IIHF World Ranking

World Ranking 2009

The IIHF World Ranking is a tool to reflect the long-term quality of the countries' national team programme. The IIHF World Ranking is based on awarding points for the final positions in the last four IIHF World Championships and in the last Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament. The 2007 IIHF World Ranking is thus based on the performance at the 2007, 2006, 2005, and the 2004 World Championship and at the 2006 Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament in Turin.

The team that wins the IIHF World Championship gold medal or the Olympic gold medal receives 1200 points. In general, there is a 20-point interval between two ranked positions (for example, 880 points for the 13th place and 860 points for the 14th place). As an exception to this principle there is a 40-point interval between gold and silver, silver and bronze, the 4th and 5th position and between the 8th and 9th position in the top division. The reason for the larger intervals for these positions is to give teams a bonus for reaching the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the final and for winning the gold medal. (The bonus formula can be changed with any alterations to the playing format).

To enable the ranking to accurately reflect current form, the greatest importance is given to results of the last year's competition. To a lesser degree, attention is also paid to results from previous years. The system uses a four-year cycle as the points earned in one year decline linearly within the next 3 years and in the 5th year results are dropped from the calculation altogether.

Example: Value of the gold medal
Year 1: 100% value -- 1200 points
Year 2: 75% value -- 900 points
Year 3: 50% value -- 600 points
Year 4: 25% value -- 300 points
Year 5: 0% value -- 0 points

The IIHF World Ranking will be released following each IIHF World Championship and the Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament.

Before each World Championship, a pre-championship report will be released, in which the values of the previous seasons are already reduced according to the above-described procedure and where only the points of the upcoming competition need to be added to get the IIHF World Ranking for the year.

 

2009 Men's World Ranking

    Points Movement
1 Russia 3200 +1
2 Canada 3160 -1
3 Sweden 3095 0
4 Finland 3050 0
5 USA 2915 +1
6 Czech Republic 2915 -1
7 Switzerland 2725 0
8 Belarus 2660 +1
9 Slovakia 2635 -1
10 Latvia 2610 +1
11 Norway 2545 +1
12 Germany 2460 -2
13 Denmark 2445 0
14 France 2325 +4
15 Italy 2290 -1
16 Austria 2285 0
17 Slovenia 2190 -2
18 Kazakhstan 2165 +1
19 Ukraine 2135 -2
20 Hungary 2130 0
21 Japan 1965 +1
22 Poland 1940 -1
23 Lithuania 1810 0
24 Netherlands 1755 0
25 Great Britain 1695 +4
26 Croatia 1675 0
27 Estonia 1635 -2
28 Romania 1605 -1
29 China 1410 -1
30 Korea 1395 +1
31 Australia 1385 +2
32 Serbia 1365 -2
33 Belgium 1255 +1
34 Spain 1165 +2
35 Bulgaria 1160 -3
36 Israel 1070 -1
37 Iceland 1030 +1
38 Mexico 1025 -1
39 New Zealand 850 0
40 South Africa 790 +2
41 Turkey 750 0
42 Ireland 720 -2
43 DPR Korea 705 +1
44 Luxembourg 700 -1
45 Mongolia 515 0
46 Greece 440 0
47 Bosnia and Herzegovina 150 0
48 Armenia 70 0