tournament has typically started the first week of May, but it has been pushed back next season to allow Europe's professional leagues, which are expected to have a late start to the season because of the coronavirus, more time to finish.

The United States and Canada will play in Group B, along with Finland, Latvia, Germany, Norway, Italy and Kazakhstan, with preliminary-round games at Arena Riga.

Group A consists of Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Slovakia, Belarus, Denmark and Great Britain. The group's preliminary round will be played at Minsk Arena.

The seeding for the groups is based on the 2020 IIHF Men's World Ranking, which takes into consideration results of the World Championships and Olympics the previous four years.

The 2020 World Championship had been scheduled for May 8-24 in Switzerland but was canceled March 21 due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus. Finland won the 2019 World Championship.