The race for a ticket to the Olympic ice hockey tournaments in Beijing 2022 will come to an end on Sunday. Twelve women’s national teams remain in contention for a berth at the upcoming Olympic Winter Games but only three of them will make it. The three Final Olympic Qualification tournaments start today and all 18 games can be watched live.

The top-6 teams of the IIHF Women’s World Ranking and host China are already qualified. In the two-tiered preliminary round USA, Canada, Finland, ROC and Switzerland will play in Group A. The three tournament winners on Sunday will join Japan and China in Group B.

Will Czechs make history on home ice?

The Czech Republic is the highest ranked of the non-qualified teams. But despite progress in women’s hockey in recent years and four top-level Women’s Worlds participations, the Czech women’s national team has never made it to the Olympics until now.

In the qualification race for the last two Olympics they missed first place by losing the deciding games to tournament hosts Switzerland (for 2018) and Germany (for 2014) respectively. However, this time the Czechs are the top-seeded team and host.

In their way will be Hungary, Norway and Poland. Similar to Czechs, the Hungarians developed fresh talent and reached the top division of the U18 Women’s Worlds two times and played in the top-level Women’s Worlds for the first time this year. The head-to-head game in Calgary was a lopsided affair though. The Czechs built up a 4-0 lead during the first half of the game to eventually win 4-2 with a 36-13 shot-on-goal advantage.

Like all other teams in the group, Norway has never played Olympic women’s ice hockey but in the early years of the Women’s Worlds in the ‘90s the country was part of the top division three times. Since 2007 the country has constantly played in the second tier of the Women’s Worlds and five times missed out on promotion by one place – most recently in 2019 against the Hungarians.

Poland is the dark horse of the tournament. The women’s national team program only started in 2011 but has made steady progress. The team never made it to the Final Olympic Qualification before but did so recently with a spectacular come-from-behind win on home ice against the Netherlands in the last round. The team travels to its southern neighbour euphoric and with nothing to lose and the big moment for Polish women’s hockey will again be shown by the national broadcaster.

Click here to access the tournament page with live scores, live stream, stories and photos.

Germans favourite at their home base

D as in Deutschland. Group D will be hosted at the home base of the German women’s national team in Fussen, Bavaria. The Germans aim at going to the Olympics with two ice hockey teams for the first time since 2006. In 2010 and 2018 (historic silver medal) only the men were qualified, in 2014 only the women. The Germans won their last Final Olympic Qualification on home ice to qualify for Sochi 2014, however, in the race for PyeongChang 2018 they lost to top-seeded host Japan.

Beside missing out on PyeongChang 2018 and on the Women’s Worlds in 2016, the German women have played in every top-level event since 2012 with a fourth-place finish at the 2017 Women’s Worlds as the highlight.

Their closest-ranked rivals are also their neighbours. To the north, Denmark recently played in the top-level Women’s Worlds for only the second time after 1992. However, the Danes finished winless in last place. The Germans won the head-to-head encounter 3-1. They built a 3-0 lead after 32 minutes, however, stats suggest a tighter game with a 26-22 shot-on-goal advantage for Germany.

From the southern border not far from Fussen comes Austria. Like Denmark, the Austrians have never made it to the Olympics. They also never played in the top division but missed out on promotion by one place three times in the last few years and are eager for an upset.

Also in bus-ride distance is Italy, which moved up to the Final Olympic Qualification after beating Kazakhstan on home ice in Torre Pellice in the last round. The Italians have Olympic experience as host in Turin 2006 (and will host Milan 2026). Qualifying through sporting merits would be a huge boost for Italian women’s hockey. However, in the Women’s Worlds the team usually competes in the third tier but has seen improvement with fresh and skilled talent joining the established players.

Click here to access the tournament page with live scores, live stream, stories and photos.

Sweden invites for battle at the Arctic circle

The ponds around Lulea are getting frozen as the thermometer hit below-freezing-point temperatures during the last few days. Welcome to winter just above the Arctic circle where Sweden will host Group E.

Sweden’s Damkronorna plays for the first time in the Final Olympic Qualification, although that’s not necessarily a good thing. In the six previous Olympics the Swedes were automatically qualified through their ranking and earned a historic silver medal in Turin 2006 – the first time a European team had made it to an Olympic or Women’s Worlds final. Unfortunately the last years were less successful. The team has never made it to the top-4 since 2014 and in 2019 became the first Swedish national team of any category to be relegated from a World Championship.

However, there’s hope for a comeback. Sweden has Europe’s most popular league among international women’s hockey players, the SDHL, and the U18 women’s national team medalled in 2016 (bronze) and 2018 (silver). The team can start its comeback to the top level this season by qualifying for the Olympics this winter while in spring they will attempt to earn promotion to the top-level Women’s Worlds at the Division I Group A tournament in France.

The French will be in their way both times and are only one place behind the Swedes in the Olympic Qualification seeding. Les Bleues never made it to the Olympics but qualified for the top-level Women’s Worlds in 2019 and the top-level U18 Women’s Worlds in 2016, even though both events ended winless for the French. They were relegated together with Sweden in 2019, however, both games between the countries were one-goal games as Sweden won 2-1 and 3-2 respectively. The French hope to continue the overall positive trend even though they suffered a setback with an 8-0 loss in a pre-competition game against Sweden.

Opposed to the French, the two teams ranked behind them in the seeding have Olympic experience. Slovakia miraculously made it to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics despite being ranked 15th in the world. The team managed to play at the top level for three years (2010-2012), moved down the rankings until 2017 and is now slowly moving up again. They finished the last Division IA tournament in fifth place and the U18 women’s national team reached the top division in 2020. During last month’s World Girls’ Ice Hockey Weekend, the Slovaks topped all European countries in the number of events and participants suggesting that there may be more to come in the long run.

Some of the Korean players in Lulea played at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics as part of the historic Unified Korean team, the first team consisting of athletes from both sides of the divided Korean peninsula to compete together on the same team in Olympic Games. This time it’s players from the south only, who reached the Final Olympic Qualification for the first time ever under difficult circumstances. With indoor team sports forbidden in the Republic of Korea due to the Covid-19 situation and countermeasures, the team had to give up hosting rights for the last round that was planned on Olympic ice at the Gangneung Hockey Centre. Instead they held a camp in Denmark to be in game shape and claimed top spot against host Great Britain in Nottingham to earn their tickets to Lulea now hoping for another upset.

Click here to access the tournament page with live scores, live stream, stories and photos.